"Nice Bike"

681.0; 25.3

When one of the loiterers along the less-savory portion of the Joe Rodota trail says "Nice Bike," I want to say, "No! It isn't! It's a piece of crap!" (knowing as I do that people HAVE been mugged on this trail). I have really tried to cultivate an atmosphere of goodwill, courtesy, and friendliness around myself, and I trust that to work for me. My bike is pretty unique, also, and easy to spot, so maybe not as desirable for theft as it might otherwise be. Anyway. Good to get out on another temperate autumn day, and to get more than 20 miles.

You with the headphones? There are MANY more certain and less potentially painful forms of suicide--why don't you try one?

I kid.

My numbers as of today:

Total miles since start (July 13): 1031.2
Calendar days since start: 89
Average miles per day: 11.6
Total riding days: 50
Average miles per riding day: 20.6

October:
Total miles: 113.9
Calendar days: 10
Average miles per day: 11.4
Riding days: 6
Average miles per riding day: 19.0

I keep track of all this on the same spreadsheet where I track my blood sugar, and there is some general correlation between bike-riding and sugar levels day by day (the effect really is more long-term than daily, though). FWIW, then:

Average fasting BG reading July 1-Sept 30: 121.2
Average fasting BG reading October so far: 121.5

No need for panic! These are good numbers. Doc was pleased. 126 and up will get you diagnosed as diabetic. I'm taking a variety of medications that help keep that number down, but the exercise REALLY helps--and more, helps to "normalize": my numbers don't range as widely when I'm riding regularly.

Eh?

655.7; 18.5

Hearing aid fitting appointment today.

I have trouble hearing soft sounds, and individual sounds with a lot of background noise, and at work, I was having a LOT of trouble understanding people with heavy accents. Analyzing this last, I felt that it might be the different emphasis on different syllables common to some ESL speakers.

So, I went to get my hearing tested three months ago, while I was still employed and fully insured. These people thought they could do something for me, and they said it would cost $2500, with $500 going to me. I paid the $500, and was laid off the next week. At the point of being laid off, I would have canceled the whole thing except for the fact that it was already paid for, and I was pretty certain there was no way I was gonna get that $500 back.

So I waited.... and waited... How long does it take to prepare a hearing aid for a person? They didn't take a plaster cast of my inner ear or anything! Finally, about a month in, I called them, and they informed me that they were waiting for payment from the insurance company.

So I waited... and waited... FINALLY, last week, they called me to make an appointment for a fitting, and I went in today (1111 Sonoma Ave., Santa Rosa, hence Monday's 1111 blog entry title, and the ride to scout for a bike rack).

After sitting in a tiny room for 20 minutes with nothing to do, hooked up by a wire to a laptop, the doc (or audiologist?) came in and ran a few test wherein I could barely ascertain any difference between the hearing aids' being on or off, and when it was on, there was a tinny reverb-y sound to everything he or I said. Okay fine. It surely would take some getting used to, and they usually try to set it low and move it up gradually, so I was ushered out to make an appointment for a couple of weeks hence.

At that appointment, the woman nonchalantly added, "and eight hundred fifty-three thirty-five" or something to that effect.

Had I not been wearing a hearing aid, I wouldn't have believed my ears! Still I had her repeat it.

Upshot, she will run it by the insurance company again--"sometimes they are wrong"--and get back to me, so at least I get a brief reprieve, but jeeze! Eight Hundred Dollars is not small change, especially for the underemployed. And I don't really even need the damned things anymore, for now--the reasons I originally went are all but absent from my life now!

On the ride home, the wind noise was amplified so much I couldn't hear anything else.

On the lighter side, as of the end of this excursion, I have officially biked 1006 miles, in 87 days. Whoopee.

Fresh Oil

637.2; 16.5

Occidental Road is being repaved and so has a lovely shoulder-to-shoulder coat of oil.

Autumn is definitely here, and it's nice to coast through whirling leaves and cool brisk air (and have perhaps relatively fewer people on the trails).

I think the little nubs on the sides of my tires are almost entirely gone now.

1111

620.7; 18.6

Oh the numbers! I had really hoped to get in the habit of regular "short" (under 25-mile) rides this month, and then got off track with work, rain, and the weekend, so now I'm playing catch-up. I now have my spreadsheet tracking average miles per RIDING day AND per CALENDAR day.

I have an appointment at one of the medical offices in Santa Rosa Wednesday afternoon, and wanted to see if there was a place to lock the bike so I could ride there. No bike rack out front of a medical center! Isn't there something wrong with that? There's a bike rack in back, at the STAFF entrance, where most people won't look, and I might have to walk around the building to actually enter after parking and locking, but...

Oh well, good to get back on the bike.

(Generic Title Here)

602.1; 16.5

Quick trip to Forestville and back, probably the fastest I've ever done it. No stops; very few peds and dogs on the trails. Rain is forecast for the weekend, and it seems to be starting now. Though it will put a crimp in my biking style, I welcome it.

Work is going well, I guess. A great deal of uncertainty as to whether or not I am meeting expectations, but I feel like I'm doing good work--I'm catching a lot of errors, cleaning up a lot of poor grammatical and structural choices, making it easier to edit for others, and now, creating a summary for later use. I'm hoping all of this carries weight.

Pomo

585.6; 18.5; Short ride to warm up after a week off. The standard Forestville run, but I added about a mile when I stopped to talk to a woman on the path near Occidental Rd. who was looking for her malamute/shepherd mix, and then saw the dog further up the path. I asked a lady there if she would wait with the dog while I went to notify the owner, returned to find the lady and she was gone; returned to the lady who was watching the dog and said, "well, we tried," and then saw the owner on the Graton end of the path, in her car. The dog ("Pomo") was within earshot of there, so dog and owner were reunited and I rode on without waiting for thanks. Would she have had a better chance of finding Pomo on foot? I dunno; seems like it, but she DID find the dog (with no small assistance).

Saw a gray fox on the path near Forestville, and got to within about 10 yards of it before it took off into the brush. Also bunnies, and a large dead gopher snake.

Actually, don't seem to have "lost" too much in terms of being in shape for riding, and felt like I could've gone much farther without undue exhaustion. But it's good to spend more time at home and get some work done.

Numb3rs

567.1; 22.3

End of a big week (135 miles) and month (428 miles); mom visiting, so won't be riding for the next few days. Good to get a break now and then. With that in mind, in the 80 days since layoff (ending October 1), I've biked 917.4 miles for an average of 11.9 miles per day (damn--I really wanted to stay above 12!).

Interestingly enough, with previous stints of bike riding, I noticed my hands/wrists getting *number* as I logged the mileage *numbers*. I've had some of that this time, but it seems to be more from time spent on the computer than from biking--even though the new bike is much more rigid, with no front or rear suspension, and thinner, harder tires.

I think I need to buckle down and do some work now, as long as there is work to do! Third Java course, coming up.

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

544.8; 26.9. Another flat, coincidentally (?) right after pulling off to the side of the unpaved road, in the middle of a bunch of star thistles, to let a work truck go by. I examined the tires before I started to roll again! Less than a mile later, the back wheel is floppin'. Nice to have a spare tube and tools, and to be able to repair it on the spot, but I'm considering the "thorn-proof" tubes the guy showed me today. Otherwise, nice pleasant ride, not too hot or cool.

Five Hundred

517.9; 28.6 (2hrs, 10min)

Entered dates and miles into a Facebook app, Bike City, and wondered the whole time why I was doing that when I have it all in a spreadsheet, in which I can crunch the numbers any way I like. For example, the FB app doesn't track by week, doesn't appear to be able to compare one month to another (or even show the numbers for past months), provide average miles per day (I've been tracking my avg/day and seeing how high I can get it by the end of the month (79 days since I started). Today's ride just bumped the avg up past 12 mpd...

Anyway, bored with the regularity of numbers like 31.3, 26.0, and 16.6, I extended the Forestville route a different way today and so got a different number.

I was prepared to just go to Forestville and back, and instead took off north on High School Road to make an additional loop to the unpaved section of bike path, Fulton Rd., and back.

I'm seriously concerned about my contract job--(deleted possibly incriminating content).

I think some employees just don't require feedback in their work--and some employers just don't think of it as a requirement to GIVE feedback. I, not being one of the former, have trouble dealing with the latter (and probably they with me too). (snip!)

Tightening

489.3; 31.3

Lovely morning for grabbing some mileage, hoping to top my biggest week yet (that was 120.9 miles--I'm almost halfway there already). It dawned clear and still, and so it remained, a crisp autumn morning (now that we're officially into autumn). I got new tights that are specifically for biking--if nothing else, they won't catch on the front sprocket. I like 'em, overall...

Returned the clip-in shoes yesterday, and bought toe cages, which I'm already used to on bike 1. Anyone wanna buy a pair of Shimano SPD pedals (PD-M424)? Only about 500 miles on 'em...

People and dogs all over the paths, but I'm really not that bothered by it, and I would like to bothered by it even less. Let it go, move on, etc....

Mister Early

458.0; 26.0

Not THAT early--it was after nine when I left--but seeming early because of the low mist (hence the "Mister" part of the title) hanging around through the first half of the ride, causing poor visibility not only via moisture in the air but also via moisture on my glasses. Also, wearing full-on sweats rather than the usual shorts and t-shirt made everything more muffled.

Tough pedaling early, when it seemed like all I could do to keep up a 15mph pace, then it was easier on the return trip, especially when I got behind a pair of guys on racing bikes who I expected to leave me in their dust, but I actually had to slow down at times to stay behind them until Wright Rd., where I shortcut the corner and left them behind.

The farther portion of this trail, the last segment of the part called the "Santa Rosa Creek Greenway," is about 2-1/2 miles of unpaved road on either side of the creek. At the very end, someone has taken to hanging a sign about how there are plans to pave this segment. Below the sign hangs an open envelope of orange slips of paper with the anti-creek trail web site address printed on them. These slips fall out of the envelope and scatter on the ground around the trailhead, and it's hard to muster much sympathy for a cause that litters the trailhead like that while professing to be in the interest of saving it.

I'm with 'em, sorta, on the need for study before putting in a paved bike path--except, bikes are ALREADY USING that path--it's among other things, a BIKE PATH.
And it's a much safer option than the parallel Hall or Guerneville roads. From my own personal viewpoint, I have no problem at all with the paving of this stretch. The other side will presumably remain unpaved (as it is still on the rest of the Greenway's south side, all the way back to Stony Point).

Since bikes are already using the trail, the arguments they're using pretty much center around the faster speed of the bikes that will ensue, added danger to peds, blah blah blah, but what I see on that trail is almost EVERYONE disregarding the leash law. Then there's a bit of a non-sequitur in the the inclusion of an endangered species list--including trout in the stream. Now, there is just NO WAY faster cycling would have ANY effect on said trout--unless indeed, it scares the illegal fishermen away.

They also don't mention the fact that this paving provides access to wheelchairs--and I DO see people in wheelchairs on the other segments.

Be that as it may, they have succeeded in at least delaying construction.

I can live with it either way, but the protest rather reeks to me of NIMBYism with which I'm not altogether unfamiliar. Something else interests me on that map, and that is all the "proposed" bike paths in the area that would make for much safer biking in a much more extended area, including, apparently, completion of this near-loop that I ride almost daily by extending the trail across Willowside Rd. and past Delta Pond, to Frei Rd (which the reader may remember) where it looks like a bike path is ALSO planned. Honestly, I'd be happy with more unpaved paths than more paving of existing ones... I suspect the thing will be paved eventually, but can't be arsed to attend a meeting about it, for all of these reasons, but mostly: BOTH sides--the NIMBYs and the racing bikers--annoy me no end.

Proud to have passed 800 total miles today, this 70th day since I started biking again.

Sneakin' Back

432.0; 23.4

Back to sneakers, and I must say, a lot less stressful riding. Perhaps infinitessimally slower than with the clip-ins, but that might be remedied by using "cages" like on my other bike (from which I removed the leather side-straps so I could get out more easily).

Peculiar "ending" to Lost Season 3. Seasons 4 and five pre-added into Netflix queue.

SNL's take on Palin and Clinton, w/Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, was pretty funny. But in two months, Palin will be just be the punchline to a footnote, along with McCrony. How many here remember Geraldine Ferraro? Raise your hand...

Crunch

405.6; 23.0

I gotta start getting out earlier--the headwind is really obnoxious in the afternoon (and practically nonexistent in the morning).

Well, I took that first tumble with the cleats in the pedals. Coming up to a cross street, I saw a lady with a kid stop to wait for me, then I continued up and saw a car coming from the other way. Mixing up the signals from the brain, I hit the brake instead of twisting out, and found myself on the ground quicker than you can think it. Amazingly, I have only a skinned knee and bruised ego to show for it, and was able to get back on and ride the eight miles home from there.

I might try riding with regular shoes again, by way of comparison. I'm not sure the speed and power gain is worth the epidermal loss. Even if this only happens every now and then, I suspect it will NEVER again be as painless as today, and realize I will now need to carry some kind of first aid kit as well as the other stuff I'm packing. (And indeed, I might go for knee and elbow pads if they weren't so inconvenient.) So I might have some SPD pedals and $115 Keenes for sale soon...

biking

382.6; 23.9

Really had to kinda force myself to get out there, and it was later (=windier) in the day when I finally did get out. Still, went farther than what I thought of as "minimum."

Lost, Season 3. Got the last disc today. This series is just so strange... sometimes seeming almost solely for the sake of being strange... like the writers throw in all these additional plot elements and story arcs just to see how many they can throw in and how far out they can get, perhaps not even considering if, when, or how they will wrap it all up at the end. But even while I'm shaking my head in disbelief, I'm laughing and enjoying the ride--not unlike Sawyer and Charley with Hurley in the episode with the microbus. Then too there are Harold Perrineau and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, both excellent in Oz and welcome on my TV screen anytime. Season 4 to be queued up ASAP!

Foot Bondage (not the Good Kind [If There Is a Good Kind])

Bike 2 (and they'll pretty much all be Bike 2 unless noted from now on I think): 358.7; 18.8.

Continuing with the innuendo titles here. Has anyone else commented on how the word "innuendo" is itself something of an innuendo? At least when used in reference to Italian sodomy...

Today I tried out the new Keen sandals with cleats that firmly affix my feet to the pedals. To get out, with this brand, you have to twist your heel outward. NO OTHER MOTION WILL GET YOU OUT OF THOSE PEDALS, and YOU WILL FALL OVER WITH YOUR FEET STILL FIXED TO THE PEDALS. Initially, the pedals were adjusted so tight that I had to stop, get off the bike, and step out of the shoe and wrench it off the pedal by hand--luckily tried this one foot at a time or I'd still be pedaling, afraid to stop, miles away from here or simply going in circles. Once loosened a bit, they work okay, and I think with a little more practice I'll be very happy with them, but boy it's a real test of faith to clip in and go with both feet! In other words, they require some getting used to--but also I suspect that sooner or later I WILL have an accident with them--not IF, but WHEN. I could be wrong.

On the up side, they add all of that upstroke power to your pedalling (that is, while the right foot is pushing down on the right pedal, the left foot is pulling up on the left pedal), and it did seem like I gained a mph or two, especially on uphills when "spinning" in lowish gears.

"Burn After Reading" was a great, funny, entertaining movie. I can't think of any reason not to give it all five stars. Excellent cast, brilliant story, superb dialogue, and many exquisite other superlatives. Also, this might the first movie I've ever seen without any advance knowledge of what it was about (aside from seeing a brief blurb that said it was the Coen brothers' return to comedy). I'm glad we're getting out and seeing movies sometimes.

I was proud (if that's the right word--one must use such caution!) to attend a ceremony yesterday wherein my wife received the precepts at her Zen Center. I know she worked hard all summer at the classes and the homework, and in learning a little bit about it, I find it an exceedingly admirable thing. Respect, T!

I have such a hard time with religion. Lately the dogma of fundamentalists literally makes me teeth-grindingly angry. It is just unfathomable to me how a person can let something so wispy and ethereal drive such hard-nosed beliefs and activities--and even within that, how they so misinterpret the book that holds all of their tenets! How they can let a fellow human--nothing more and perhaps a good deal less--plant a flag in their town and say, "I am God's interpreter on Earth," and then blindly follow. How they can fly in the face of all logic and reason, all out of the hope of a promised eternity in an improbable (and surely insufferable!) heaven and abject fear of an impossible Hell... These people are going to take this country back to the middle ages.

Buddhism, as I've seen it, is an entirely different thing. It all makes eminent sense, the precepts being a great example. My only problems with it, I guess, are the chanting of words I don't understand, and the bowing and rising, bowing and rising, which gives me head-rushes and threatens to make me pass out, and again, I'm not sure what or who I'm bowing to, and that makes me very uncomfortable. I do feel that I could take some time to learn more about it and I would probably be happy and comfortable with it. What I really like about it, something the preceptor said yesterday, something about committing to peace in the world, being yourself a cause of peace in the world... That is something I would like very much to do, and that is what will probably bring me back to the Zen Center. In Buddhism, too, there is virtually none of the "marketing," that need to convert others, that drives Christians et al to make their kids go door to door with pamphlets etc. It is absolutely true that, in the Christian religion(s), those who are innocent of knowledge of heaven and hell and god and jesus are supposedly not sent to hell when they die, and so these devout practitioners think it their duty to inform the innocents, so they CAN go to hell!

Anyway, wrong place perhaps to go off on a religion rant, when really I just want to mark the occasion of Terrie's moment. So here's to my love Junden, doing something very right.

Pedaling My Ass Around Town

Bike 2: 339.9; 17.7

18 miles seems like a "short" ride now... Even with what seems like a pretty strong headwind, if I keep pedaling consistently in high gear, I'm doing 16, even 18 mph. Leg muscles always hurt when I first start, but often like today get accustomed to pedaling and it gets easy.

A couple of other cyclists stopped with their bikes, apparently fixing this or that. Felt like maybe I should stop, but nobody seemed particularly distressed... And this isn't the Outback or anything--there are after all gas stations, liquor stores, delis within easy bike-pushing distance--hell, the bike shop is only five miles away...

Goat's Heads

Bike 2: 322.2; 26.3

And by the way, that's 340 miles now on Bike 2 since I got it August 14--just past the 332 miles I'd covered on Bike 1 in the prior month.

Tire still full. Today I noticed all the star thistles blooming beside the trail, especially out near Willowside. Their thorns (called goat's heads, and I think perhaps occasionally used in the making of a soup) are like children's "jacks," and they scatter from the plant to lie in wait on the roads and trails, to embed themselves in bike tires and eventually break off and work their way through the tire to the tube, where they cause flats. I had so many problems at this time of year with my other bike, I got the Green Slime stuff AND a liner to combat them and STILL got flats from them now and then. So, that's probably the culprit of my recent tubular problems.

Anyway, happy to again pile on some miles. I do feel like maybe I'm ever-so-slightly slimmer around the midsection after all this, and feel kind of obsessive about keeping up the miles (even while trying to climb more hills, which usually means fewer miles in the same span of time). Today I felt sore and slow when starting out, so didn't push the speed too much, and eventually settled into a mindless rhythm--sometimes I completely zone out for long stretches, and don't remember covering those miles, after the fact.

Again, people with dogs off-leash pissing me off. I don't usually say anything, but today a woman was on her cell phone totally ignoring her dog, which as soon as it saw me coming started running as if to give chase. I yelled "Leash" after passing; doubt she even heard me. Sigh.

31 Flat-Free Miles

Bike 2: 295.9; 31.3

Catching up with the miles on Bike 1 7/11 - 8/11, but I took a week off in the month 8/11 - 9/11.

No flat! I have some hope now that I fixed it right this time.

Nice to stop at the coffee cart at Andy's and read the West County Times, about halfway through the 31 miles.

Now need to get to work on Java courses. I like this a lot--it's a useful skill to have, being able to at least read and maybe even write a little Java code, so even if the job ends when we finish the Java stuff I'll have something new in my bag of tricks. Meanwhile, working at home at my own pace is absolutely wonderful. I've been able to participate, too, in some of the yard stuff, working toward my Junior Permaculture Cadet badge...

OK, to work then!

(Insert Flatulence Joke Here)

Bike 2: 264.6; 27.0

But four miles of that was walking the bike with a flat rear tire (again).

I was just starting to feel proud of having replaced the tube with some degree of competence when, after 22 miles, I felt a sort of "bap!" like when you go off a curb, but I was just going over a small (maybe 1-inch) notch in the concrete. Seconds later, the tire was flat.

I attempted at one point to get some air into it, but of course I had not read or otherwise received detailed instrux on the hand pump I got with the bike and so was doing it wrong, and was entirely unable to get the pump to attach to the stem.

This, and the fact that I have not lost a single ounce of weight in now 600 miles of biking in 57 days... very discouraging. At least I have an extra tube now, and I have every reason to hope I will eventually get it right if I get enough practice from the multiple flats I am sure to have. I only hope I actually got the wheel itself back on the bike properly so THAT doesn't come flying off unexpectedly.

I get SUCH a sense of despair when I can't get a mechanical thing to work properly--and that seems to be every time I ever have to try to get a mechanical thing to work properly.

Anyway, walked four miles to bike shop, which happens to be on the way home, bought two tubes and got some guidance, and was able to ride the rest of the way home. I have NO confidence the same thing won't happen again, but hey, I got home, and I'll be a little better off next time, right?

Sunday Drivers

Bike 2: 237.6; 18.6

It was a short ride, but included several hills, some quite steep and/or long, including: Daywalt Road; Blank Road from 116 to Peterson; Orchard Station Road from Roblar to top of hill; Hessel Road from Turner to Fairbanks (fire station); and Lone Pine from 116 to Bloomfield.

Got a flat tire, luckily within a mile of home. I walked the bike home, couldn't find obvious nails or thorns, and refilled the tire. It'll probably be flat again shortly, but just in case. Funny, I bought a spare tube, what? four days ago?

On 116 near town, a woman in a dark blue Mercedes crossed the line to get nearer to me I guess. Not really close, but let's say two feet. This is a case where I was entirely off the road, on a ten-foot-wide shoulder. Then, I saw her do the same to another cyclist ahead of me. WtF?!? Granted, cyclists can be annoying--I've been annoyed by them when driving in MY car, especially on a narrow but wide-enough road where they might be riding two abreast when we could all coexist and get on with our lives if they were single file--but I've never heard of a cyclist killing anyone with their vehicle, which is basically what this woman came quite close to doing, twice.

I've noticed a couple of things, though, while out riding on a more "road-oriented" bike, that I might share, and if anyone's reading this who is prone to getting pissed at cyclists...

The shoulder is not always as smooth, clear of debris, and safe for riding as the road proper. Especially at any speed over 20, and/or in alternating light and shade, two-wheelers can't always trust that there will be no nasty surprises on the shoulder. Among other things, that's where motorists toss their bottles and mislay a lot of vehicle parts.

The edge of the road is often much more bumpy than the center: Ruts tend to form on the right edge, from vehicle wheels, water runoff, whatever. It seems like 9 out of 10 potholes are on that right edge.

It looks wider from a car than from a bike: Handlebars are 12-18 inches wide--that's my functional width (NOT the 1.5" of my tire!). A two-foot-wide shoulder only gives me six inches of wobble room. Don't necessarily expect a cyclist to manage to keep within that range, especially going uphill where one does tend to go a bit more side-to-side from pulling/pushing to make it up the hill.

Momentum Is Currency: If I can manage to keep the momentum from a good downhill, I can often maintain some speed going up the next one. It can mean the difference between cruising over the next hill at 13-15mph in high gear vs. gearing way down and laboring up the hill at 5mph. At the bottom of a long hill, I will hit the brakes out of consideration and safety every time, but man am I grateful when you don't make me do that!

The Momentum Thing also comes into play at stop signs and traffic signals. Certain online-news commenters claim to find it unconscionable that cyclists don't always come to a full stop at intersections. I notice that most cars don't fully stop at stop signs--in fact I count on it when I'm on my bike. But the dynamic on a bicycle is very different: You can hear a lot better (assuming you're not one of those morons listening to an MP3 player or similar); you can usually see a lot better; and you're approaching the stop at a slower speed to begin, with so you have more time to evaluate the intersection as you approach. Coming to a full stop on a bike also means COMPLETE loss of momentum. For me, at least, it usually means I have to get off the seat and pedals, and start from zero again when ready to go, which requires a LOT more work than slowing down, even slowing to less than 1 mph.

A last thing (for now) to consider: I don't think any cyclist WANTS to be in your way. I'd rather be off the road entirely, on a bike path, but the bike paths are incomplete, and they don't always go where we need or want to go. When I travel the roads, I will often go miles out of my way to avoid shoulderless hills, badly potted pavement, blind curves. When I know a car is behind me, I try to pedal a little faster if it means I can get out of their way sooner. When a car purposely goes left into another lane to pass me, I am always grateful (though I don't usually wave because I doubt you're looking for that even if you could see it, and I'm usually in a place where it's best to keep both hands on the grips). But know that I AM grateful for every concession you make as a ped or driver, as I'm trying to work that space between the two. Thanks!