Columbus Rides Bikes!

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Damascenes turn to bikes to avoid endless traffic jams and to save scarce fuel. Middle East Online Business has never been better DAMASCUS - Damascus bike shop owner Ali Jumaa is a happy man despite the civil war raging across Syria: with checkpoint-weary locals in the capital increasingly swapping their cars for bicycles, business has never been better. "Bike sales are exploding," he said with a big smile. Young Damascenes especially have turned to bikes en masse to avoid the endless traffic jams caused by hundreds of army checkpoints. Two and a half years into Syria's brutal war, the economy has taken a beating, with inflation soaring at 68 percent and scores of businessmen leaving the country. While the conflict has caused heavy losses for most businesses in Damascus, Jumaa, a trader in his 40s, is among the lucky ones. It's hard to miss his store, which sells bicycles of all types and colours as well as carrying out repairs. [Keep r...

Posted by   donnie We’re doing a series of guest posts by riders planning to tackle the Oregon Outback in May.  Look for a new post about every week or so.  Of note – Michael was involved in the creation of the OC&E Trail, which makes up the first 70 miles or so of the Outback route.  Enjoy! -Words and photos by  Michael McCullough . I am considering participating in the 2014  Oregon Outback bike tour . I love the concept – it is a 360 mile unsupported bike tour, most of which is on remote dirt roads (and trails) in the barely populated Eastern part of Oregon (commonly referred to as  Oregon’s Outback ). The best part is that the beginning of the ride, the first seventy five miles or so, is on the  OC&E Woods Line State Trail  - a 100 mile long Rails to Trails project that is a long, narrow Oregon State Park. [Keep reading at Velodirt]

For more than a decade Jeff Jones has been producing his 45-degree sweep bars. In that time, they have always been a multi-piece affair with the grip area welded to the crossbar. After many iterations, including some sold under the Titec brand, Jones has a new one-piece bar, the Bend H-bar. You do lose out on the multiple hand postions of the Loop bar, and it is available only in the 660mm width for now, no 710mm yet. Personally I find that alt-bars like this ride wider than a standard bend bar, so I’m happy on the 660s. Normally I feel weird on anything narrower than 720mm with standard bars. The best news about the Bend H-bar is the price. At $85 it is $35 cheaper than the Alumnum Loop bar and almost $300 less than the Ti version. It is also 170 grams lighter than the aluminum Loop bar. The longer extensions also play nicer with shifters for you non-singlespeeders. Also in the good news column, my Bar Mitts fit! I originally stopped using H-Bars on my commuter last wint...

Calgary's two-way protected bike lane last week. Photos: Tom Thivener, unless noted. For dozens of  newly built protected bike lanes  across North America, it's the season for one of their hardest tests: How are cities supposed to keep the damn things plowed? Though most people who never use them will never know it, many protected bike lanes are designed to a particular width not just for safe riding, but because they need to fit a maintenance vehicle. "We've put in a few projects that were narrower than a pickup truck, and those are the locations that just take forever to get plowed," Chicago transportation planner Mike Amsden said in an interview. Obviously that's not ideal, Amsden said, but it's the situation. [Keep reading at People for Bikes]

Made from the highest quality fabrics these socks last the test of your daily regime, cycling or running needs.  One Size Fits All 3M Reflective Washing Machine Approved Custom Designed Underfoot Venting Ankle Abrasion Protection 83% Cotton / 13% Polyester / 2% Spandex / 2% Rubber Reflective Material Cracks On First Wear [Order at Ice Cold NY]

Stop down to celebrate a great year of biking and wrap-up the "12 Days of Yay" with an evening of food, drink and camaraderie.  • Food and drink specials. • Pickup your 12 Days of Yay prize if you are a winner. • Enter the raffle for some great biking prizes. • Join Yay Bikes! and support bicycle advocacy in Columbus. • Pickup a set of pint glasses to support Yay Bikes! courtesy of  Hal & Al's . Not sure what Yay Bikes! is all about? Look for members in our red shirts and find out what we are doing to get people on bikes here in Columbus. RSVP here

Smart Wheel  is here to offer a brand new perspective on the invention know as the bicycle: it will make an end to needless effort spent on pedaling, to being tired all the time, to being afraid of having your bike stolen.  Smart Wheel  now turns a ride through busy streets into a gentle breeze and flattens the steep hills into the horizon so you can finally focus on the road ahead. Having a  Smart Wheel  on your bike means distances are now becoming shorter. By quickly replacing your old rear wheel with this minimalistic pedal assist you’re now able to turn virtually any bicycle into an electric powered one. Just start pedaling and the  Smart Wheel starts kicking in at speeds up to 25 mph. It can take you as far as 50 miles on a single charge which should be more than enough for your daily ride to work or school - and back! And in case you do run out of power you can always recharge it by riding downhill or pedaling on your own. With  Smart...

News comes as three friends took a Boris Bike up Mont Ventoux in France and got it back to the capital with 22 seconds to spare ADAM WITHNALL     Tuesday 17 December 2013 Boris Johnson’s London bike hire scheme has come in for a lot of criticism in recent months – but it’s hard to argue against the sheer sturdiness of the things after seeing this picture, which appears to show a Boris Bike that has made its way to The Gambia. The image was tweeted by Oxfam’s Campaigns and Policy Director Ben Phillips, who says he only found the photograph and doesn’t claim to know how the bike got there. If the bike was cycled the whole way to the West African country, it would have had to clock more than 3,500 miles via crossings of the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar. [Keep reading at The Independent]

Geared  is a 2-4 player bike building card game where players must race against each other to put together as many bikes as they can and be the first one to earn 1000 points. However, watch out for other players who may try to sabotage your bike builds by removing, stealing, or swapping your parts. Whether or not the parts are all the same level determines how much a build is worth. The higher the level of parts, the more points you could earn. You can focus on playing one Parts Card at a time, or you could build a matching bike in your hand and play a build combo to lay it all down at once. Once a build is complete, its Parts Cards can not be used again. This makes it important to complete a bike only when you know its Parts couldn't be used for a better build. In order to build the best bikes and earn the most points, you must be smart about when and how you lay parts down. Geared is designed for ages 12 and up and a typical game takes 20-30 minutes. Below i...

BORIS JOHNSON, London’s flamboyant mayor, has long been known for his cycling—continuing on his bike in defiance of traffic, other cyclists and tabloid photographers (pictured, right). But despite his best efforts, cycling in London remains a minority pursuit. Even after a decade of growth, still just 2.5% of people in London bike to work, according to the 2011 census. This, Mr Johnson thinks, is not good enough: “Our streets should be as famous for cycling”, he says, “and as popular with cyclists as the streets of Copenhagen or Amsterdam”. But why does cycling thrive in some cities and not others? [Keep reading at The Economist]

Even the mainstream media is getting in on this. "Need to move a mattress, a refrigerator, or a week's worth of groceries? Just throw them in the basket of your bike -- provided, of course, you've got a newfangled cargo bike, the 'SUV' of cycling. In Europe, cargo bikes are a common sight, having been around for 80 years or more. In the U.S., they're comparatively new and few. 'A niche of a niche,' cargo bike builder Lane Kagay calls them. Kagay hand-builds about nine of his CETMA-brand cargo bikes a week from a workshop in Venice, Calif." [Read more at abcnews.go.com]

EDITOR'S NOTE: I think this one in particular might be a good solution to some of the wide, one-way streets in Columbus, such as Spring, Long, 3rd, or 4th. 3.  Make the invisible visible . Clear sight lines can improve a street's safety significantly. Curbs lined with parked cars can make it hard for a turning vehicle to see what's in another part of the street. That problem can be addressed by removing some of the parking spaces closest to the corner — a process called "daylighting," which increases visibility considerably (so long as parking enforcement is strict). Curb extensions that bring pedestrians further into the street have a similar effect. See all the ideas at  http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2013/12/-and-after-guide-safer-streets/7867/