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Word of the Week: Sprocket!

5/12/2014

Bike to Work day is this Friday, so let’s celebrate with a cycling-oriented Word of the Week:

sprocket
\ˈsprä-kət\

A sprocket, as you no doubt know, is a gear with protruding teeth that can engage the links of a chain, especially a bike chain. I would argue that the sprocket is the single most essential innovation in bicycling: without the chain-and-sprocket drive train there would be no bikes as we know them, no Bike Month, no Bike to Work Day.

Time for some fun historical facts!

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Bike commuting tips: Won’t I be all sweaty at work?

5/8/2014

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Cross-posted at the SDCBC blog

One of the most common reasons people give for not riding their bikes to work is that they have no place to shower and they don’t want to spend their day sticky and smelly with sweat.

Of course not! Who would?

And yet not having a shower available does not have to be a deal breaker. At my last office job I bicycled to work 3 or 4 days a week, 13 miles each way, and even though I did not shower at work, I managed to keep looking (and smelling!) professional by following these 4 easy steps:

May is National Bike Month!

One in a series of posts about biking and bike commuting.

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Word of the week: Pedipalp!

5/6/2014

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I have a new favorite word, courtesy of Arwulf, who in zoology class was tasked with dissecting a crayfish and examining the pedipalp.

The pedipalp! I am enraptured!

It sounds like a naughty Victorian undergarment. (“As Lady Anna reached languidly for the bell-pull, Montague gasped at the unexpected glimpse of her lacy pedipalp.”)

Alas, my compulsive fact checking indicates that crayfish and other crustaceans do not in fact have pedipalps. Rather, they have “chelipeds.” This is a much less wonderful word. (Sorry, Arwulf!) The pedipalp is found exclusively in the sub-phylum Chelicerata, which includes spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, mites and ticks.

Crayfish DO, however, have something called a rostrum. Sadly, this is not a platform on which tinier animals stand to declaim.

Science is fun! Now when do we get étoufée?

Image courtesy of Wikipedia: “Male Striped lynx spider showing enlarged pedipalps.” Or perhaps he is just happy to see you. (And because I know your mind is in the gutter, yes, spiders do use their pedipalps For That.)

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“Not many people come here by bike”: Being visible off the bicycle

4/29/2014

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When I am out running errands I often ask shop owners where I can park my bicycle. In my suburban neck of the woods people usually look a little confused at the question. “I’m not sure,” they usually say. “Not many people come here by bike.”

The exception is at coffee shops, where staff readily point out spots where people can lock up. Even when there is no bike rack nearby, they offer alternatives like railings, signposts and trees. Why would baristas be aware of bike parking when the manicurist next door has no clue?

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Virtual Friends, Real Friends

4/21/2014

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Not long ago, I was talking with other parents of teenagers when the subject turned to relationships and the Internet. “I try to limit how much time my kids spend online,” one parent said, “so they can spend their time with their real friends.” Nods and murmurs of agreement all around.

Really?

I have a kid who spends a lot of time online. Like a whole LOT of a lot. Apart from a couple of friends from school, Arwulf’s most important peer relationships take place over the Internet, on Tumblr, in anime and fanfiction forums, over IM and Skype.

And while most of these relationships are casual, a couple are friendships as deep and textured as any face to face relationship.

These kids have never met in person. They are scattered across the English-speaking world: the US, UK, Australia. They must negotiate time zones and school schedules to spend time with each other.

But spend time together they do.

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Why Bluefish?

4/16/2014

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Since I decided to hang out my editorial shingle, one question has come up more than any other:

“Why Bluefish?”

There’s a simple answer. But when you think about it, names are not often really simple.

I think about other times I had to name a baby—most notably those of the flesh-and-blood variety. Laying aside the peculiar naming conventions of our household (the subject of another post, to be sure), finding something to pair with a surname like “Furth” presents endless opportunities for Truly Unfortunate Monikers.

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Rescue

4/14/2014

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This past Friday I went out with my crew for a cold but beautiful morning swim at La Jolla Cove. Afterwards, showered and dressed, we were beginning the unpleasant but necessary shift from swim mode to work mode. Shoes on. Car keys extracted from bags. Phones checked for messages. The noises of the city morning swelled around us as we said our goodbyes – chattering tourists, traffic whistles, car radios, idling delivery vans.

Wait. Traffic whistles?

The sound came again, shrilling over the water.

Not a traffic whistle – a distress call. We leaned over the railing, searching for the source.

It was 8:46.

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Forward>>

Word of the Week: Sprocket!

Bike commuting tips: Won’t I be all sweaty at work?

Word of the week: Pedipalp!

“Not many people come here by bike”: Being visible off the bicycle

Virtual Friends, Real Friends

Why Bluefish?

Rescue

Archives

Isabella Furth

Categories

Word of the Week: Sprocket!

Bike commuting tips: Won’t I be all sweaty at work?

Word of the week: Pedipalp!

“Not many people come here by bike”: Being visible *off* the bicycle

Virtual Friends, Real Friends

Why Bluefish?

Rescue

Archives

Isabella Furth

Categories

“Not many people come here by bike”: Being visible off the bicycle