James Longhurst

@jameslonghurst

college professor in the U.S. Midwest (all views mine); author of "Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the American Road" / "Las Batallas de la Bici." Shop intern, historian of urban and environmental policy, gravel grinder.

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James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· 27d

50 miles early to avoid the heat

an empty back road with no painted stripes flanked by overgrown green trees and a lone cyclist. the sun is hilariously bright

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· 28d

my institution's IT help desk has a mac museum set up in the corner, and I owned many, many of these computers in their day. that Bondi Blue imac. clamshell macbook. the Mac Plus (they don't have an SE30 wth?) The apple II Powerbook G3? a 170 with the trackball? is that an eMac?

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· 29d

Chamberlain SD

A very large metal statue of a Native American woman standing 30 feet (?) tall holding a decorated blanket behind her

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 10

crudely hand-lettered sign on a wooden board on a fence in a field says STOP in a hand-drawn red stop sign, then Your GPS is Wrong! and then gives directions to the actual road 3/10 of a mile further on. The field behind is green.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 10

70 miles of flat, but the bikepacking trip had to be cancelled due to equipment failure (dropped a cell phone)

a loaded bike with many bags attached in the shade near a borad, greenish clear river

a terrible phone camera photo of a beautiful osprey from below, showing the typical white and brown V markings. the sky is very blue

a fully loaded bike leans against a red british phone box which is inexplicably located on the main street in a small town in rural Montana

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 6

Ride with me.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 6

Another recon ride, 50 miles and ~3k feet of climbing. Getting closer to executing the plan.

Photo capturing a set of bicycle handlebars wrapped in black grip tape in the foreground with a shot down a steep mountain side filled with green pine trees over a distant valley

A bicycle leans against a yellow warning sign standing in a green meadow backed by pine trees and blue sky. The sign in black block letters reads “BURNED AREA
FLASH FLOODS
FALLEN TREES
ROCK AND DEBRIS”

A sweeping blue sky over a gravel road and spindly burned tree trunks overlooking a distant valley far below

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 3

Ride with me.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 3

Here it is, your moment of zen.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 3

Recon ride only 34 miles long, but more than half mile vertical? 3,091 feet of climbing, to look back down over the valley.

A photo between two pine trees looks down over a distant valley. The sky is dark blue, the trees emerald green, and the distant fields are a lighter green

A rugged valley with streaming sunlight and a distant Rocky Mountain

A view over a distant valley over the handlebars of a bicycle

A distant mountain framed over a drop bar bicycle.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 2

Short shakedown ride last night under threatening skies

A bicycle held awkwardly on a dirt road in Montana

A bicycle leans against a bridge piling on the placid but high bitterroot river in Montana, under gray skies

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 2

if those are snakes and worms, what are these then? archive slugs? archive flounders?

a photo from University Products showing lead weights in a fabric liner holding down a newspaper

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jul 2

Life … uh …. finds a way.

A parking lot is striped with white paint, but a tree leaf fell on the ground before it was spray painted, so there is a perfect stencil of the leaf remaining

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 29

duality of man

Screenshot of two comments under a video about electric restoration of a classic VW automobile reads “TalkingCities:
Great candidate for electrification

Mark Volfenko:
electrification of classic cars it's heresy”

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 27

A distant relative, a wheelwright by trade. It’s 1879, he’s gone to a professional photo studio and posed for a photo in his work clothes. And this is absolutely a thirst trap, that man is flexing in his leather work apron and undershirt. Just shameless, leave some for the rest of us buddy.

A sepia toned photograph in a gray paper frame

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 27

You are now leaving the decade of the 1990s,

a photograph of a warning sticker on an inexpensive bicycle frame painted the color of a yellow highlighter reads “NEON COLORS may fade”

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 26

This is an ad on Tik Tok? Using “early 2000s” / childhood nostalgia? To target millennials and sell them uncrustables. That’s all, I just wanted to point that out.

Screenshot of a low res photo of a young woman at home in comfortable clothes and the text says “POV: It's early 2000s
Your babysitter picks you up from school. She gives you an UNCRUSTABLES® sandwich, then leaves to dial up the internet. You sit & watch daytime talk shows until Mom comes home. After dinner, you burn a new CD & listen to it until you fall asleep.
Life is good.”

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 25

No, that's not right, not for any edition of R.C.L. that I know of. Volume 13 has "H" terms in it, yes, but it's a ~1.5K page volume with multiple editions, and page 252 is NOT about homicide in any edition I have access to. Why are you stating something so specific, so wrong, so confidently?

a screenshot of "• Al Overview" response to a google search reads:
"The citation 13 R. C. L., 252 refers to Volume 13 of Ruling Case Law, a prominent historical legal encyclopedia. Specifically, page 252 discusses aspects of homicide-typically the classification or legal thresholds of murder in the first and second degrees."

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 25

Due to the … unique… way that my brain has been wired, trucks with this paint job on the lift gate read as “Teaching Assistant Coma” to me.

A silver gray Toyota Tacoma parked on a leafy residential street has a paint job that fills the letters of the name with blue stars only for the first two letters and red and white stripes for the last four, making COMA stand out

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 24

50 miles of road biking with a brisk pace line

A fairly boring photo of a wide dirty river — the Mississippi— with blue skies and puffy white clouds

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 23

I am getting *yelled at* because this ranking puts La Crosse over **MADISON** as well as Eau Claire

a spreadsheet result ranks cities in Wisconsin by bike ability

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 22

I wonder what the badger flavor brat tastes like

A hand written list of brat flavors on a whiteboard at a SURPTISE Wisconsin butcher shop includes bacon Mac n cheese, badger, beer, butter garlic, German (with or without cheese), honey bbq, jalapeño, Korean bbq, mango habanero, mushroom Swiss, original.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 21

I don’t know guys, I’m at the reflecting pool and … it looks okay actually? Pretty green but that’s probably due to agricultural runoff. Lots of fauna. Ducks seem happy. I think I saw a beaver?

A wetland on the edge of a city surrounded by greenery and wildflowers. A green scum covers the top. The sky is overcast.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 21

Gravel Nats course looking good

White fluffy clouds in a deep blue sky over emerald green fields and a light tan gravel road shot over a bright ruby red truck hood with reflections of the sky

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 20

☠️

An owners manual for a bicycle handlebar bag shows a strap hanging down in a way that could catch in the front wheel. There’s no writing, just a drawing of a skull and crossbones

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 17

Professor Longhurst grades your locking, pop quiz hotshot edition: one of these is an A, one is an D. Which is which, and why?

A black mountain bike locked to a rack in an urban area; this is the A grade, as the front wheel is locked to frame and post by accessory cable lock, and rear tire is locked to rack and frame with a u lock

An electric blue bike is not actually locked to a rack with a u lock, it look like it’s locked but it’s not. The quick release front wheel can be removed then the front fork slipped out of the u lock, leaving only the lock attached to the rack. This is a D; the only thing that saves it from an F is it’s the right kind of lock and rack, just used incorrectly

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 16

so anyway Close Encounters of the Third Kind is on Criterion Channel, and I think that the two farmhouse scenes are the best and purest distillation of everything Speilberg was doing. Especially in the first farmhouse sequence, every image leads to the next image. Each cut is motivated.

Barry -- maybe he's three or four -- sits up in bed in the middle of the night, as wind comes in the curtains.

the famous shot from the second farmhouse scene, when Barry throws open the front door and is silhouetted in brilliant orange light

Barry is looking at someone whom the camera never cuts to, but the audience knows that he is seeing an alien in his kitchen

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 15

Here it is your moment of zen

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 15

50 miles of easy gravel

A light tan gravel road takes up most of the perspective heading arrow straight to a far away horizon of scattered fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. Deep emerald fields converge on either side. A cyclist in a green jersey is in the right.

James Longhurst@jameslonghurst· Jun 14

seven-mile loop on a perfectly calm Mississippi last night, with perfect weather and (somehow) no mosquitos? how is that possible?