Photo: New York St. Bike Lane

I'm unsure about the purpose of this sign but I noticed it at the Southeast corner of New York and West over the weekend. It's clearly oriented to the sidewalk so my only thought is that it's a warning to pedestrians that the area immediately beyond the curb is the future New York bike lane -- look closely on the pavement and you'll see "BIKE LANE" spray painted. If so, however, the sign is oddly offset well to the right of the New York pedestrian crossing (off the left edge of this photo).

Photo: Walking to Work

Here's the nicest part of my walk to work, a tree canopied sidewalk between Indiana Ave. and North St. near the Sigma Theta Tau Building (Honor Society of Nursing):
I'm also happy to report that despite some finger-numbing mornings and rapidly falling gas prices, I walked to work every day this week. I don't think I've done that since my Bike Life experiment over the summer.

Bike Life Photos: Street Names on the Sidewalks

I've seen these kinds of sidewalk street markers in a handful of other cities and I've always thought it was a really cool idea. Looks like someone had the same idea in Indianapolis a while ago, though they didn't get very far with it. They're not exactly the same, but for some reason they remind me of old-school, tiled New York subway signs.

All of these signs are in the area around Fall Creek Pkwy. and 24th/25th Sts.
This last photo shows a sidewalk sign in relation to the intersection (strangely, the signs are oriented so you have your back to the street in order to read the street name). You'll also notice another example of those old Indianapolis curbs.

I should mention that I originally noticed these signs while I was on my "Bike Life" experiment last month. It's amazing what you'll notice around this city when you get out of your car.

Bike Life: The Car Is Back

I'm proud to report that despite a car sitting in our garage for the first time in over three weeks, I still walked to work this morning. Whether it was inertia or just the wonderfully pleasant weather this morning, I only considered using the car for a split second before I settled on walking. We'll see how long I keep this up.

I'm planning a wrap-up of my Bike Life experience at some point, but for now I'm catching up on things after being gone for five days.

Bike Life: Walkin' in the Rain

A day like today separates the men from the boys: will you bike/walk to work in the rain? I had no choice but to walk this morning -- amazingly, this was the first time in two weeks that I had to go somewhere in the rain -- but I have to admit that there's no way I would have done it if there was a car in the garage. Even the 8-10 minute walk, with an umbrella, through steady but not torrential rain got me pretty wet from the waist on down. It would take a stronger conviction than I've got to commit to doing this on a regular basis. I can't even imagine attempting a 10+ mile bike ride in the rain....

Bike Life/Beer: A Trip To Evansville

I decided that last weekend would be a good time to take a trip down to Evansville to visit my wife. Without a car, this presented a challenge. I looked into several options for getting down there, including plane, bus and train. Flying was nixed because of expense and a lack of direct service. Bus was nixed because of an absurd NINE hour travel time each direction. Unfortunately, train isn't even an option! Evansville is NOT well-connected to Indianapolis.

I was hoping to avoid it, but the only other option was renting a car. Luckily, Avis and Budget operate car rental agencies in downtown so I was able to just walk to an agency to pick up a car. I rented a compact to try to get better fuel economy, but not too surprisingly my gas expenditure still came out higher than my rental rate!

The generally preferred route from Indy to Evansville is to drive west on I-70 to Terre Haute and then take Highway 41 south to Evansville (this was the rejected no-new-terrain route for I-69). An alternate route is to take I-65 south to Louisville and then I-64 west to Evansville. That route is about 40 miles longer but eliminates all traffic lights, so it takes basically the same amount of time. It also happens to take you right past New Albany, the home of up-and-coming brewery New Albanian. Needless to say, that's the route I chose.

Evansville is about three hours away, with New Albany almost exactly halfway. That puts New Albanian about an hour and a half from Indy, not a bad distance for a day trip. I stopped in very briefly, just so I could grab a growler of Hoptimus and get back on the road. The place is a little confusing. First of all, there are actually two separate areas: one is a pizzeria and the other is a public house. I made the mistake of going into the pizzeria first and while you can get New Albanian beer in there, there is no bar.

Once I got into the public house, I was confused yet again because there's no obvious bar area. The arrangement is very interesting and eclectic, but not very user-friendly on the first visit. It seems to be one part restaurant, one part "coffee house/lounge" and one part bar. After winding through a couple areas, there actually is a bar area of sorts in the back. There are two small bars, maybe large enough for three people to stand at. In addition to a half dozen or so New Albanian beers on tap, they also have several guest beers on tap. I stepped up to the bar and ordered my growler, chatted with a guy enjoying a pint at the bar, and then got on my way. At some point, I'm going have to head back there so I can really experience the place.

I pulled into Evansville right around dinner time, so we headed out to eat almost immediately. Our destination was Turoni's, a locally-owned brew pub and the only one in Evansville. People in southern Indiana must really love their craft beer with pizza because, again, this beer destination is also a pizzeria. We split a very tasty thin crust pizza and I tried their Wit's Up and their IPA. Both were very good, but nothing amazing. I don't think it was on tap while we were there, but courtesy of the tap swap for Indiana Beer Week, you can try Turoni's Helles Bock at The Ram starting Monday, July 14th. Like all Indiana breweries, they'll also be at the Microbrewers Festival.

The next night, we went out to the other must-try Evansville beer stop, Gerst Bavarian Haus. Think Rathskeller, except with more taps, fewer bottles and a much smaller outdoor seating area. The menu features standard (and delicious) German fare and an excellent selection of beers. I went with "Frank Hefe" which I'm assuming was Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse. Very tasty, though I still have to go with Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier when I've got a hankering for real German hefe. For dessert I decided to go with what they told me was a Schlafly Milk Stout. It was very good, with a strong chocolate presence up front and a nice creamy finish. The thing is, I can't find any mention of the existence of a Schlafly Milk Stout anywhere. It was definitely brewed with lactose -- the non-fermentable sugar that's the hallmark of milk stouts -- but the milkiness wasn't as strong as Left Hand Milk Stout, the only major milk stout I know of. I wish I knew what it was so I could recommend it!

All in all, a very fun weekend trip and of course, it was wonderful to see my wife after being apart over a week. All the beer stops I mentioned are highly recommended!

(I also recovered my camera, which accidentally made the trip down to Evansville, so you can expect to see photo features return this week.)

Bike Life: Indiana BikePort

I had to head into downtown yesterday to do some shopping and decided that it would be a good time to try my first bike ride in downtown. One problem: I didn't know where I could park my bike. I've never had a reason to look for bike racks in downtown before, though I'm pretty sure there's one at the mall entrance by the Artsgarden.

I went to google to see if I could figure out where racks are located and came across a service called Indiana BikePort, which provides bike lockers that can be rented. Currently, use of the service is free, though a $5.95 membership is required. The webpage indicates that fees are likely to be charged for a rental sometime later this year, though they don't say how much that might be.

There are currently three locations where you can rent a BikePort in Indianapolis: the National Institute for Fitness and Sport (12 ports), the Indiana Government Center (three locations with 8, 8 and 10 ports), and the Merchants Garage in the center of downtown (8 ports). Yesterday, there were just a couple ports available at each location around 4pm, though today the vast majority of spaces are available. Bike commuters must keep their eye on the weather!

I decided to give it a shot last night and bought a membership. I was a little sketchy about how the service worked, so I decided to go to one of the Goverment Center spaces where at least I knew exactly where the ports would be located. The service is actually surprisingly easy. There are little windows on the ports so you can see if they are occupied (at 6pm, they were all unoccupied). Once you find an open port, you use your cell phone to call the BikePort service. The automated system asks you to enter your member number and then the number of the port you'd like to use and then it gives you a five digit code. You enter that code on a pad on the end of the bank of ports and -- VOILA! -- the port is unlocked for you.

The ports are diagonally shaped, which requires your back wheel to go in first with space for your handbars in front. This shape allows one port to access from the front and another port to access from the back. There are also hooks to hang up your gear inside.

I did my rounds around downtown and in the process located the ports in the Merchants Garage (the garage just to the north of the Hard Rock). The ports are directly on the other side of the the security and elevator area of the garage. If you go through the pedestrian doors, you turn right just as you enter the parking area. If you enter in the vehicle lanes, turn immediately left. A word of warning: only four ports are at ground level. To save space, the ports are double-stacked so the other four will require lifting your bike.

After I was done, I went back to the Government Center and did the same procedure to unlock the port. The process is very simple and I plan to make use of this service quite a bit, though I'll probably go to the Merchants Garage the next time. Highly recommended!

Bike Life: The Commute

Some would probably laugh at me, calling my home to work travel a commute. More like a pleasure trip. Google maps says it's 0.6 miles and 4 minutes:
0.6 miles in 4 minutes is about 9mph, which is the equivalent of a pretty leisurely biking pace. I've experimented the last couple of days to come up with the best way to get to work by bike. I tried just riding a couple of my typical car routes and they're pretty terrible. I'm assuming this is fairly typical of city streets, but you can barely get up to speed before you've got to stop at an intersection. And there are quite a few big, busy streets on my route that aren't all that hospitable to bike riding or crossing.

I also tried taking the canal from my complex down past the museums and then riding up Blackford to Michigan (where my building is). That's a longer route but it cuts down street crossings to one: Blackford at New York, which is pretty manageable. Unfortunately, the canal is essentially worthless for biking. There are several choke points that are barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Even a single person makes it almost impossible to ride past them. And even in wide areas, pedestrians typically walk as wide as possible, taking up the whole walkway. Yesterday, I encountered a summer camp group and had to simply get off my bike and walk through the group. Scratch that option.

For now, I think it's going to be walking. On foot, I can take an "as the crow flies" route that's actually very short and fast:
When you factor in the time to cross all the streets with a bike as well as parking and locking up the bike, it barely takes any more time to walk this route. I'll save the bike for my longer trips.

Bike Life: One Month Without A Car

Starting today -- and proceeding for the next 23 days -- I will be embarking on a little experiment: living in downtown Indianapolis without a car. As some of you know, my wife is enrolled at IU Medical School and she has just begun her third year. Third year is defined by "rotations" in which students are exposed to the many different medical fields, typically for about 4 weeks per rotation. My wife's first rotation is "family medicine" which happens to be one of the few rotations where "they" can randomly decide to ship you around the state. In her case, she's going to see what life in southern Indiana is like, stationed at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville.

The kicker here is that we share a single car. Sharing is made possible by the fact that I work on IUPUI campus so we're able to commute to campus together (or walk during nice weather). Unfortunately, with her stationed in Evansville, that one car has to go with her. That leaves just a few options for me: buy another car (NO), rent a car for a month, or try to make a go of life without a car. I'm frugal, I live less than half a mile from where I work, and I like a challenge, so I chose to buy a bike and go completely car-less.

So, for the next couple weeks I'll be using the "Bike Life" topic area to keep you appraised of how things are going. You can expect to see updates about where I've biked, how shopping at a grocery store works when you've only got a bike to bring things home, what it's like trying to ride on city streets, etc. This should be quite an adventure -- if nothing else, I should be in much better shape at the end! Wish me luck!