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Showing posts from November 4, 2012

Alex McAndrew - Through The Fall on Pinkbike

Alex McAndrew - Through The Fall on Pinkbike

Sparse Bicycle Lights [Kickstarter]

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We call it the Spacer Light since it sits beneath your stem in the stack of spacers. [The light fits both 1" and 1 1/8" steer tubes]. This integration makes it extremely difficult to steal. Indeed if someone is stealing the light, they have already stolen your bars, brakes, shifters, and stem. This integration also keeps the light pointed in your path of travel, visibly seated above the shoulder line of cars, and generally out of harm's way.  The source of illumination in the Spacer Light is a 3 Watt white LED.The output comes to 130-220 Lumens depending on how you measure it. (Lumens are a bit of a bogus measurement - don't get us started)  It is bright. The Spacer Light has 3 modes, On, Off, and Blink. The 'On' state is bright enough to light your path ahead. The motion of the 'Blink' State makes you very visible to anyone on or near the roadway. [more at Kickstarter]

Macho Man from All-City Cycles [Gear Junkie]

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The Macho Man from All City Cycles We tested a mid-range ride in this category, the  Macho Man model from All-City Cycles , which goes at $1,595 for a complete build. A steel frame with thoughtful details is the heart of this bike — touches like hidden fender mounts, reinforced bottle bosses, retro paint job, and an All-City badge make it unique. Cables routed on the top tube keep everything out of the mud and spray. Components include Shimano’s new top-pull, cyclocross specific derailleur, the CX70. There’s a solid, straight steel fork, Shimano 105  STI  shifters and 105 rear derailleur, a Salsa handlebar and stem, and  FSA  seatpost and cranks. The complete build comes with Tektro R720 brakes, Alex Race 24 rims, and tires from Continental, the brand’s Cyclocross Race 700 X 35c model. [Continue at Gear Junkie]

This DIY Traffic Counter Could Change Everything About Transportation Planning [Atlantic]

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TrafficCOM Sha Thanks to Nate Silver, the results of Tuesday’s elections are being widely viewed as an affirmation of data wonkery, proof that non-ideological number crunching leads to solid analysis of real-time situations. But the question remains: How do we get more of this good data? Not just about politics, but about the real-world problems that politics are supposed to solve? Those are the kinds of questions that preoccupy people like Aurash Khawarzad, a New York-based urban planner with his own studio,  Change Administration , and Ted Ullrich, an engineer and industrial designer at  Tomorrow Lab . Together, they've come up with a lightweight, inexpensive solution for one of the most pressing data-collection needs in the urban portfolio: traffic frequency and speed. (Full disclosure: Khawarzad is a former co-worker of mine.) The little orange gizmo with a tube attached is called  TrafficCOM  (that’s COM for “community” and “computer”), and it allows users to measure

Building a Rivendell-inspired Surly Long Haul Trucker

October 2012 Surly 62cm Long Haul Trucker F&F Chris King 1 1/8 NoThreadset headset SKF BAS-600 JIS 110mm Bottom Bracket Shimano XT M772 Shadow 9sp Rear Mech Shimano XT M771 Conventional 9sp Front Mech Shimano HG61 9 Speed Cassette 12-36 Sugino XD-2 175mm Crank, Triple 46x36x24 9 Spd Shimano Dura Ace SL-BS77 Bar End Gear Levers MKS Sylvan Touring Pedals SRAM PC 971 Chain 9 Speed Tektro CR720 Cantilever Brakes + Kool Stop Salmon pads Shimano BL-R400 brake levers Tektro Adjustable Front Cantilever Hanger SRAM Slickwire Brake Cable Kit Velo Orange 26.0/100mm Threadless Stem, +/-6 Rise Newbaum Handlebar tape Nitto Noodle Mod 177 44cm handlebars Nitto SP72 'Jaguar' seat post Brooks B-17 Champion Special Honey Shimano 36H Deore XT (FH/HB T780) hubs on Exal LX17 rims. Wheels built by David C. R. Hunt. 700 x 35C Schwalbe Marathon Supreme folding tyres SKS P45 Mudguards Nitto M12 front rack Wald 137 basket Carradice Nelson Longflap saddle bag Velo Orange

Option for 2013: BikeShare rides [Dispatch]

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Enlarge Image By   Lydia Coutré The Columbus Dispatch   Friday November 9, 2012 6:23 AM Many restaurants, shops and attractions sit just out of reach for Downtown workers and residents: too far to walk, but not far enough to make driving and parking worth it. BikeShare is the answer, said Alan McKnight, director of the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department. The city council approved a nearly $2.3 million contract with Alta Bicycle Share on Monday. With the swipe of a credit card, users who are at least 18 years old will be able to rent a three-speed bicycle starting in May. Visitors can tour the city and locals can ride to lunch across town, and then drop off the bike at another spot. “I think as Columbus has looked at making the city a very bike-friendly town, as we’ve looked at green initiatives, it’s one that fits into all of those models,” McKnight said. [Keep reading at Dispatch]

What The Hell is a BOB?

Originally, BOB was an acronym for "Bridgestone Owner's Bunch". It was started by Grant Petersen, American marketing Director for the Bridgestone bicycle company, based in Japan. He wrote the advertisements for the company, and they were a bit unusual by including very little or any marketing hype. Instead, Grant took the effort to explain why the bicycles he helped design were good. He did this without puffery and without running down the competition. They were...thoughtful...advertisements. Thought-provoking. Cyclists who took the time to read and ponder them almost always found something of value. Sometimes, that led to purchasing a Bridgestone bicycle. The Bridgestone bicycles Grant helped design were also unusual in bucking fashionable cycling trends. His felt bicycles should remain functional and high in value. Part of that value came from selecting parts and components that worked reliably, were repairable, and were proven. This philosophy was controversial, a

Cycle [Fight]

The Power of Bicycles in Disaster Recovery [Atlantic]

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Sarah Goodyear in hare n em We rolled out from the Bicycle Habitat store on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn just after 10 in the morning on Tuesday, an admittedly ragtag assortment of about 40 people on bicycles loaded down with donations headed for Far Rockaway in Queens. We were pedaling panniers full of flashlights, backpacks jam-packed with diapers and wipes, and bike boxes stuffed with blankets and coats, all of them collected at the Brooklyn and Manhattan locations of the store over the previous week. As we made our way through the dense traffic of Flatbush Avenue, still several miles from the devastation on the Rockaway Peninsula, many people hollered out words of thanks and encouragement. Some smiled and shook their heads in disbelief. Some laughed. I could understand why they might be skeptical. After all, we were headed out to a scene where the debris filled an entire parking lot at Jacob Riis Park. Acres and acres of it, hoed into neat rows by Department of Sanitation veh

3rd Annual Fall Adventurefest [Cycle Detours]

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As the paved trail turned to gravel, I remembered why I was doing this in the first place. Having questioned the time off, the money I was spending, the week of pay I was missing, remembering how important it is to get off the beaten path reminded me well. My own pace, my own style. Just me, my bike, and a fishin pole. Talk and feel of rain all day kept me headed to the campsite, not wanting to set up in the rain. There, I fished for smallmouth while standing in the Kokosing River. The people running the campground, beer in hand, delivered firewood to my campsite free of charge, and told me I was going to get rained out. After a night of pouring rain, I woke up in better spirits than expected. Off to Amish country, trails I expected to be paved were mud, and the simple life I expected to find was simply religion. Coming across puddles on the trail and Amish electric bikes costing more than my modest machine made me start the deep thought part of the trip. The Amish I talked to had

THE DOPERS WHO DIDN'T [Outside]

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Adam Myerson racing in Europe.  Photo:  E. Dronkert It all started on Twitter.  Adam Myerson , a relatively unknown pro with a modest 4,704 followers, decided to tell a story. He couldn’t stop thinking about doping—not in the wake of Tyler Hamilton’s  recent book . And certainly not after Jonathan Vaughters  outed  Tom Danielson, Christian Vande Velde, and David Zabriskie—three of his own riders—for past doping. “If you spend 20 to 30 hours a week alone, you need to turn the headphones up loud if you want to quiet the voices in your head,” he says. In particular, he just couldn’t fathom how  Tom Danielson  came to use performance-enhancing drugs. Before the release of the Lance Armstrong dossier, it appeared that Danielson had started doping prior to meeting the seven-time Tour de France winner. Unlike with the other riders, the Postal Team wasn’t necessarily to blame. It appeared that he “came to it through his ‘support network,’ the people who were supposed to be

Australian cyclist numbers - how do helmets affect cycling

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[See more cycle-helmets.com]

Welcome to the future of bicycle technology. ERW©

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Welcome to the future of bicycle technology. ERW© The benefits of removing the air from tires completely has been known since the beginning. ERW© Patented Airless Design make bicycling safer and more efficient. Obstacles slide under the ERW© wheels with precision and ideal comfort, and keeping the tread on the tire. Our design can be created to have fully adjustable tread ride comfort, road or trail conditions.  The future is rolling forward, hitch a ride. Pop on over to  http://www.energyreturnwheel.com  for more info on all of our patents and how to invest in this cutting edge technological breakthrough and become a pioneer of the airless revolution. We are looking forward to licensing our patents, gaining friends and investors, as well as building partnerships. We are also looking forward to to hearing from you!

Bicycles key for Portland disaster response

Bicycles could play a key role in disaster relief and aid should a major earthquake or other disaster hit Portland.   view full article

SoBi: Social Bicycle - a cheaper bike share solution

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Social Bicycles Demo from Social Bicycles on Vimeo . SoBi's industrial designers, engineers, and software developers are working together to build the world's first bicycle with an on-board computer, mobile communications, and an integrated GPS-enabled lock. This disruptive product and the supporting mobile and web applications will create a flexible, scalable, and affordable bike sharing system. Our solution will be approximately 1/4th the cost of station-based bike sharing, allowing systems to be deployed in a  wide range of settings . Ryan Rzepecki Founder Ryan has a B.S. in Marketing from Penn State University and a Masters in Urban Planning from Hunter College. The bicycle has been his primary mode of transportation for the last four years, and bicycle advocacy has been both his passion and profession. Prior to developing SoBi, Ryan worked for the NYC Department of Transportation in the bicycle program. At the DOT, he sited bike racks, edited the bike map,

OKC bicycling get a boost from the creation of special bike lanes and expansion of downtown’s bike-share program. [OK Gazette]

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Oklahoma City has begun work creating the first street lanes that will be shared between bicycles and cars. That development comes amid an expansion of the city’s downtown bike-share program. Credit: Mark Hancock The city is planning for more than 200 miles of bike routes, which includes so-called “sharrow” lanes. The word “sharrow” is a combination of “share” and “arrow.” The lanes are designated by pavement markings showing a picture of a bicycle below two arrows. The bike routes will be added in phases. The first phase includes Eastern Avenue, South Villa Avenue and Interstate 235 and Interstate 35 service roads north of 63rd Street, in addition to downtown streets. In total, the first phase is expected to create 90 miles of bike routes. Funded by a 2007 general obligation bond, the improvements are expected to cost around $362,000 to install. “It’s a way to encourage cyclists and notify drivers that this is a prime bicyclist route; you should expect to see bicycl

WIN FREE TICKETS to the Infamous Stringdusters

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WIN FREE TICKETS to the Infamous Stringdusters show Thursday, November 15, 2012! Just follow these instructions: 1. "LIKE" and invite your friends to "LIKE" the WCBE Facebook page at:  https://www.facebook.com/WCBE90.5?ref=ts&fref=ts 2. O nce you have "LIKED" WCBE, post "Infamous Stringdusters" on the WCBE page, including 2 tags...@WCBE and the other @Yay Bikes! 3. On Mon., Nov 12, WCBE will select 1 winner to be awarded their prize! 4. Don't forget to "LIKE" Yay Bikes! on Facebook because they are partnering with WCBE for the contest! https://www.facebook.com/yaybikes614

Legless F1 driver masters handcycling [CNN]

Grey Ghost

Grey Ghost from About Her Films on Vimeo . This is my last piece shot in 2010 and the first to share in 2011. It features my good friend, Amy, who never tires of letting me put my camera in her face. Song is 10 Mile Stereo by Beach House.

Carver Bikes TRANS-Fat - Full suspension fat bike

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New for 2013, Carver Bikes has taken the Fat Bike to a new level with the introduction of the TRANS-Fat full suspension Fat Bike.   The TRANS-Fat started as a custom project for a customer and evolved into a production frame option.   The TRANS-Fat features 4 inches of rear wheel travel with clearance for 5.0" fat-bike tires.   The production frame can be specified with either a Fox or X-Fusion rear shock.   Constructed of 3/2.5 Aerospace grade seamless titanium throughout, our 18" frame weighed in at 5.75 lbs.  (without a shock)   The production frames will include 3 sets of water bottle bosses, Rack mounts and 8 serviceable cartridge bearing pivots. A full suspension fat-bike isn't for everyone, but those who try the TRANS-Fat have a hard time getting it out of their system... 4" Rear Wheel Travel Frame Weight 5.75 lbs. (18" size) 3/2.5 Seamless Aerospace Ti 31.6mm seatpost size Clearance for 5" + tires 44mm Ovalized Downtube 3 Sets of Water

Cat-Ears

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The original Cat-Ears (patents pending) provide excellent wind - ear noise reduction (~60%). Simply wrap around the leading helmet strap and attach using the hook and loop Velcro strips. Made from approximately 1/3 inch pile faux fur material (outside) and high quality Polartec 300 Shearling material (inside), Cat-Ears significantly reduce both ear and strap wind noise. Cat-Ears fit virtually all helmets and are easily adjustable for optimal noise reduction. Only available in black. Shearling Material Inside -  1/3" Pile Faux Fur Outside -  Can Be Adjusted While Riding -  Significantly Reduces Wind Noise -  Semi-Sticky Inside to Grip the Strap [Cat-Ears]

UNBOXED & WEIGHED: DASH CYCLES’ 111 GRAM STRIKE 9 ROAD BIKE SADDLE [Bike Rumor]

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Yes, the title of the post gives away the weight. What it doesn’t tell you is that Dash Cycles built this one up with their reinforced, heavier duty layup. And it’s still just 111g. With padding. Dash Cycles  builds their saddles by hand in Colorado, and the Strike 9 is  the latest addition  to an extensive lineup. You can order them to your liking, picking among various colors for the cover, logo and rails, as well as the amount of padding. They have three different layups depending on body weight, with limits up to 100kg (220lbs). The claimed weight for the standard layup and padding is 115g. Our test model, with the heavier layup, tipped in at just 111g. So, it’s wicked light, but how ’bout that design? The secret to getting their saddles so light is that they’re made as one piece. [Keep reading at Bike Rumor]

Dancing on the pedals

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ECOXPOWER

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Ultra Bright LED White Headlight 2 Rear LED Red Lights Built-in Rechargeable Battery Power Jack & Cable Connection powers & recharges the lighting system for your bicycle & charges Smartphone or GPS Device Device mount designed to fit & attach to hub of front wheel Allen Key (included) adjusts mount for oversized wheel hub Headlight can be turned ON/OFF from the handlebar mounted wired remote control (included) on your bicycle Water resistant EVA touchscreen case (included) mounts on your bicycle’s handlebars to hold your Smartphone or gps Device for use & to charge with the USB converter cable [More at ECOXGEAR]

Rockmill Brewery Ride Recap 11042012

Highlights Started/ended at Cyclist Connection 8 riders Mike, Roger, Tim, Mitzy, Katie, Brian, Cherie, me (6 of us rode the full route, Katie rode 40 and got a ride home, Mitzy rode down to meet us at the brewery and rode with us back to CC.) 52.5 miles [I averaged 12mph] 2759 ft climbing Rest stop at Rockmill Brewery - sampled their beverages Stopped at Rockmill to check out the restoration efforts