I got a very interesting call from Sobeys today.

I noticed a call from the Sydney Sobeys on my Call Display when I got home. I asked my life partner about it; she said that a guy had called looking for me and he said he’d call my cell phone. So, I checked my cell phone voice mail (I keep it off during the day). It was a message from Assistant Manager Terry MacLeod asking me to give him a call; so I did. He tells me he got my E-mail. Not sure what to expect, I polarize the hull plating, preparing for the worst.

I was not prepared for what happened next.

He started by asking me who I was speaking to. Puzzled, I explained that the gentleman who I spoke to identified himself as “Terry MacLeod.” “That’s me,” says the gentleman. “The thing is, it was not me you spoke to.”

As it turns out, Mr. MacLeod was at his son’s guitar recital on Saturday afternoon; he was not in the store that day. The gentleman I spoke to was, in fact, the bakery manager, not the assistant store manager. The thing was, when I went over to him, I asked him specifically for his name, not the name of a manager. He said “Terry MacLeod;” that was absolutely clear.

I felt bad for Mr. MacLeod. When he arrived at work today, he had an E-mail in his inbox from the President of Sobeys Atlantic asking him to explain what happened on Saturday. The poor guy didn’t even know about the whole thing until he got there today.

He also said something else that caught my ear; his exact words were: “Bringing bicycles in is no problem.”

It wasn’t bad enough that the guy I spoke to didn’t even have the honor and decency to give me his real name but now, to top it off he was doing exactly what I suspected all along: making up a policy on the spot to intimidate me. Mr. MacLeod was very clear on the matter: Sobeys has no written policy whatsoever on bicycles and, in fact, provided you don’t ride them inside, Mr. MacLeod has no problem whatsoever with bringing a bicycle into the store.

Mr. MacLeod asked me to come down and see him in person so, next time, if someone ever tries to claim to be him, I’ll know. I went to see him a couple of hours ago. He was totally apologetic promising he will address the gentleman I spoke to tomorrow (I’d love to be a fly on that wall ;)) and let me know the results of that meeting. In the meantime, to make up for my inconvenience, he presented me with a $25.00 Sobeys Gift Card.

In the end, I wheeled my bicycle right past that security guard who initially approached me and turned into the store to go pick up a jar of pesto.

Sometimes it seems, it pays to speak up. 🙂

High tech, young, pretty, low footprint and green

I profiled local bike commuter Nina Simon today on Commute By Bike. I first noticed Nina a couple of months ago as she rode into town from the woods and past my home to the bus stop. She always wears a bright yellow vest with red LED blinking lights built into the vest. I labeled this cyclist “the yellow vest girl.”

Somewhat later I was at the local climbing gym in Santa Cruz. Nina was there climbing the wall. I didn’t make the connection between this climber and “yellow vest girl” though, but I clearly remember thinking that this climber must be a cyclist because she has cyclist legs.

As I sat to eat lunch this climber joined me and asks if I ride my bike and take the bus to San Jose during the week. The climber turns out to be “yellow vest girl.” She’s 20-something, attractive with curly brown hair, very fit, and a wonderful poster child for the future of our nation and world. Nina and her husband live off-grid using photovoltaic panels, car batteries, and RV appliances.

She’s a big change from the usual crazy, backwoods off-grid people I know. Many are grizzled and highly opinionated retired engineers, and a lot are also borderline isolationist misfits who forgot about personal hygiene, especially in the Happy Valley area where Nina lives. Nina, on the other hand, invites kids to use her bike powered blender to make smoothies. She’s a wonderful conversationalist. She doesn’t dress like a bum, nor does she smell like one (even after a hard session at the climbing gym). If you read her blog you’ll see she’s a good communicator.

Nina speaks with the tempo and language of an east coast urbanite, so I was taken aback when she started talking about some aspects of her off-grid living, especially the composting toilet. “Oh,” I asked, “what kind of composting toilet to you have?” I envisioned something fancy, high tech, expensive and European when she answered matter of factly, “We just use buckets and some hay.”

Nina and her husband are both very involved in high technology, but it’s wonderful to see younger adults making choices to dramatically lower their footprint. She’s not a crazy activist with an axe to grind; she’s just somebody who’s made some choices about what’s important. Meeting Nina makes me hopeful for the future of the United States.

While Canada and much of the northern half of the USA have had sub- sub- sub- sub-freezing temperatures, I’ve been having to suffer through drizzly rain all week in California. Here’s the news and oddball stuff from around the world of bicycle blogs.

Warren found this unusual unicycle.

Amgen Tour of California adopts “adopt the most comprehensive anti-doping protocol in cycling history.” Donna doesn’t like it and rants about it.

USA Cycling nominates Olympic cycling team members for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Citizen Rider: Work backward from the results you want.

This is messed up: East German citizen dug through old Stasi (DDR secret police) files and discovered an agent purposely let air out of her bicycle tires while she went shopping. “If I had told anyone at the time that the Stasi was giving me flat tires, they would have laughed at me,” she says. “It was a way to discredit people, make them seem crazy. I doubted my own sanity sometimes.” Read more.

Another wonderful piece on cycling history from Dave Moulton: Gino Bartli, the cyclist who saved Italy.

Integrated fork light. Cool stuff.

Some of my utility cyclist friends like to brag about their heavy clunker bikes and think that roadies who ride a hundred miles at a time on their lightweight bikes are sissies, wussies, weaklings, cheaters and worse.

After meeting Max this last weekend, I have to agree. I mean look a this guy on his wimp bike on the summit of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California.

Max is 60-something years old and rode his bike from his home near sea level up Panoramic Drive with its 8% grade to the summit of Mount Tamalpais at 2,600 above sea level. This guy is truly a weakling — he uses gears (14 of them on his Rohloff hub) and kits up in the bike athlete outfit in a lame attempt to be like Lance Armstrong. A Real Man would clearly ride a half mile straight up the side of a mountain on the heaviest rustbucket he can find. He would wear heavy jeans, a cotton sweatshirt, and hiking boots to maximize the effort.

In case you can’t tell, I’m just a little bit sarcastic. I appreciate all types of bikes, but to dis the the sport I love and the athletes who partake of it — even the weekend warriors — is just ridiculous and makes the armchair commentators just sound like fools.

Confidential to Wild: I meant to call, but I forgot to bring your number. Next time!