Columbus Rides Bikes!

  More than a third of Montreal’s 400 miles of cycle lanes are segregated from cars. Photograph: Mathieu Lamarre/Vélo Québec When it comes to cycling Montreal has a few undeniable drawbacks. For a start, it’s hilly, the streets rising gradually from the riverside to  Mont Royal , a tree-lined peak which reaches eye level with the tops of the city centre skyscrapers. And then there’s the winter, with several months of snow and constant below-zero temperatures, leaving the roads rutted and cracked. But on a still-tepid morning in early summer the cyclists are nonetheless massing in the city’s Jeanne-Mance Park. Lots of them – about 30,000, in fact. Some are dressed in Lycra with lightweight road bikes, but the majority are wearing everyday clothes, many with children, either riding their own tiny machines or on one-wheeled add-ons to a parent’s bike, even toddlers strapped into trailers. It is the start of the  Tour de L’Île , an annual mass ride with routes of anything from 18

Sureride is a social platform for advancing cyclist-based commuting with a virtual support infrastructure. The platform is a connection to the cyclist community: a way to find help with accidents, emergencies, as well as encourage and reward commuters for diligence in safely using alternative transportation.

Is road cycling dangerous? What are the chances of being hit by a car while riding on the road? Can cyclists manage risk while riding in a shared bicycle/car environment? The perception is that road cycling is more dangerous today than a decade ago. And, that driver distraction and higher traffic volume have increased the risk and frequency of car/bike accidents. There is one problem with this perception:  The data does not support it.  In fact, there  is  data to suggest that road cycling is statistically  safer  today per rider than ten years ago if you compare the frequency of reported accidents to the rate of growth in road and triathlon cycling. [Keep reading at Tom Demerly]

Ford Motor Co. will test new car-sharing programs and foldable electric bikes inside its vehicles as it seeks new ways to adapt to global congestion and changing consumer attitudes... ...Sometimes, you just can’t get all the way to your destination by car. So Ford is also testing a “multi-modal” mobility solution called MoDe:Flex that includes a reconfigurable electric bike that charges while stored in the vehicle and an app that helps identify the most efficient and cost-effective mode of transportation for a trip. The MoDe:Link app, for example, might suggest you drive you car to the train station, ride the train to the city, then ride your bike the final mile to the office. It is also being adapted for a smartwatch, which is good, since you don’t want to arrive at the office all sweaty. Instead, you can set the watch to ”no sweat mode” which amps up the electric pedal assist based on your heart rate to ensure you don’t break a sweat on the way to your destination. It also hel

New Edge models claimed to be smallest GPS head units in the world Garmin Edge 25 – the world's smallest GPS bike computer  (Garmin) Garmin has announced its new Edge 20 and Edge 25 bike computers – the smallest GPS cycling computers in the world. Taking the title from Lezyne’s Mini GPS,  Garmin’s  new Edge 20 (£110) and Edge 25 (£140) head units are claimed to be the tiniest, and lightest, GPS-equipped models on the market, while still offering a full feature set. Garmin has come up with a handy video to outline the features, which can be seen below: The computers use GPS and GLONASS navigation satellites to give you data including speed, distance, location, time and total ascent.  Despite their diminutive sizes, Garmin has also squeezed in routing capability. Riders are able to follow downloaded routes, giving a line to follow without full mapping, but with turn indications. The Edge 25 also boasts ANT+ compatibility, allowing the addition of heart r

(Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images) The Pope, it turns out, is an urban planner. In a few paragraphs embedded in the middle of  his epic environmental encyclical published this week , he managed to tie together affordable housing, mass transit, parking, inequality, architecture, public space and segregation (perhaps no surprising feat given his startling facility in this same document connecting fossil fuels, solar panels, animal rights and recycling). The way we design communities, he argues — and this is basically the central tenet of urban planning — is vital to the kind of lives people experience within them. And so sprawling, car-dependent places force us to spend our lives unhappily idling in traffic. Expensive and overcrowded places rob residents of the dignity of having a good home. Great public spaces, by contrast, bring us together. [Read more at The Washington Post]

Introducing Free Ebooks from: http://www.bicycletraveler.bicyclingaroundtheworld.nl Bicycling Around The World The photo eBook ‘Bicycling Around The World’ follows photographer Paul Jeurissen and Grace Johnson’s multi-year cycle journey around the globe in search of inspiring bicycle culture and touring images. Download the eBook here Bike Touring Basics Just getting started with bicycle touring? Wondering what bike and gear to buy? Download this free 86-page eBook, fully updated in 2015 by TravellingTwo and Bicycle Traveler. Download the eBook here Food For Remote Areas Of Argentina en Chile The eBook ‘Food for remote areas of Argentina and Chile’ by Harriet and Neil Pike gives tips on provisioning for long periods in the wilderness and food lists for 8, 15, 17 and 21 day trips. Download the eBook here Bicycle Touring Photography - a quick guide to taking better pictures

Sheepshead Creek, Bitterroot Recommended Wilderness. Photo by Lance Pysher A few weeks ago, we published a piece about the contentious  ban on mountain biking in Wilderness areas . Dan Chu, the director of the Sierra Club’s, “Our Wild America” campaign, gave us the Sierra Club’s perspective on the issue. Here’s some additional food for thought on this complicated and thorny issue… Vernon Felton: So, where does the Sierra Club stand on the issue of mountain biking in wilderness areas? The Wilderness Act actually states no mechanized means of transport can be used within wilderness boundaries, which is why mountain biking is not allowed in official wilderness. However, I can say that the Sierra Club has been involved with the mountain bike community to try and find some consensus whenever that’s possible. Dan Chu: We try to step back and say, “What is the area we want to protect and how can we do that and still allow for different types of recreation?” There are a variety of co

The “Heads-Up Display” helmet designed by Future Cities Catapult Cyclist injuries and fatalities are high in London, where about half a million people use bikes as their key mode of transportation. In 2013, 14 cyclists died and 475 were seriously injured during bike journeys in Central London. To adapt to both the growing number of cycling commuters and the relentless car and foot traffic of the city, London-based  Future Cities Catapult  has designed a Google Glass-like helmet prototype that could help cyclists be more aware of their surroundings and highlight the safest routes in their travels. The idea is that cyclists could more easily navigate when one cycle path bleeds into another, giving riders data in real time rather than tasking them with memorizing a safe bike route through data on apps such as City Mapper. This kind of digital “soft infrastructure” seeks to take advantage of both modern technology and existing urban infrastructure. [Keep reading at Next City Org]

The 12th Avenue portion of Calgary's cycle track network pilot project  opened Tuesday morning , and many cyclists are thrilled that they are now able to safely breeze through the Beltline in their own dedicated lanes. 'Bicycle ambassadors' to help Calgarians navigate expanded cycle track "I loved it," cyclist Todd Crowther enthused. "It cut some time off my commute. It also made me feel just more relaxed. I'm not always looking over my shoulder for cars, that was the biggest thing." Marsha vandenEnden regularly rides her bike down 12th Avenue. She agrees the cycle track made her morning commute safer, believing it's about time Calgary invested in such infrastructure. "I think this is something that all cities should have and it's about time that Calgary's actually catching up," she said. [Keep reading at CBC News]

A century after the 1914 Giro d’Italia, Tim Moore retraced the 1,965-mile route on a gearless bike.   There are many sensible reasons the British travel writer and humorist Tim Moore cycled the 1914 route of the Giro d’Italia (the Tour of Italy) wearing antique woolen biking shorts held up by a safety pin, on a bike with wine corks for brakes, wooden rims, no gears and 100-year-old parts. To truly understand those reasons, though, it helps to be a cyclist. Because, after writing about the sport for the past decade, I’ve learned that cyclists know a thing or two about tackling daunting physical feats just to prove a point. (Like going out for a six-hour training ride because a five-hour ride simply won’t do.) And to understand Moore’s motivation, it might also help if you’re in the throes of a midlife crisis, as he was. You don’t, however, have to be into cycling to reap the benefits of “Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy” — which can be considered a follow

In Search Of The Storm from Untold on Vimeo .

Denver cyclists commute on one of the city’s annual Bike to Work days. (Photo by Jack Dempsey/Invision for goodnessknows/AP Images) The blame game in the cars vs. bikes war can get ugly. But accidents happen, as the saying goes, and as long as drivers and cyclists continue to share city streets, figuring out why they happen should be a public safety priority. One University of Colorado Denver researcher is looking into what causes bicyclists to break the rules of the road. Wesley Marshall, a professor of civil engineering, recently asked more than 17,000 people to complete what he called the  “Scofflaw Survey”  to figure out what makes them disregard traffic laws. “Not all bicyclists that break the law are these hooligans that are out to be sort of anti-society,” Marshall told  Colorado Public Radio.  “I think a lot of people do it for very practical reasons.” [Keep reading at Next City Org]

PVC Bike Rack Besides wood, PVC pipe has to be one of the best materials for building “makey” things. It seems there would be an infinite number of ways to build a bike rack from PVC pipe, and this double bike rack is a good place to start. This particular design could be expanded for more bikes, as the ideal number of bikes to own is, of course, the number you have plus one. Pallet Bike Rack If you don’t want to put a lot of effort into your bike rack, but have access to two wood pallets,  this rack might be for you . It is simply two pallets laid not-quite-perpendicular to each other. Given the amount of work that went into it, it appears quite functional! More at  http://makezine.com/2015/06/01/6-bike-storage-solutions-can-build-right-now/