May Is Bike Month

It took me at least five minutes to lock my bike in the prime parking area under the skybridge between Smith and Cramer yesterday morning. This is in part because my old U-lock (thoughtfully abandoned, with keys, by some unknown visitor to our communal apartment in Maine in 2005) has rust in every crevice after nearly three years of winter commuting in Portland. It now requires patience, skill, and liberal application of the fuck-word to get the key to turn the full 180 degrees, especially after a few rainy days. This lends some urgency to my desire to park under the skybridge, one of the few covered set of racks on the end of campus where I spend my days. Unfortunately, competition for these spaces is fierce, especially on days where the hourly weather forecast looks like this:

If you don’t make it to campus before 10 on these days, bring a plastic bag to cover your saddle, because there is no way you’ll find a spot under the skybridge– by then, many of the racks are tripled up.

I rolled in at 9:55 yesterday, with class starting at 10, so I was hurriedly performing the ritual courtship dance with my U-lock while trying to disentangle my break levers from other people’s cables, and endeavoring not to get my pedals caught in their chains. In this midst of my muttering and cursing, I glanced up, and had one of those hallelujah-chorus moments: not twenty feet away, some very attractive gentleman-cyclists were giving away free breakfast for bike commuters. Apparently, May is Bike Month, and these strapping lads in three-quarter-length pants will be providing watery-yet-free coffee and scones-I-can’t-eat-cuz-they-probably-have-animal-in-them every Thursday. I love that love, especially since I always miss out on the monthly breakfast on the bridges because I don’t often go to campus on Fridays.

Better yet, on Wednesdays they’ll be providing free tune-ups on campus. That means I’ll finally be able to shift my front gears again (for the last month, I’ve only been shifting the back, because the chain kept falling off whenever I switched the front gears). This might even be an opportunity to tighten that rear brake cable, so that I can start stopping for trucks again on Greeley.

May is also Defend My Thesis and Get This Shit Done Month. I wish that came with T-shirts.