bus + bike + me = eep!

Does anyone have any advice for a gal who's going to take her bike on the bus for the first time?

I am a frequent public transit rider (I buy the month pass!) and moreover a frequent bus rider, but never in my years of riding Metro and the CTA have I ever taken my bike on a bus. Like many of my colleagues who've never ridden a bus before are intimidated by the prospect of doing so, I've never taken my bike on the bus before, and the idea kind of intimidates me. I've taken it on Metrolink and the El, but that's pretty foolproof--you just wheel right on to the train car, and there's plenty of room. The hardest thing in that situation is not falling down or letting your bike fall. But when it comes to taking my bike on the bus, I picture myself standing there fumbling with the bike rack and trying to hoist my sloppily-painted hot pink bike up into it, while a busfull of impatient, late-to-work people watches silently, cursing me in their minds (at which point I drop the bike, probably onto myself).

What an optimistic image, no?

I'm starting a new job, and after extensive perusal of the various relevant bus schedules, it looks like it would really be to my advantage to bike to the bus, and then take the bus to work. And as a non-driver, taking my bike on the bus is a skill that would greatly improve my ability to get around anyway.

So, some time this week I'm gonna do a practice run or two, so I know what to expect before I've got a whole busload of people waiting on me at rush hour.

Any advice for me?

Good news for Penrose Park and for bicyclists

From today's St. Louis Post-Disptach comes a good story:

Local bicyclists get wheels turning to restore Penrose Park velodrome

The long-abandoned velodrome in Penrose Park will probably reopen next year due to the efforts of dedicated cyclists, bringing more people through one of north city's most revitalized neighborhoods. No credit goes to the self-defeating Parks Department, whose officials still think that there are too many parks in the city for its current population, when in truth there is about enough for today's population and certainly not enough for the St. Louis peak population of 856,000.