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Showing posts from November 24, 2013

76 year old man performing bicycle tricks

Groningen: The World's Cycling City

Groningen: The World's Cycling City from Streetfilms on Vimeo .

Ninja Suit- The Best Long Underwear on the Planet @airblaster

Ninja Suit- The Best Long Underwear on the Planet from Airblaster on Vimeo .

MK1 - Tilt-action cargobike from Butchers & Bicycles, Copenhagen

MK1 - Tilt-action cargobike from Butchers & Bicycles, Copenhagen from Butchers & Bicycles, Copenhagen on Vimeo .

Morph Wheels - new collapsible wheel design for wheelchairs

Mythbusting: Exposing Half-Truths That Support Automobile Dependency | @planetizen

Some commentators recently expressed outraged that governments spend money on cycling improvements. Examples include Christopher Cadwell’s  Drivers Get Rolled: Bicyclists Are Making Unreasonable Claims To The Road—And Winning , in the Weekly Standard , and Bob Poole’s  A U.S. Bicycle Route System?  in  Surface Transportation Innovations #121 . You could call them  cycling critics , because they assume that bicyclists have inferior rights to use public roads and cycling facility investments are wasteful and unfair, or call them automobile dependency advocates  because their general message is that transportation planning should focus on facilitating automobile travel, with little or no consideration for other modes. Their arguments are largely wrong, I’ll call them "half-truths" to be charitable, presented with great certitude and self-righteous anger. These articles are published in ideologically-oriented periodicals for readers who share their prejudices, so they make lit

Carolynn Upper Whoops

Carolynn Upper Whoops from Dennis Yuroshek on Vimeo .

2013 Dirty Dozen Links

  Gene Nacey's Livestream Webcast on DD day Facebook DD News Feed Head Marshal Chris Helbling's Garmin map of the route Pennsylvania Magazine article by Sarah McCluan WESA fm radio Liz Reid's article West Virginia Gazette article by Rick Steelhammer 2013 Dirty Dozen t-shirts & posters for sale When I (Danny Chew) get to the top of each hill, we will wait for about 10 minutes until the majority of the riders reach the top, and then (on my word) we will ride neutral to the next hill, where I will blow my whistle to signal the start. Please allow the car points scorers Kevin & Carol are driving to get through the pack so that they can get to the next hill before the riders do. Realistically, only about 50 riders are strong/fast enough to get points, so I would appreciate it if the majority of the other riders don't fight for the front of the pack at the bottom of each hill. The old 3rd hill - Berryhill Rd. is out this year because it is clo

The Procrastinator's Guide to Winter Bicycle Commuting | The Atlantic Cities

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Officially, the first day of winter is Dec. 21. Unofficially, it's damn cold outside, the sky is dark by 5 p.m., and spending more than five minutes on my bicycle turns my nose into a snot fountain. Winter is coming, and I am not prepared. Truthfully, I've never been prepared to bike in what passes for winter where I live, in Washington, D.C. By late October, I start riding to work with socks on my hands. By November, I'm layering a sweat shirt and a shapeless leather jacket from JCPenney. Biking at all between December and March has, in past years, meant sacrificing my dignity for warmth. And that's if I decide to bike through the cold. (The last two winters, I let my tires go flat. Such fail.)   But this year, I've told myself, is going to be different. It can be different for you, too. [Keep reading at The Atlantic Cities]

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling: Why It's Bad | momentummag.com

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Photo courtesy of Copenhagenize Design Co. One of my main focuses has always been on how Copenhagen has succeeded in increasing cycling levels by approaching the subject using mainstream marketing techniques. When subcultural groups start trying to indoctrinate and convert the public, it rarely ever succeeds. With winter’s impending arrival, all manner of “how to cycle in the winter” guides are slapped up all over the place. Year after year, the subcultures put on their professor hats and look down their noses at the general population while they attempt to “teach” people how to be just like them. You know the type – real cyclists. [Keep reading at momentummag.com]

AMERICA'S BEST BIKE SHOPS | NBDA

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The National Bicycle Dealers Association (NBDA) launched a new program at Interbike 2012 that rates bicycle stores in North America against the highest performance levels in the industry, with the goal of identifying and promoting “America’s Best Bike Shops.” The program defines the characteristics of “America’s Best Bike Shops,” and uses the results to lead bicycle shops to become the best they can be.  It rewards the top performing participants for their achievements by providing recognition to consumers and the bicycle industry. An on-line application asked shop owners to explain what sets them apart from the competition, how they develop customer loyalty, and what they are doing to make their corner of the globe more bicycle friendly.  Participating stores that receive the highest scores on the application were visited by a mystery shopper who rated the store on appearance, web site and customer service both in person and over the phone. Congratulations to these retailers wh

Happy Thanksgiving to all! #letsride

We wish everybody a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! Forget Black Friday and make it Bike Friday! #letsride

New Fatality Data Shows Transportation Spending Doesn't Match Transportation Reality | Rails to Trails

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The release of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA)  annual report on traffic fatalities  made the news last week for one significant reason: for the first time since 2005 the number of people killed on U.S. roads increased - up 3.3 percent from 2011. What does this mean for those of us who walk or bike for our daily transportation needs? The NHTSA data finds that pedestrians and bicyclists accounted for nearly a  third of the increase in deaths (327 out of 1082) over 2011. This is the third straight year that walking fatalities have increased and the second for biking. And the increase has been particularly marked in the past 12 months - up 6.5 percent for people walking and 6.4 percent for people riding bikes. It is troubling to see that not enough is being done to protect those of us who walk and bike for our mobility needs. In an effort to better understand what these numbers tell us about broader transportation patterns, we took a closer look a

The Safest Suburb In The World Did It By Ending The Culture Of Cars | FastCompany

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The difference between this Dutch city and most North American commuter towns is that it actually makes good on its promise of safety, security, and good health. What happens when you build mobility systems entirely around safety? I found out the morning I arrived in Houten, a design experiment set amid the soggy pastures of the Dutch lowlands. I stepped off the train, eyes blurry with an Amsterdam-size hangover, and found a bustling downtown without a car in sight--just throngs of white-haired senior citizens wheeling past on bicycles, their baskets loaded with shopping. I was greeted at Houten’s city hall by the mild-mannered traffic director, Herbert Tiemens, who insisted that we go for a ride. He led me down Houten’s main road, which was not actually a road but a winding path through what looked like a golf course or a soft-edged set from Teletubbies: all lawns and ponds and manicured shrubs. Not a car in sight. We rolled past an elementary school and kindergarten just as the l

Weinland Park and Milo Grogan Public Infrastructure Improvement Projects Meeting

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Community Leaders and Area Stakeholders: Please join the city of Columbus on December 12  to learn about plans for  Weinland Park and Milo Grogan Public Infrastructure Improvement Projects  in 2013-2015. Representatives from the  Department of Public Service  and its consultants will be on hand to give a presentation, answer questions and share plans and tentative schedules for the following projects: Weinland Park Community Mobility Plan, Phase s  1 , 2 and 3 Weinland Park, Phase 3A, 5 th  Avenue between 4 th  Street and Grant Avenue Weinland Park, Phase 3B, 11 th  Avenue water lines and alleys Weinland Park, Phase 3B, 11 th  Avenue roadway NCR – Milo Grogan – 5 th  Avenue and Cleveland Avenue ODOT Urban Paving US-23 – Summit Street and North Fourth Street Thursday, December 12, 2013 Schoenbaum Family Center 175 E. 7 th  Avenue 4:00 p.m. Thanks, and we hope to see you at the meeting. RSVP not necessary STEVEN CORDETTI Public Relations Spe

LACON DE CATALONIA - Andreu Lacondeguy

The Ikea Of Bikes Is Ready To Ship | FastCompany

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THE MUCH-TOUTED SELF-ASSEMBLED SANDWICHBIKE STARTS SHIPPING DECEMBER 1. With bicycle culture and craft in ascendance, bike fever has spread past the artisanal frame builders and fixie fanatics to infest the every man. To wit: the fall launch of the  Sandwichbike  ( anticipated by us  earlier this year) by Bastens Leijh’s Dutch design studio,  Bleijh Industrial . Leijh set out to prove that there are legitimate new ways to approach bicycle design and put it in the hands of the consumer. “Having designed for several large bike brands, we concluded that the bicycle industry is a very rigid one, where the usual patterns of design, production, distribution, and sales are deeply ingrained,” says Leijh. “The Sandwichbike was created to show that it’s possible to create a perfectly functioning bicycle by a different approach: made from different material, put together differently, produced differently, and distributed differently.” Read on at FastCompany

Going Up: Dirty Dozen Bike Race Rides Again This Weekend | 90.5 WESA

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Enlarge image Credit Ryan Loew / 90.5 WESA Pete Buryk, 32, of Mt. Lebanon, will compete in the Dirty Dozen race this weekend. Photographed at the top of the city's steepest paved street — Canton Avenue — this will be Buryk's first time competing in the event. "It seems cliche," he said, "but it's the ultimate bike challenge around here." One of Pittsburgh’s most popular bicycling events turns 30 years old this Saturday. The  Dirty Dozen  bike race challenges cyclists to climb the 13 steepest hills in the city. The 50-mile route takes riders from Highland Park, through the North Hills and the North side, across the Roberto Clemente and Smithfield Street bridges, through the South Hills and the South Side, ending in Hazelwood. Danny Chew founded the race in 1983 with his brother Tom and their friend Bob Gottlieb. Chew said that first year, only five people rode the race, including Gottlieb and the Chew brothers. [Keep reading at 90.5 W

In War for Same-Day Delivery, Racing Madly to Go Last Mile | NY Times

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There’s a hot new job in tech: delivery guy. As the holiday shopping season gets underway, same-day delivery has become a new battleground for e-commerce. For all the sophisticated algorithms and proprietary logistics software involved, many services come down to someone like Fermin Andujar, who finds himself racing to a store, scanning the aisles for the requested items, buying them and rushing them to the customer. According to  eBay ’s job description, he is a “valet,” dispatched on Manhattan streets as a personal shopper on a bicycle or in other cities in a car. The app for  eBay Now , the company’s local shopping service, promises that valets will complete a shop-and-drop-off not just in the same day but “in about an hour,” a timetable crucial to the company’s intensifying efforts to one-up  Amazon  in the delivery game. It wasn’t so long ago that overnight delivery seemed amazing enough. Then Amazon started building huge warehouses — what it calls “fulfillment

Won't Back Down: The Steve Peat Story Pre Release Trailer

Won't Back Down: The Steve Peat Story Pre Release Trailer from Clay Porter on Vimeo .

HED Fat Boy carbon fat tire bike rim

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  - Hed is building all Fat Bike rims in house. - We will not be selling stand alone rims - Dealers may supply hubs. - The dealer will need to call 651 653 0202 for a RA number. Hed isn't responsible for lost hubs that are sent without a RA number. Please don't send the skewers. Allow 2-3 weeks for turn around.   Hubs need to be 135mm front and at least 170 mm rear. 190mm hubs in the rear will work as well. Shipping address: Hed Cycling  4643 Chatsworth St. N. Shoreview, MN 55126   Yo Momma rim weight: 480 grams Yo Momma build kit weight: 166 grams Yo Momma width - 85mm wide   [HED]

Cyclocross biker FAIL

Fly Bikes Coastin

Grand jury: traffic tickets suffice in case of dead cyclist Trish Cunningham | Washington Post

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Morgan Cunningham, daughter of Trish Cunningham, leads cyclists to the place where her mother died (file photo). (Marvin Joseph/Washington Post) An Anne Arundel County grand jury on Friday decided that traffic tickets — and not criminal charges — were the appropriate punishment for Whitney Decesaris, the driver of a minivan who overtook a bicyclist going uphill on a narrow two-lane road and slammed into her. “The grand jury determined that there was no probable cause to charge the driver with Criminally Negligent Manslaughter, which would have required a finding that she drove in a manner that was a gross deviation of the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances,” said a six-paragraph statement issued by the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s office. “As a result of the grand jury’s decision, the Anne Arundel County police will issue negligent driving and related traffic offenses to the driver by citation.” The four traffic citations

Chris King launches wheel sets

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From their site: We are now shipping our in-house built wheelsets. These exquisite road, cyclocross, and mountain wheels are built using our legendary Chris King hubs laced with Sapim spokes to specifically selected rims from a pedigreed list of manufacturers that include ENVE, HED, and Stan's. Each hand built wheel is finely tuned to the standards of precision that have been a hallmark of Chris King manufacturing since 1976. Wheels are available in the full array of Chris King anodized colors and each pair of precision wheels will ship to your favorite bike shop in 14 days or less. Carbon wheelsets come standard with ceramic bearings while our aluminum rimmed offerings feature our legendary steel bearings. We are now shipping a wide selection of Stan's equipped mountain wheelsets including our Alloy Ride Trail, Allow Ride All Mountain, and our HED equipped road wheelsets including our Alloy Race Climb, Alloy Race Cross and Alloy Ride. By mid-December we will be shippi

Cateye Nima

The road to recovery: First-person account following reporter’s bike accident | Dispatch

I don’t remember a thing about my near-fatal bike accident on Sunday, Nov. 3. That’s a good thing, my brain’s way of protecting me from some really bad memories. Thank you brain. NOTE: The rest of the blog post may be behind a paywall, if you have a subscription to The Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/11/25/the-road-to-recovery.html

Seven Ways of Looking at a Bicycle | Pedal Love

A toy for kids or some sport for the very skinny athletes. That's what I used to think bicycling was, until I found myself as a car-less college student who was sick of taking two buses to travel four miles. I bought a used road bike from another student and found so much more. Nowadays, I hear a lot of, "Oh it's just going to get stolen." or "It's just so unsafe. Plus you get so sweaty!" But to me, it is so much more. Lately all I have been hearing from friends is about how bikes, (1) will get stolen, (2) are unsafe, (3) will get you too sweaty etc. And the thing is, those are all true and possible! (But a laptop or iPhone can get stolen, lost.. can be unsafe when used while driving too!) I wanted to counter those with my musings and meditations on what biking every day has given me in spite of those 3 realities: [See them at Pedal Love]

Bike bullies: Turn off those blinking lights! | Crosscut.com

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SOME CYCLISTS LOAD UP ON LIGHTS LIKE SURVIVALISTS STOCKPILING GUNS. The scariest thing about biking at night  in Seattle isn’t the cellphone-jabbering SUV drivers or the bone-crunching potholes. It isn’t the slick mats of rain-sodden leaves waiting to turn unwary riders into convalescing ex-riders. It isn’t even the wheel-grabbing, rider-flipping streetcar tracks misplaced in the curb lanes on Westlake Avenue. It’s other cyclists — specifically, their high-powered, strobing and flashing headlights, shine straight into the eyes of motorists and other cyclists, transfixing them with disco-ball distraction. The effect is at its worst on Lake Washington Boulevard S. and the Burke Gilman Trail, two narrow and often unilluminated routes where cyclists going in opposite directions meet nearly head-on. But you can encounter the powerful, pulsing glares just about anywhere. And we are talking powerful. A standard halogen  automobile headlight  emits 700 lumens of light on low beam a

Why I loathe other cyclists | Express

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TERRORS ON THE ROAD: Cyclists are by far the most unpredictable road users [GETTY] However I’ve found that the main feeling I experience as a cyclist is hatred. I hate pedestrians who don’t look before stepping out, I hate car drivers who don’t signal, I hate buses that pull into my cycle lane with no notice and I hate the sound of an HGV revving to overtake me. Most of all, though, I hate other cyclists. Cyclists are by far the most unpredictable road users out there and every day I see fellow riders doing things that are crazy, not to mention illegal. It’s time we took ownership of our safety. During the height of the summer I yearn for the long nights of winter. The least experienced and most reckless cyclists go into hibernation, leaving the more grizzled riders to brave the dark trip home. This year the drop in numbers seems less pronounced. More cyclists have stayed on the road and many have failed to kit themselves or their bikes out properly. [Keep reading at Express]

Bike lockers could start occupying San Francisco parking spaces | SF Examiner

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COURTESY CYCLEHOOP.COM San Francisco is looking at installing communal bike lockers such as these currently being used in London. The City is considering ways to curb bicycle thefts and boost cycling. San Francisco could become the first major city in the U.S. to install collective residential bicycle lockers in parking spaces, with plans being considered for Nob Hill, Hayes Valley, Inner Sunset and other neighborhoods. That’s one of a number of recommendations in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Strategy for Long Term Bicycle Parking study completed this month. These kinds of bike lockers are in use in European cities such as London and Rotterdam, Netherlands. [Keep reading at SF Examiner]

Carrying a Deer on a bike

Experimental lane caters to drivers and cyclists | KTVU.com

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OAKLAND, Calif. —  A stretch of green roadway that extends less than a mile down 40th street near the Macarthur BART Station has some drivers confused. Many told KTVU they weren’t sure what the roadway was for or who it’s for. "I don't know what to do," said Dove Thompson of Oakland. This motorist mystery is actually an experiment that started in September.  The five-foot wide green stripe simply designates that the lane is open to both bicycles and automobiles. Many cyclists say they like it because it gives them more room than the more typical narrow bike lane. "The problem with that, as a cyclist, you are constantly in a car's blind spot when you are to the right or left of a car. So the idea is on a busy thorough like this you are out in the middle of traffic," said Cameron Stephens. [Keep reading at KTVU.com]