Bloviations

In a recent post, Delmer asked folks if they wanted to be interviewed by him. Being the attention hound that I am, I quickly volunteered.

Delmer’s questions, and my answers, are below.

You have recently taken up bicycling as your only (primary?) way of getting around. What inspired you to do this?

Mostly, it was the cost. Car payment, car insurance, fuel and maintenance adds up, you know. But, I’ll admit now, since it’s just between us, that there’s more to it. I think it was a bit of “mid-life crisis.” I needed to do something to drastically shake my life up. I couldn’t relocate (I need to be close to Mini, not to mention AM), career change would be limiting as I live in the service-industry center of the universe (and I wouldn’t make a good Hooters girl) and I’ve never been one for small sporty cars. My weight was at an all-time high (hovering at 200lbs). I was constantly stressed and just wasn’t having fun. I’d had the bike for just at a year and barely ridden it, so I decided to try it and realized riding the 6 1/2ish miles wasn’t bad. And then, I realized how much better I really felt after riding. It was a no-brainer then. I’ve lost 10ish lbs since August, my blood pressure is way down, I feel better and I generally don’t freak out about as much stuff as I had been. It’s still the right choice for me.

Regarding your bicycling activities: What kind of bike do you ride? Have you calculated money saved by riding a bike vs. driving a car. What do you wear on your commute to work (do you wear street clothes or Lycra and then change at work?).  Do you do anything to “freshen up” when you get to where you’re going? (I wear Lycra and change after the sweat evaporates a bit; I also wipe off some.  After the lunchtime ride (which I take late) I don’t do anything … I just try to stay away from people.) [This probably seems like more than a single question – I took the liberty of counting it as a single “themed” question.]

I ride a 2007 Trek 7.3FX hybrid. It’s not my dream bike (which is tied between a Trek 520 or Surly Long Haul Trucker), but it gets me where I need to be and I’m mostly comfortable (I’ve got some hand issues to work through on long distance rides, but I’ve got a plan).

I haven’t really compared the cost of riding to the cost of driving since it’s really not an either/or situation for me.

My dress for riding depends on the weather. If it’s comfortable (50ish or above), I wear mountain biking shorts and either long-sleeved or short sleeve athletic shirts. The shorts have a spandex inner lining with a chamois and a nylon outter shell. (This keeps me from having to wear the standard spadex cycling shorts and causing mass-nausea.) The athletic shirts wick sweat away and dry pretty quickly. I’d like to add some wool jerseys to my closet, but they’re pretty expensive for me. During the cooler weather, I’ve been wearing spandex riding shorts under nylon wind-pants with the long-sleeved athletic shirts and fleece or jacket over that. I wear fleece gloves (I need a better solution) and a fleece beanie or Atlanta Braves baseball cap under my helmet. I’ve recently found some wool socks (merino smart wool) and have been quite happy wearing them in cold to warm weather.

I have the benefit of a locker for clothing and stuff in my office and a shower in my building, so I do the complete clean-up before my workday begins. I haven’t taken a lunch-time or mid-day ride, but will be running during my lunch-breaks soon. I’ll still have benefit of the shower. Even though I’m clean, I prefer to stay away from people. It’s just safer for everyone that way.

Have you had any close calls – that is, have you been hit or almost hit – while tooling around on your bicycle?

I’ve never had a close-enough to reach-out-and-touch-a-car call…But I’ve had my share of jacksonvillians pull out in front of me, turn without looking and those folks that to try to push me off the road. There’s only two run-ins that I can vividly recall.

The first was pretty early in my commuting. An older heavier woman in a car yelled “Hey! Fuck YOU!” at me from across an intersection while I was making a perfectly legal left-turn. I still remember how shocked and hurt I was from that incident.

The second was not that long ago. I was stopped on the road’s shoulder at a Stop Sign. As I was about to start a left-turn, a pickup truck (driven by a Marine) completely blew past through the intersection. It appears that he needed to get to the Aikido studio that was just a bit ahead. I followed the truck and informed the driver that he would’ve hit me had I not noticed the headlights and halted my left turn. There was no real confrontation, but the guy didn’t even apologize for nearly putting me in a deadly-serious predicament.

As it is hard for me to come up with five sort-of original thoughts so close together, I’ve borrowed this next question from James Lipton of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”:  What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

My dream profession is to writer. Newspaper or magazine articles, books (not that I have any interesting stories or viewpoints for anyone to read), even poetry (I’ve recently written a haiku, you’ll be happy to know). Heck, I’d be happy writing speeches for other people to give. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. I always imagined myself to be (what I know now) is an Alan Shore-ish sort of guy…Just shorter and less attractive. I’d be the guy taking the goofy or obviously-going-to-lose cases. Of course, in my imagination, I always won.

It has been said, and this applies to blog posts, that nobody wants to know what you had for lunch. This is not true as I’m always curious about what people eat and enjoy seeing pictures posted of meals. I’d like to know what you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner recently (I realize, depending upon when you read this, that you may not have had time to throw back three meals today – any three over the last two days will work.)

Two days ago, on Wednesday, I had a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. It was from the newly installed snack bar in my office building. Last night, I had turkey, cheese, guacamole sandwiches on croissant rolls. Today, my lunch was turkey, cheese and guacamole sandwich on a hoagie roll with macaroni and potato salads. 

Finally, and I’m reminded of this as we’re so close to the inauguration … boxers or briefs? [This probably seems like question Six of Five. It is, but it should be an easy one.]

In normal clothes, boxers. I haven’t worn anything else since boot camp in 1996. If I’m riding, I go au naturale in my riding shorts.

That’s the interview. If any of you are interested in questions from me, let me know in comments or by email.

January 9th, 2009 | Tags: Delmer Wells, Interview questions, What's a Delmer Look Like? | Category: Bloggers, BrockNet | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL