Dubstep Santa on Tron Bike | Merry Christmas
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The Heartbreaking Creation of a Ghost Bike @outsidemagazine
The bicycle was black before it was white. It lay on the pavement behind Alan Nakagawa’s house in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. An English-style cruiser, it had fenders, a swept-back handlebar, and a wide leather seat. Nakagawa and two friends, Isaiah and Julio, got busy, pulling off the tubes and tires, disassembling the brakes, sanding the frame. Nakagawa is an artist who primarily works with sound, but on this evening his medium was paint—two cans of white Krylon ColorMaster. He painted the chain guard and then the frame. He waved the can to coat the fork, the handlebar, the saddle, the fenders, and the chain. Finally, Nakagawa painted the rims and the spokes and the pedals. It was after dark now, and the bike was done, leaning against a couple of sawhorses, gleaming and wet. [Keep reading at Outside Magazine]
Montreal Cyclists Say a Bike Commute Is the Best Way to Go @nextcityorg
Even on cold days, cyclists reported a better commute in a recent study at McGill University. (Photo by Francis Bourgouin via Flickr) Add this to the list of reasons cities might consider designing for and promoting bicycle commuting : Compared to other travel modes, cyclists have the greatest odds of showing up to work or school energized and punctual. That’s according to data from a 2013 survey at McGill University, which researchers used to compare the punctuality and energy level at work of students, staff and faculty who commute by bus, car or bike. [Keep reading at NextCity]
Your (Just a Bit Illegal) Cheat Sheet for Hacking Safer Streets @WIRED
A month-long protected bikeway project in Rogers, Arkansas. The urban planning design firm Street Plans Collaborative worked with local governments and groups to protect cyclists using hard, plastic barriers called "armadillos," durable chalk, and traffic tape. STREET PLANS AS FAR AS monikers go, “guerrilla urbanist” invokes an exotic, even frightening image. But the members of the San Francisco Municipal Transformation Agency have nice families. They met on Twitter. And they often get to work in the middle of the day. Yes, they stray into illegal territory from time to time. But for these folks, “crime” involves using traffic cones or plastic bollards to protect bike lanes from cars without proper permitting. These men and women, who came together after vehicles killed two cyclists in San Francisco on the same day last June, are no masked vigilantes. They just want pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly infrastructure, and they’re willing to make it the...
Madrid's Christmas Present to Itself: A Car Ban @CityLab
Cyclists look at Alcala Street, which was free of cars as part of European Mobility Week in central Madrid. (Andrea Comas/Reuters) Madrid just gave its citizens a present for the holidays. The city closed the entire city center to most cars, turning the urban core into a de facto pedestrian zone . Starting last Friday at 5 p.m. and continuing for nine days, vehicles belonging to non-residents are banned from entering a zone covering Madrid’s historic core as well as Gran Via, the blaring, multi-lane avenue that serves as the Spanish capital’s main drag and as a major through-route for crosstown traffic. Buses, cabs and residents’ cars will still be crawling the streets, although restricted to a specially lowered 30 kmh (18 mph) speed limit. The otherwise blanket ban in the throbbing, vehicle-packed heart of a major metropolis is one of the boldest anti-car plans seen in Europe so far. To get a loose idea of the scale in American terms, imagine banning all cars in M...
