Magic Spot Flowing

This morning I went on the Portland ByCycle Autumn Adventure to Vancouver and back via the two I-Bridges.

In a previous entry I described the ByCycle rides thus:

These rides are awesome. They start after work and end before dark, are hosted by incredibly friendly and knowledgeable city staff, and explore Portland’s bicycle infrastructure and nifty places.

This was a special ride, happening on the weekend rather than after work, and longer than the after-work rides: 25 miles rather than 5-10. Since it says 25 miles right on the description, and I knew perfectly well it was four or five miles from my apartment to the starting point, you’d think I’d be pretty clear that it was going to be a longish ride. But somehow I wasn’t: I kept thinking 20 miles, because it says 2 hours and the usual PBC pace is ~10mph.

Furthermore, yesterday in Portland it was in the eighties and sunny — a perfect, warm, late summer day. But today proved true to the “Autumn” epithet of the ride. Even now at 3:30, it’s only 68 degrees. This morning it was 58, and raining. I also somehow had a hard time believing it was really going to be wet and yucky out there, even though it said so clearly in the forecast.

So my brain was not really ready, and the adventure was more adventurous than I anticipated. I was wearing long shorts and a short sleeve jersey and jacket, and my summer gloves. My jacket was soaked through before I even arrived at Peninsula park, although I was doing fine staying warm. But after we started out at the group’s slower pace, in a continuing rain, and headed out toward the Columbia river with its associated wind, I got colder and colder, and my left thumb actually went numb — I couldn’t feel it properly when I rubbed against it. It became clear that I should have been wearing leggings and fall/winter gloves, and possibly arm-warmers as well. (My legs were warm enough, but most likely keeping them warm made it hard to make enough heat to keep my immobile hands warm.)

Fortunately, one of the wonderful Transportation Options staff managing the ride, Janice, lent me a pair of winter gloves that she wasn’t wearing. I was infinitely grateful for these as we went up the I-205 path: a bike path sandwiched in between two four-lane freeway segments. The path itself was like a normal bike path (blocked off with a low fence, two-way and about 5 feet wide in each direction) but was very, very wet, and very, very loud: probably one of single the least pleasant cycling experiences I’ve ever had. I felt deaf and headachy for a while afterward.

After we got over to Vancouver, it stopped raining for the most part, and with the gloves I felt more comfortable and enjoyed the paths we took along the river. Unfortunately, one person broke a chain, and then another later took a spill on some diagonal railroad tracks. I was very impressed with how well the staff handled everything — they were totally calm and cheerful about it. I was able to offer some band-aids that I often bring with me on rides (though no neosporin; it was in the cabinet at home).

On the way back, it finally cleared up and I was mostly dry (except for my poor sopping wet gloves, socks and shoes) by the time I got back. As the Ecotrust Hot Lips Pizza was on my route back, I decided to stop there and dry out and feed myself. Yum.

The whole ride was quite fascinating even aside from the weather. The first section was through low-traffic streets in North Portland, and then in an area west of the airport that seemed like it was almost in a different city/decade — quiet, semi-rural roads and houses. Very nifty. Then Marine Drive and the Marine Drive path to the airport and the I-205 path — a narrow bike lane, and a nice wide multi-use path, but very wet and windy.

The approach to the 205 path was quite well signed and designed — the street crossing of Marine Drive wasn’t signalized, but it was signed, with a light-activating button, and junctions were fairly clearly marked. Getting off on the other side was the same way — the path came down, veered left, and abruptly we were in a quiet neighborhood full of trees, then on a quiet street.

The paths on the Vancouver waterfront were impressive, wide and smooth, with new condos behind them and lots of trees, bushes, and other plant life. We went through several parks and saw lots of signs for the path showing that a lot of effort was recently put into it to revive the waterfront area.

The I-5 path was a totally different story. Although plenty of signs (similar to Portland’s green bike route signs, with distances and directions) directed us there, once we reached it we had to cross the street in a random and nearly unmarked spot. The path itself is set to one side of the bridge, and is one-way on that side (I assume there’s another side but didn’t see it). It’s a shared bike/ped path that is not even wide enough for a bike to pass a pedestrian unless the pedestrian ducks to one side when a pillar isn’t in the way. Still, the experience was less inherently unpleasant than the 205 path (quieter, because you’re to one side and have some steel supports between), and the bridge itself is certainly more attractive — like the Hawthorne Bridge on crack, kinda. (I can’t believe anyone wants to replace it with a 12-lane monstrosity, but that’s another story. ) But when you get to the other side, the access is TERRIBLE. Words are inadequate to convey its TERRIBLENESS. You have to get off the path, go around in a confusing way, cross the street a few times, ride on the sidewalk, cross the street again, and finally you’re on a path, which then curves around confusingly again. I have no idea where we were, and I’m so glad that I did it with a group led by someone who knew the way.

The fact that it’s so completely easy to take I-5 in a car to Vancouver (I’ve never done it but I can tell you how to do it from my place) and so completely confusing to navigate and/or unpleasant to do it on a bike is a classic example of how our transportation system is set up to encourage driving. It’s easy to drive; on a bike, it takes dedication to navigate and a certain amount of chutzpah to deal with the unpleasant noise and limited facilities on offer.

The freeway-crossings part of this was sufficiently educational that I’m glad I went, even if I did get wet and cold. I do like riding in the rain — I just don’t like doing so at 10mph when I’m underdressed. Can I suggest an optional, but planned, mid-route coffee break next time?

I’ve been wearing my FiveFingers around town (mostly to work and back) this week and last week, on and off. Flat concrete remains a tough surface for me to walk on. Every time I start again, I feel like I’ve gone back to square one, with the hurting heels. But there have definitely been moments when I’ve gotten everything in sync and walking feels totally different but very comfortable. It’s the same general principles as I listed before — shorter strides, more hip movement, better foot usage. But sometimes it only seems to ‘help’ (I still feel uncomfortable, but less so) and sometimes it all lines up and everything feels just right.

It reminds me a bit of what used to happen when I took Feldenkrais lessons — everything would get lined up for a while and moving would feel really cool and comfortable, then it would go back to normal. Line up, go back, line up, go back. I’m not sure I ever got any of the neural rewiring from Feldenkrais to really ‘take’, probably mostly because I didn’t keep practicing it — it was easy enough to keep moving the way I was moving (and the serious problem that I was trying to address through Feldenkrais and other movement therapies, my RSI, was eventually addressed through another method entirely). There’s a great temptation to go back to the habitual patterns of movement because the transition is slow, difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable. But knowing that from Feldenkrais I’m more willing to keep trying with the FiveFingers until it finally clicks in (for good, or at least for most of the time). Or it doesn’t. But it’s a fun experiment.

For now though, my heels are sore: back to my Keens.

Before I moved to Portland, I was fairly meh on bike paths/trails. I have no trouble cycling with car traffic, although on steep or windy roads, it makes me nervous if there is no shoulder or bike lane. Urban bike paths/trails are often poorly designed, especially when they are intended to be replacements for onroad facilities, or crowded with pedestrians when they are shared multi-use paths.

However, after two months here I am beginning to understand the purpose of such trails. It’s not that they don’t have the downsides that I listed above, it’s that they have a previously unforeseen advantage: fewer $#@%*#* stop signs.

If I want to go on a recreational ride out here, my options are different from Menlo Park. Back then, I could climb on my bike, ride less than a mile (encountering only three stop signs), and be on Sand Hill Road, a veritable freeway for bikes, and out into the hills (on shoulder-ful roads!) in less than three miles. What a paradise. And I recognized and fully enjoyed that paradise, knowing this was not the case for others, but not fully appreciating how annoying stop signs every other block (or more) are.

I am still exploring my options here and no doubt will eventually find some that work better for me, but at the moment I have to navigate a maze of stop signs, and then either 1) go straight up (okay, it’s only 6-8% grades, but that’s steep!); 2) (and) share the roads with heavier traffic than I’m used to, or 3) find a trail, which may be crowded, but, as previously noted, has no cars and many fewer $#@%*#* stop signs. And often is pretty as well.

Urban trails, how I have maligned thee, and how I repent, and thank the good works of previous Portland cyclists for the Waterfront, Springwater, Esplanade, and other trails that thread through Portland.

I’ve used my Zipcar membership twice now to drive east on I-84 and pick up heavy objects, then return to NW to transport them up to my apartment. One was on a weekend afternoon, the other was tonight. The first time, I looked for a parking spot near my apartment, but couldn’t find one, so I extended my reservation, parked the Zipcar back in its designated spot (NW 21st and Irving), and took two trips to carry my stuff back.

This time, I could see that parking was more available, but when I found an empty space at the corner of Lovejoy and 23rd (less than two blocks away), I figured that was as good as it was going to get, not expecting it to be possible to park on 23rd. When I turned the corner on foot, with two chairs already under my arms, I found that there was an empty space on the corner of 23rd and Kearney, across the street and a block closer to my apartment. I decided to repark the car there, to save myself carrying the remaining two chairs the extra block and a half, but I’m not even sure it was worth it.

Clearly, it would have been better not to bother looking for parking the first time, and to look longer the second time. But I haven’t yet figured out how to distinguish between the two types of occasions.

Xtracycle on Twitter today pointed me to a great blog post from Doug about his seven years as a car-free commuter (in Minnesota, no less).

I mentioned to someone recently that it’s been nearly ten years since I owned a car. (Actually, I’m not sure I ever technically owned a car, since the car I drove in high school most likely still belonged to my parents at the time that I was driving it. But I was its primary driver.) I hadn’t realized it had been that long until I thought back over it and remembered that the accident that totaled our 1987 Acura Legend happened in August of 1999, and it’s now August of 2009.

I don’t think my story is as impressive as Doug’s. For most of the time, I haven’t lived anywhere with an icy/snowy winter, and I haven’t bike-commuted to work every day. First I lived on campus at Rice for two years, then rode a mile or two on my bike each day from the Violin House^* to campus, then went back to living on campus for a year. One summer I borrowed a friend’s car.^**

For the summer after college, I drove the family car when I went to work or out. Then I lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, within 15 minutes walk of the Linguistics building at the university, for two years. Edinburgh has an excellent bus system which I frequently took advantage of, or I walked a lot; I didn’t ride during those years. (Cycle on the left side? No way! :)

When I came back, I drove the family car again for a few months before I moved to the Bay Area. In the Bay Area, I starting cycling again, often to work (and even in winter rains), but I usually took the train part of the way. I frequently rode along with other people in cars to get places that had proven to be annoying or impossible to get to via transit or cycling.

Now, in Portland, I walk and ride the bus a lot as well as cycling, and I (finally) have access to Zipcar. I’m not a frequent user, but it’s nice to know I can haul stuff or drive to remote destinations myself, without depending on the kindness of others. Of course, if I had an Xtracycle I could do more hauling, but I don’t see hauling four kitchen chairs even with an Xtracycle. I love Zipcar for being 90% of what Doug describes a car as:

Even though I didn’t drive much, having a vehicle sitting there, just in case I needed it, provided my mind with a feeling of security. It provided a mode of transportation that was convenient, easy, and available all the time. Peace of mind.

Zipcar claims that each of their cars takes 20 cars off the road (they ask when you sign up if you will be getting rid of your car). Pretty amazing, and a great way forward for letting go of your car without letting go of all that peace of mind.

Even though I’m much more impressed by Doug than I am by myself, I don’t think this is a contest of who’s the most impressive. I certainly don’t do it to prove anything or make milestones, and he clearly doesn’t either. We’re both happier when we’re not behind the steering wheel of a car, and for me that is and will always be the main reason I don’t drive much. I hope in ten years I’ll still be car-free and that even more people will find it a viable option for themselves, and discover their joy in a different kind of freedom from the kind a personal motor vehicle offers.

^* The house in West U I lived in during my junior year of college. With a lot of violinists, hence the name.
^** Partly as a favor to him so he didn’t have to drive it back to Oregon. And I locked myself out of it once — in the middle of Tropical Storm Allison.

It’s funny how some of the best things are completely unplanned. When I got to Seattle yesterday, I had a plan to go see the Space Needle, then go walk or sit in a park for a while. And that was the extent of my plan.

Before I headed for Seattle center, I noticed a shop in Pike Place Market called The Crumpet Shop. I love crumpets, and you don’t see them very often here, so I decided to stop in, and get something if it looked good. Sitting and eating my crumpet (which was regrettably not that good — sorry Crumpet Shop, but you need to step it up), I saw a poster for Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan’s production of Utopia Ltd. I could only see part of the poster because it was behind the door, but the part I could see was advertising next weekend and the weekend after. When I got up to look, I found that the hidden part listed this weekend! I didn’t decide right away to go, but it entered my mind as a possibility.

While I was waiting for the Space Needle (everyone in Seattle wants to be up there on a sunny day), I looked up Seattle G&S on my phone and called their number. They were not selling tickets until an hour and a half before the show, but the theater was nearby. When I showed up at 6 (after completing the “sit in a park” part of my plan, and finding out whether there were any vegetarian places nearby), they still had a few left. And thus my stop in the Crumpet Shop led to a fun evening.

The production was, in my no-longer-very-educated opinion, excellent. Very good orchestra, excellent singing (especially on the part of the woman playing Zara), quality acting, and fun choreography well-executed by the cast. I particularly enjoyed the glow-in-the-dark tambourines wielded by the King and the Flowers of Progress at one point. The choice of accents for each character was also, I think, carefully done. Notably, the Public Exploder sported a Scottish accent when not speaking Utopian — a clear and probably period-appropriate use of the stereotype of barbarous Scots.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen or done a G&S show, and I’d forgotten how much fun they can be. The audience was clearly an experienced one and laughed heartily at the in-jokes in the dialogue. The subject matter of Utopia, Ltd. is well-suited for adaptation to our current culture, and the adaptation was done well — very funny, but at points on-target enough to be a little painful in its humor.

I did find myself getting bored at times, though. I can’t say if I’d have this experience watching the G&S shows I particularly like with greater distance from them, but the development of the secondary (and even primary) romantic duos and the “plotting” song (“With wily brain upon the spot”) seemed weak and insipid to me, even if well-sung, and I wanted them to go quickly past it so we could get to something more fun. I don’t mean the “plot” (if you can call it that), which is always thin, but the songs themselves.

Overall, though, it was a fun and musically rewarding experience.

Other Seattle observations:
The Space Needle is fun, but it’s not as cool as the CN Tower.
At first I thought the monorail was bizarrely retro-futuristic and seriously lame, but I didn’t realize it can go over 45 mph and is 47 years old, both fairly impressive statistics. However, it is kind of lame to charge you $2 to go a mile.
There are a lot of mountains and a lot of water around here. I like it.
Bamboo Garden vegetarian Chinese restaurant is okay, but Garden Fresh is much better, despite the latter’s lack of atmosphere.
Unfortunately, sections of downtown smell like urine, to a greater extent than I’ve experienced in other downtowns. Ick.

I’ve had a post draft sitting in my WordPress box for a while about the ups and downs of bike commuting, because I wasn’t convinced I had anything substantive and new to say about that subject. Today I had an experience that integrates what I was trying to say into a larger context.

When I moved here three years ago, I went up to San Francisco one weekend in December to submit some applications to work at bookstores up there. One was in Union Square (Borders), and one was in Fisherman’s Wharf (Barnes & Noble). That B&N is quite near where my dad lives now, but at the time I had never been to that area.

I took Caltrain to Millbrae and transferred to BART, then got off at Powell and walked up to the Borders. When I came out, I tried to get on the cable car, because the cable car goes pretty much directly down to the B&N. However, I did not know that however directly it may go, it is (1) expensive, (2) slow, and (3) during the holiday season, impossible to board except at its origin point outside the BART station, because there are so many tourists in San Francisco trying to ride it. (1) turned out to be irrelevant since I couldn’t get on. I tried to figure out another way to get there, but this was before 311 and before I had a web-enabled phone, so it was really a bit hopeless. Finally, after a lot of waiting, walking, and confusion, I managed to get on the F Market somewhere around Embarcadero, got to the place, figured out how to get the F Market back, got on BART, and got home. I forget if I missed my connection in Millbrae too (which would have meant waiting an extra hour), but I wouldn’t be surprised. It was that kind of day.

In short, it was a transit hassle from beginning to end; it took eight hours and I accomplished two things which took about 1 hour, total.

Today wasn’t nearly as bad. I went to San Carlos for lunch on the 12:34 train, ate lunch with my friends, chatted at their house for a while, and headed out to REI about 4:45 to do some Christmas shopping. I know REI is a decent walk from their house (it’s about a mile). And I knew it was going to be raining on and off. So that part was okay, although I’d forgotten what a car-oriented nightmare the El Camino/Old County/Brittan/Industrial corridor is, lacking sidewalks on one side of Brittan and having eternally long light cycles with very limited pedestrian crossing times. But, whatever. I walked there in the rain and the gathering dark, got what I needed, and then realized, oh, bother, I don’t have a bag to carry this stuff. REI was not able to provide me with a plastic bag, even though it was raining. I guess it doesn’t occur to them that maybe some of their customers would like to, you know, walk home with their goods. In the rain. He offered to staple the bag shut; I accepted.

Then I realized on my way back that the train had just come, so if I walked back to the train station, it would be forty minutes (after the walk) until one came again. I had thought about taking the bus anyway, since the stop is closer. I crossed the street, reached the bus stop, and wend under the awning to check bus times (which are of course not posted on the stop — what do you think this is, San Francisco?!). Just as I got my phone out, I saw the bus coming and ran back to the stop, waving. The bus went right by, not even bothering to slow down and look to see if someone might be waiting.

Some colorful remarks about the bus driver, the transit agency, and the Silicon Valley transit system in general followed. I ended up back at the train station, entertaining myself with mobile internet until the train came.

REI makes good paper bags and everything stayed dry inside (the bag is however quite destroyed). I got home still dry, if chilly and hungry. And all is well.

In the process of experiencing the frustration of missing the bus, it occurred to me that it’s been a while since I had an experience like that. I really do pretty well most of the time, and I could have done better here — checked bus times in advance, kept an eye on the train schedule vs. my walking time, brought a bag.

A lot of the downsides of transit (and cycling too) come from not knowing the system fully. You really have to know what the buses are and where to get them, and which streets are good for riding. It’s not the default option, and so it requires a bit of extra effort. And in some cases, I think people who are encouraging others to become car-free forget to mention this. They play up the positive aspects of it: it’s relaxing, it’s good for the earth, it’s good for your health, it’s fun.

In truth, all the options have ups and downs; all of them have different tradeoffs. You just need to pick your favorite.

If you cycle, you may get tired, sweaty, and dirty. You might get a flat or have a mechanical issue. You have to pay attention to traffic. If you take transit, you might miss your train or bus, or it might be late or break down; you might have to walk a long way (again getting tired, sweaty, and dirty). Someone else on your train or bus might be smelly or loud. It might take a long time. If you drive, you might get stuck in traffic, and you have to pay attention to traffic. Your car might break down.

If you cycle, you stay in good shape and relieve stress through exercise; you can avoid the worst of the traffic. If you take transit, you don’t have to worry about paying attention (it might take a while longer but you can work or read); you usually stay clean; you get some exercise by walking. If you drive, you get to stay warm and dry, choose your own schedule, and get where you’re going pretty quickly. You can bring stuff with you easily, and quickly run errands (as long as you can find parking).

What you decide to do depends on which downsides you don’t mind, and which upsides you like most, as well as whether the area you live in is more friendly to cars (big streets, lots of parking lots) or transit (narrow streets, density, limited parking). And how good you are at mitigating the downsides. With transit and cycling, if you devote some time to learning and planning your routes, and figure out systems for staying or getting clean and dry carrying cargo, you’re pretty set. You can combine the two for a better commute, if that works. It takes time to work out the kinks, and sometimes you have days where it just doesn’t work, whether it’s your own fault or the system’s. And it’s very frustrating.

In the end, it’s kind of like those bulk bins of candy at the supermarket: pick your favorite mix.

Whenever I do Portola loop on my bike, I always pass the entrance to Windy Hill OSP, and I have thought many times about riding up there and hiking, but today I finally did it. I wasn’t sure if it would work well. I thought I might be too tired, but that turned out not to be the case. Again, my W2W-acquired endurance triumphs. I’m tired now though, and planning a nap soon.

Going up on the bike takes about 50 minutes, about 8.5 miles. Mostly it’s up Alpine, and then a little ways on Portola. There are no bike racks (that I could find), but there are plenty of nice-sized trees to lock up to. Bike parking was a lot easier than car parking; the preserve was quite busy.

I wasn’t sure if I would want to do this, but ultimately we did climb up to the summit, elevation approx. 1900 feet (the entrance is around 550 ft). The hiking took about three hours, so we were going pretty slowly to cover the 5 or so miles up and down Spring Ridge Trail and the Anniversary Trail. We saw several coyotes and a small brown lizard. The views were terrific, but the thick haze did make them a bit less exciting, so it would be better on a really clear day. But you can see all the way to the ocean and all the way to Mt. Diablo. Really amazing.

Coming down on the bike is faster — 35 minutes — and of course, a lot easier.

Overall, a challenging and enjoyable thing to do. I think I’m going to try biking+hiking for more of the nearby preserves, like Arastradero and the Dish area!

One of my favorite things about not having a car is that it reminds me to think of my journeys as part of the fun of my trips. Journeys take more of my time than they do of most people’s, so if I don’t enjoy them and look for ways to spice them up, I’d be much more annoyed by their duration, and I might as well just give up and buy a car.

This weekend I had several long-journey adventures.

First, I decided that instead of taking the Capital Corridor train all the way from San Jose to Davis, I would shorten (and save money on) the journey by taking BART to Richmond. (It’s not really shorter, but the weekend afternoon CC and Caltrain schedules don’t mesh very well.) There are two options: Caltrain to Millbrae to Richmond, and bike to Fremont to Richmond.

Fremont beckoned. In the three years that I’ve lived in the Bay Area (I moved here on the second weekend of November in 2005, so this was my anniversary weekend), I’ve never been to Fremont, only through it on CA-84 and I-880. And I’ve never biked over the Dumbarton Bridge (CA-84) which is one of the four bridges in the Bay Area you can bike over, and the only one that’s within my normal bike area that I have never biked over (since I crossed the Golden Gate for the first time during Waves to Wine).

I mapped out a route using Fremont’s bike map, aiming for roads with bike lanes because I’m not familiar enough with Fremont’s roads to know which non-laned roads would be comfortable for riding. The route I chose was scenic, but not short:

Willow > CA-84 Bike/Ped sidepath/sidewalk > Marshlands Rd > Thornton Road > Paseo Padre Parkway > Mowry Ave > Civic Center Pl > BART Way

The total distance was 17.8 miles, so my roundabouting added about six extra miles (Fremont is about 12 miles as the crow flies). Luckily, I planned for the extra time, leaving around 1pm for a 2:30 BART train. I got to the train just in time to board without being in a desperate hurry, but not without being worried. Thank goodness for having a tailwind most of the way, and for my leftover W2W fitness.

The route, despite involving bike lanes for nearly the entire way, was not entirely what I would call pleasant riding. To go about it backwards, Paseo Padre is a bit like Central Expressway (something I suspected from its Parkway appellation) only the bike lanes are even more poorly lined at intersections even though they are official bike lanes and not shoulders. The intersections were poorly designed overall, with bad pavement and short lights, and the intersection of Thornton with CA-84 and surrounds (yes, you get off 84 and then have to cross it again) was seriously the most terribly-designed intersection of a bike-laned road with a major highway I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen lots. Fremont? Not a terribly bike-friendly town, based on what I saw.

Before you get on Thornton, Marshlands Road is a two-lane road with “bike lanes”. The lack of real bike lanes rather than gravelly, terribly-paved, nearly unpainted imitations isn’t a serious problem because there’s almost no traffic, but the paving in general is very poor, although the scenery is quite nice: marshy areas, with hills arising out of them.

The bridge bike-ped path, and the path leading up to it (it starts at Bayfront Expwy, where the road gets wide and the speed limit high) was for most of its length fine except for having a lot of debris, which is basically par for the course for sidepaths. However, it also had two inset plates which were so inset that had I hit them unawares, I could easily have lost control of my bike. Note to self: find out who is responsible for that crap, and get it fixed. And then there was the flooded road. Yes, really. The road up to the bridge, itself, of course, was not flooded. Can’t have that. Cars must get through. But the sidepath/road to the recreation area (which you’re supposed to use until you reach the sidepath for the bridge itself) was under several inches of water.

No thanks. So I rode a short distance on the shoulder of the bridge approach, then carefully took my bike down a small embankment and over to the bridge path proper.

Riding over the bridge was pretty awesome though. The temperature was in the upper 70s and it was as clear as a bell. I watched the blueish water of the bay, and seagulls flying along below me, as I took in a view of the contrasting pinkish-tan East Bay hills ahead. It’s a longish climb but shallow, and an equally nice descent.

I enjoyed my BART ride too: conversation with a fellow bike enthusiast, reading and people-watching, and an unexpected view of the city and the bay when the train came up out of the Oakland subway portions. Transfer at Richmond was fairly painless (this was also the first time I’ve ever been north of Berkeley or south of Bay Fair on BART — now I’ve been to all the line termini in the inner Bay Area!), and the views began again. The Capitol Corridor runs along the edge of the North Bay there and I’ve never seen it in full daylight before, so it was a treat.

As we approached Davis, the sky pinked and the sun slanted prettily over the green fields. I rode around downtown Davis for a while as it got dark (sporting my new MiNewt light so I could actually see — amazing). It’s a pretty town, lots of trees and big houses, perfect for just tooling around going nowhere and enjoying it.

Today Mike and I went on another long-journey adventure: a ride over to Winters for lunch. It’s a 28-mile roundtrip, so neither long nor short by ride standards (mine anyway), but certainly longer than you would usually take just to have lunch. But the ride was part of the point, which is my point: when you ride, the journey is fun too.

It’s an interesting area to ride in, very different from the Bay Area. Out in the farmlands, you wouldn’t know you’re in California except that when you look west, you see mountains — that, and the fact that it’s in the 70s in November! But the farmland is amazingly like every other farm landscape I’ve ever seen, except flatter than some. Green, brown, and tan fields, distant lines of trees and small buildings.

It’s very, very flat, and so windy that it’s almost like having hills, though today was not as windy as the last time we went riding. Also, no tomatoes to avoid, but plenty of cracks in the asphalt. Does anyone know why asphalt cracks horizontally in that weirdly regular way? Or why fruit trees are painted white in the middle of their trunks, but not at the thicker lower part? Such are the mysteries that arise while enjoying the journey.

The radio was on this morning in the shuttle, playing various things, including a traffic report. It was almost like it was calculated: 101-S is a complete mess in two different places, as is 237. Aren’t you glad you’ve been on the train?

But of course, on any given day, you might rather be on the road if there’s a Caltrain snafu. Still, just thinking of all the nightmarish traffic I regularly miss was a reminder of why I prefer a cycling/transit commute.

On the other hand, I find Caltrain just mind-boggling sometimes. Recently, they decided to change the shuttle schedule for the shuttle I take. I discovered the shuttle back some months ago and was thrilled to find that I could not bike and still take the fast trains. It used to connect to the limited train in the mornings and I would arrive at work around either 8:30 or 9:30, which was great because the bullet trains + bike got me to work at either 8:00 or 9:00, and the local train + walking around 9:15, so I could pretty much arrive at any time I chose, with intervals of 15-30 minutes. That’s about all I expect or need as far as tolerances. There was even a late shuttle run that would get me to work around 10 on the unusual occasion I can’t get in any earlier. In the evenings, it picked up at 5:15 or 6:15 and connected to the bullet and limited trains that got me home around 6 or 7 (usually the latter). Perfect.

Well, nothing is perfect for everyone (the bullet people used to wait quite a while for the shuttle to leave, for example), but the change was just stunningly bad. Suddenly the shuttle only connected to the morning (crowded, slow) local train, despite the fact that the bullet comes in only a few minutes later. (Which, additionally, would push more people onto the bullets’ crowded bike cars, since they no longer had the shuttle option.) In the evenings, the convenient pickup times had changed to inconvenient 5:45 and 6:45, the latter completely killing the time advantage for the last shuttle in the evening, and only connected to local trains also.

They’ve now retooled the schedule again — to their credit, they have fixed the morning and it makes complete sense now. It meets the local and bullet trains, albeit not the limited, and most people who take it get to work around 9. Cool. This is awesome. (Why not do this in the first place?!)

But the afternoon schedule is still bizarre and, to my view, stupid. The pickup times have moved ten minutes earlier so that allegedly the shuttle meets the limited trains, at least. However, the leeway is one minute. You need at least five minutes of leeway in case the shuttle is late, and/or to cross the platform, buy or validate a ticket, etc. Plus, they are now claiming to meet the bullet trains, even though they really are not doing so, because you would have to wait almost an hour for a northbound bullet. (Most people who take these shuttles are going northbound in the evenings, in my experience. It looks like the schedule does serve the southbound trains a bit better, but considering a southbound bullet saves you a ten minutes, compared to a northbound one which saves you about twice that, and serves fewer people, I can’t see that this is a huge benefit.)

One of the biggest things that bothers me about how this has occurred, which is completely typical for Caltrain, is that they don’t seem to have actually thought the changes through from the perspective of the users, or communicated to the users aside from announcing the new schedule, or asked for feedback, or anything. (I think a lot of people have called or written them to complain, though. I certainly did.) The complete illogic isn’t necessarily typical, but the fact that they’ve now gone through three schedules (one proposed, which I guess was so bad they just abandoned it and delayed the change by a week, and two actual) and the schedule still seems somewhat stupid, doesn’t really give me a lot of confidence that they thought about it, not just from a user perspective, but honestly, at all. It’s been so bad that even the drivers noticed it and started surveying people and collecting comments. I mean, really. Good for them, but what went wrong here that this was, and is, so messed up?