Circle Art

I get in the most miles in when I am most busy and January was one of those months. Since I have no trouble getting motivated to ride and some trouble getting motivated to do work, the more work I have, the more I exercise. Plus, I said “sure” three weeks ago when Susan asked if I wanted to write a bicycling piece for the Norfolk Quarterly. The editor had asked Susan, and she passed along my name.

I attempted to write a broad overview of cycling in Norfolk which turned out to be a killer task. It could be said that I did not properly narrow the topic, but I did not want to focus on just one group of riders—racing, touring, kids, commuting—since the Norfolk Quarterly has such a wide audience that writing about one of these groups would be informative but not really hit what affects everyone: safety for all cyclists in a developed city. Even though I know lots about cycling, putting all groups together under the safety theme took forever and it sounds awfully stiff. I don’t know how general assignment newspaper reporters manage to turn out multiple articles on subjects they are not familiar with.

The photo shoot for the Quarterly article was a scream. We chose the coldest night of the year, but had the best photographer. Wes had an elaborate camera kit mounted to his bicycle. He took shots as four of us were moving—well shivering. It was ~26 degrees, and since pics were being made we could not get any real speed going to get warmed up. The overcast night spoiled the plan to get shots of riders on Elizabeth River trail with a sunset background, so we did repetitive crossings on the Hague foot bridge and did circles in front of Chrysler Museum since both places are lighted. Wes said he still needs to get shots during day hours.