Public Service Announcement: Anti-dooring.org

Hey everybody (yes, all six of you).

Doorings (that's what cyclists call it when someone inside a car opens a door in front of you) can be fatal. After Clint Micelli was killed this summer leaving work (in downtown Chicago), the Chicago cycling community got together and designed stickers, which we're aiming to place on all 31,000 parking meters in the city of Chicago, and as many light posts as possible. The stickers are a reminder; there's a web site at www.anti-dooring.org which offers more information and the chance to sign a "I'll look before opening" pledge.

If you'd like to help, we're looking to make another print run of 10,000 stickers, and need to raise money to do so. Chip in here.


Edit/a note on the stickers. This design with the blue and red and white picks up the colors of the Chicago city flag. If you're elsewhere, there's another design, too. Both are free to use under a creative commons license.

Bloody-great-sack

"The result is above all simple and big: a basic bloody-great-sack, innocent of compartments..."(Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker III, p. 124.) My bag is the second largest Timbuk2 messenger bag, in a patriotic maroon. Let's take a look at the outside before delving into it.
There it is. The big ol' bag. Phone pocket on the strap, along with a couple of ankle straps, and--this is the real genius of the thing--my keys, on a neck lanyard. It's long enough to be able to use the keys without disattaching them, and I can throw them in my jacket or pants pocket or the bag itself. Wherever they are, I can yank them out by the strap. And, most importantly, my bag makes the biggest key fob I've ever had (you'll gather that the guiding principle of this bag is that if I don't have something attached to myself, I forget it). Similarly attached by a lanyard to the strap is my Leatherman, which lives inside the bag.

Now, if we're feeling bold, we can reach inside:
Here's what we've got. Items marked with an asterisk I've used within the past 48 hours.

• Rain cape*
• Wool hat (Jamaican Bobsled Team)*
• Underseat bag--usually lives in the trailer, but I'd put it in my sack for the TuTh evening ride--and used its contents: spare tube, tire levers*
• Burpee plant catalog+
• Wallet*
• Sign-up sheet for dinner trip four weeks ago+
• Pictures of Western White Pine needles (yes, P & R, I'm still working on your Christmas gift)
• Planner*
• Towel* (for drying off seat if it's been rainy or snow and I haven't put the next item on it)
• Seat cover* (On the seat while I'm inside if I realize or remember that it's going to rain or snow, or, keeping a wet seat from my butt if I don't)
• Two bike headlights* (Usually I have one, Dr. Fledermaus has one, but for the weeknight rides, and with the lengthening evenings, I've had both)
• One bike taillight (for the trailer--I broke one of the mounts on Monday, but my man J set me up with a new mount) to be put on in the next couple of days or before we bike anywhere in the dark.
  
• One SD card USB drive (you're enjoying the benefits of it now)*
• One book of Bat Jr. photos*
• About 30 bike registration cards, UCPD*
• Glove liners (it looked like spring, for a while)
• Random pens, markers, pencils, papers.
• Chicago bike map
• CTA map
• Metra schedule
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Miniature decks of cards (2)
• Lip balms (some number greater than or equal to 1)
• The aforementioned Leatherman
• Study cards
• One dime
• The number 3 (no, really, a stick-on foam number. Pink)
• One churchkey can opener/caplifter
• iPod Shuffle--so that's where it was!

There we go. A lot of stuff, until Chicago weather hits. Or you get a flat. Or you eat onions at lunch. That list has evolved over a year or two, to the point where I find that if I travel (by bike, foot, PT, or car) without it, I miss something inside. May you find it as useful as I do!

Wisdom from Dr. Fledermaus: Drip Dry

I'm a fan of--or should I say, "easily captivated by"--the Big Plan. My current Big Plan is to go carless over the next five years or so. We're making fine progress toward that goal, driving rarely enough that the car has started to pick up spider webs from disuse. But this post is about rather a simple, small way to consume less resources.

Drip dry your hands. Dr. F started boycotting hand dryers (the hot-air kind) a long time ago, due to the beastly temperature they create in a bathroom, especially one already packed with people--one shouldn't come away from washing one's hands feeling sweaty everywhere else.

Once you get used to drip-drying instead of hot air, it's a simple matter to drip dry instead of using up paper towels. Bang--if you're washing your hands as often as your mother would like, a half-pound of paper out of the waste stream.