During the most recent Seattle CM, two bikers were arrested by plain-clothes King County Sheriffs; stories from Seattlest and the PI, follow-ups a Slog and pictures, too; trolls abound at the Slog.

Every now and then this happens, someone at Critical Mass gets arrested. I know that Seattle isn’t the only place this has happened, and without getting too numbers-oriented, I can’t really say whether or not the likelihood of getting arrested here is more or less. There seems to be some focus on the fact that the King County Sheriffs DID NOT show their badges from the beginning of the scuffle, though I’m not sure why, because from what I can tell, this isn’t a case of entrapment, as this Slate definition indicates, the idea of the assault (which is what one of the riders was charged with, assaulting a police officer) must come from the officer. As I wasn’t there, I can’t rightly say that this didn’t happen, but from several accounts I have read, there were no clear words exchanged. I have my doubts that that’s the case, though. If this is a case of self-defense, though, where one biker was believed to have been under attack by a driver, then there’s some serious issues here - What make the sheriff immune to repurcussions of losing his temper at an intersection?

It goes without saying that I don’t believe the bikers posed a serious enough threat to warrant arrest and what sounds like overzealous treatment by the sheriffs, setting bail at $3000 seems terribly excessive as well, and Eli makes a good point about KC Deputies not contacting SPD about this - I hate to bring it up, but Seattle is not like the rest of King County.

In any case, regardless of the politics of the situation and whether or not you agree with Critical Mass, it’s interesting to note that the founders of CM never intended CM to be an overtly political movement; in Ted White’s We are Traffic, a documentary about Critical Mass, the idea came from the streets in China, where NO ONE stops for bikes at intersections, until there are so many damn bikes waiting that it just floods into the street, and the cars HAVE to stop. You can watch the entire movie on google video, right here.

Interested in helping, or were a witness? Contact info. can be found at the point83 website, a paypal account for legal fees has been set up as well. I’ll be at this month’s Critical Mass almost definitely, to show my support, let me know if you’d like to come along.

Long overdue: there’s a ton of new pictures up from the past few weeks, including Port Townsend, Shane’s birthday, the April Immigration Rally and our Sunday bike ride.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the immigration stuff but haven’t gotten around to formulating something more solid in terms of opinion on policy and my impression of the political impact and influence that the immigration issue will have on the parties. The real issue, though, is pretty simple, it’s probable that I shouldn’t even be spending so much time trying to separate the issue into political versus practical, because they should be one and the same.

So hard for the money! Here is the actual route I rode on Saturday, it was only about a mile or two longer than what I had planned, and that was because I got lost a couple times; initially crossing the Locks and ending up in Discovery Park and in Madrona.

The first wrong turn made the ride much, much harder than I thought it was going to be. After leaving the Locks, I rode West to what turned out to be about a 300 ft. climb in a little more than a quarter-mile. I’m not ashamed to say I had to step off the bike to make it all the way up, though I did make it about 225-250 ft.

I rode through Magnolia neighborhoods to try and recover from the hill and stopped at the southern bluff to catch a glimpse of Interbay and eat a candy bar.

I watched a few other cyclists ride down along the edge of the bluff, just cruising through in their most aerodynamic pose possible. No such luck for me, and I pedaled through the curve and up the other side. I cruised down to the Interbay trail eventually, and saw a couple of fuselages on cargo trains.

After getting downtown, my hands were numb so I stopped into Elliot Bay Bicycles and finally bought some gloves; I’d been putting off buying some all Winter long, but finally settled on a cheap pair of $15 gloves that have tiny rubberized footprints all over the palms.

I eventually rolled down to Yesler and started the next ascent up towards the CD and Madrona. I had to stop when it got steep, so I took a picture right over I-5.

One of the last pictures I took before I became too tired to even pull out the camera anymore was on the other side of town in Madrona, of Cafe Verite.

I’d intended on taking another picture of the one in Ballard when I got home, but that plan never came to fruition. So much for bright ideas.

I eventually found Lake Washington Boulevard and pedaled hard through the Arboretum as it was getting pretty dark. I moved pretty quickly through there and across the Montlake Bridge and finally hit the BG Trail, which felt pretty nice. I got home and was tired, but felt all right the next day. I’ll have to do it again!

You can see the rest of the pictures here.

So I found out for sure today that this bike is a 1970 Raleigh Professional, which means all Reynolds 531. It rides great. Owl and I rode around town a bit today, got some pho, and cruised on the BGT for a while. The Brooks was a little painful, I moved it back a little, could be moved back some more, but my ass felt a little tender from one of the rivets poking me yesterday.

I took those pictures yesterday after taking the GRE (don’t ask), and felt much better about myself. Lots more obsessive pictures of the bike at Flickr. Two days of riding with no brakes, and my thigh and ankle are feeling the pain of skid and skip stops. I tried teaching myself doing it right foot forward with only minor success.

I went to Bikeworks tonight and learned how to clean, repack and lube a headset, pretty much did the same thing to a bottom bracket. Every Thursday and Saturday they have work parties where you can get together and work on bikes that have been abandoned, found in the dumpster, I don’t know, where you can find them. All the bikes go back into the community, rebuilt and rideable. Some of the bikes go to Farestart and some go to Treehouse.

This is spectacular, I get to learn how to work on bikes somewhere people know what they’re doing and where there’s a large supply of bikes to practice on, and the bikes go to people who need them.

When I walked into the work party, everyone stopped dead in their tracks, it turned very quiet, and they turned to look at me. I got a little red in the face, I’m sure, but things returned back to normal shortly after they realized I was there to help. There were just a handful of people; a guy named Rich taught me how to pull apart the headset, cranks and bottom bracket on an old Trek mountain bike.

I was talking to Owl about a couple of weeks ago. I think all this volunteer work I’ve started doing is pretty rewarding. It really makes me feel good. I know some people frown upon doing things for the credit, and I’m not saying I want a ton of recognition for doing these things or that I’m doing them so that people will think better of me, but I’m certainly not going to downplay the idea that I feel really good about helping.

If anyone ever wants to go down to Bikeworks with me and help fix bikes, you know where to find me. I said I’d be going back next week, but forgot that I’ll be in San Francisco for a week starting Wednesday night, but when I get back!

Some pics of the bikes, as well as bonus pics from last weekend at Whidbey, Thanksgiving weekend with the family, and a couple pics of dudes at the Tin Hat, which is now, like every other bar, restaurant, bowling alley, and non-reservation casino in Washington State; smoke-free. Also, a couple pics of items being sold at the Greenwood Space Travel Supply. I’m there every Sunday, 2:30-5:30.

Who wants to go get some beer at the Tin Hat tomorrow?

I finally got one of my bikes in riding condition and took it out tonight and cannot for the life of me figure out now if the reason I’m coughing is because it was too damn cold outside for me to ride or if it was because the bike just kicked my ass riding up 28th. Short hill, I know, but it’s been a while and it pretty much killed me. I rode around the neighborhood after wrapping some new drops and putting a new stem on the red fixie. I’d take pictures, but my camera is currently out of batteries and I haven’t gotten around to charging them. Pitiful, I know.

It turns out the headset lockring that was keeping me from replacing the stem earlier was in fact a headset lockring, meaning I didn’t need to remove it all to get the stem out. Yanking it really hard seemed to work just fine. Got a cyclocross (interruptor) lever to put on the right side, some diagonal wire cutters to cut the brake cable, and voila, a working brake. For some reason, however, the long reach isn’t reaching very long, and it is hitting the tire. Also: It may just be the width or positioning of them, but I cannot climb for shit with drop bars.

Looking at the frame and feeling how heavy it is - the front badge says “Dolphin” on it, but I’ve never heard of a company that built bikes under that name, I thought it might be a Schwinn, since the frame looks like it was painted at one point and the seat stay looked like a varsity, but at second glance it wasn’t so, and the serial number doesn’t match up. Mystery frame.

I did finally get a chance to look up my Raleigh frame serial number though, and it dates it a 1970 and possibly Reynold 531 tubing. Damn, those campy dropouts are sweet. I gotta go to sleep.

I got McSweeney’s 17 in the mail today. It looked like it came in the mail. There’s some pretty sweet stuff in there, also some very weird things. The bad thing about it looking like it came in the mail is that it looks like it came in the mail, and therefore looks like it should just get thrown away like the rest of the junkmail I get everyday.

Also: remember when I crashed a couple of weeks back? I hit a pothole later that night, and the next day missed my pedal riding and potato chipped my front wheel and bent the fork. It looks like this:

There’s a paint ripple right underneath the stem, too:

Yes, I’m in the market for a new frame, especially since I built a new wheel and everything before I found out how extensive the freaking damage was to the frame. I could get it fixed, but it’s probably not even worth it.

Thanks for not laughing, but also, I’m a little concerned that no one asked if I was all right.

I biffed it pretty well on my way to work today. So far, only the second time I’ve done it on my way to work, and the first time wasn’t even while I was on the fixie. Today, however, that old remember-you-can’t-coast adage was forgotten, and I basically dove over the front of my handlebars trying to coast while boosting myself over a curb. I got up, laughed it off, and got back on the bike for a half-block more till I got to the office. It feels good to know you can still take a slight beating; my arms are a little sore, but okay, overall.

I’m riding Critical Mass today. Are you?

I’ve been quarter-century hump for nearly a month now, but this last weekend Owl and friends threw me a party that was great fun. Thanks to everyone that came out and drank beer, ate cow (mostly me), and kicked ass at Trivial Pursuit. It was a close game, with wits matched pretty evenly on both sides (powerhouses brl and rbw matched up fairly well), but we still lost, sadly, and I blame that on bad guesses of mine. Great cake, great decoration, great fun. Hooray!

Also: thanks for stopping by before going to Sweden, man.

brl rode the fixed gear around Ballard while I coasted along on the Marin on Saturday night. He confirmed the truth about my brake: it sucks. Well, fixed that yesterday with a new dual-pivot long-reach Tektro from Recycled. The dude there broke up a set for me, which was nice of him.

I also picked up some rim cloth for my tire, which popped in the middle of the night on Saturday and hissed like crazy. i jumped up out of bed and was looking around for someone’s ass to kick or a fire to put out. I’m a light sleeper.

I haven’t actually been able to really test the Tektro yet, but I did figure out how to eliminate squeaks on brakes. For real, I can fix your brakes now, ben.

Tips for squeaking brakes:

• I think the most common problem is that the rim and/or pad are wet. Don’t clean your rims with water, use something not water soluble, I’ve read acetone or lacquer thinner works. That was unavailable for me, so I used a tiny bit of Tri-Flow and it seemed to do the trick.
• Toe them in so the forward part of the brake hits the rim before the back.
• Rough up the pads with some sandpaper or emory board

That concludes the bike tip for the day. I got nothing else for you.