with a spring in your step

Rolled my newly adjusted gears this morning down to Posto to check out the lovely Justine in the latest Treadlie. Paul at Epic has done a lovely job in removing the crazy crunch crunch sound of my gears and we are smoking! As is “our Justine”.

Equally smoking is the coming weekend, during which I think I am going to institute a new blogging break. That’s it. You don’t read on the weekend, I should stop writing.  Might then in fact actually ride my bike. Given that I have yet to collect my rider kit, I’m not sure if that is possible any longer, but I continue to delude myself.

Major Taylor was majorly interesting, with Jim Fitzpatrick providing a solid hour of one of the most interesting hidden gem stories that really got me revelling in the heyday of cycling and racism. I’m sure there will be intelligent round ups in other places.

In the mean time, let me introduce another of our guest bloggers. Don’t fret – this is happening on no particular timeframe You may or may not yet know this next blogger, who featured some time ago with the ever famous Ah_Blakey of DDCX.

The lovely Kate has been cycling since 2009 when she decided on a whim to ride solo from Vancouver to San Francisco. I decided once on a whim to get a really really bright cycling vest. That too has paid off in spades.

Now, with a Masters in Urban Planning, specialising in sustainable transport planning under her belt she works for the Bicycle Network Victoria advocating for cycling infrastructure in local government jurisdictions and finds time to tutor undergraduates in Urban Planning at Melbourne Uni.

Having recently outed herself as a cyclo-feminist/femicyclist (?) at work, Kate is ready and racing to share more insights from the fair old Melbourne town.

I know that I should feel excited about Kate coming on board because she brings beautiful, grounding credibility to this whole endeavor, academic qualifications, multiple bikes, experiences as a cyclist newly trying track, active engagement in the cyclocross community and general excellent qualities. She already keeps an interesting blog dealing with mobility and cities, but she’s willing to make time for us in her schedule. She is a woman, who rides, and thinks. What an amazing combination.

But really, I am mainly excited about Kate because she was incredibly tolerant and loaned me massive amounts of wasted Clinique one emergency time when I had this mild poetry related make-up crisis and ended up wearing my pyjamas to a gig, which was a molto crazy freak out disaster. Still talking to me after this situation, indicates a high level of skill, tact and diplomacy.

And as recently snapped by Bike Fest Blogger @lisadempster, she wears truckloads of stripes.