Your Peak. Trailer on Vimeo. [via velosport]

Urban cyclist’s survival guide

Some great tips on tricksome: Rules to cycle and live by.

The Road to PBP

Forgot to mention this when Paris-Brest-Paris was on, but a highly recommended read is Raymond Parker’s series of posts on his road to PBP—I couldn’t get enough of this story.

Woodcrafty

Masterworks’ functioning wooden bike takes craftsmanship to next level [Thanks tom]

Questionable taste

What do you think of the Playmobil ambulance with hit-and-run victim toy set? via BikingInLA

I thought it might have been a clever fake, but no: it’s real.

Bark!

Says tom, “I hope I have a video camera ready when I see the first person try this” technique for dealing with aggressive dogs.

Share the lurve

Spinlister:

Spinlister is a bike rental marketplace that allows you to find a great bike to rent or list your bike to earn cash (or hopefully both!). We think biking is the best way to get around and explore…Spinlister takes all the best bikes available for rent, whether from bike shops or individuals, and puts them all in one place.

[twitterer]

“Melbourne’s troubled bike-share scheme”

“Melbourne’s troubled bike-share scheme has been pushed into the suburbs in a bid to boost its poor numbers” according to Melbourne’s little paper and by “suburbs” they mean “Port Melbourne, Richmond and South Melbourne”. Dude, to most people in Melbourne that’s still inner city.

At any rate, that sounds more like some bike stations are being redeployed to logical places where they should have been in the first place, not a concerted push into the suburbs.

Bike Shaped Objects: ugly, bad…good?

Are BSOs bad for business? makes a similar point to that which I made about cheap bikes at Aldi.

Cycling vs ADHD

Article in Bicycling Magazine, Riding is My Ritalin asks, “Did we put a generation of potential Tour de France riders on Ritalin instead of giving them bikes?”

Video bonanza

• If you ever wondered why randonneurs do it, take a look at this Seattle Randonneurs Trailer. [twitterer]
• Another cool bike ad by Hutchinson (even if I don’t quite believe what they’re offering).
• A terrific video via VeloTroll about a cross-country stage race—is it cyclocross, MTB orienteering, or rough-road randonneuring?
• I’m sexy and I know it.
• 3 year bike tour in 3 minutes!
• Gorgeous aerial video on Vimeo.
• The world has changed. You can too. [via PUT THE FUN BETWEEN YOUR LEGS]
• BOND bicycle with ejector seat and flamethrower [Thanks tom]
• A professional display of 50 No Handed Bike Moves performed to “Golden Tree” by Martin Brooks.

Herne Hill velodrome

guardian.co.uk: “London’s last remaining venue from the 1948 Olympics is to be restored to its former glory following an energetic renovation campaign from local residents and cycling fans”.

We are traffic—just not this sort of traffic

WSJ.com on why traffic jams are bad for your health:

As roadways choke on traffic, researchers suspect that the tailpipe exhaust from cars and trucks—especially tiny carbon particles already implicated in heart disease, cancer and respiratory ailments—may also injure brain cells and synapses key to learning and memory.

Oh, goody!

Laidback

• Mi recumbent
• Clip de una recumbent argentina
• Classy recumbent

And remember, if you diss recumbents apparently this is what you get.

Cyclist = bum?

Lovely Bicycle!:

Okay, so I’ve basically been told – albeit in the friendliest way – that I was either a bum or a woman of leisure if I had the time to travel by bike.

[twitterer]

Too true

How to true a bicycle wheel on a home-made stand. A very practical video.

Bloggage

• 449 km
• Hipster Nascar

Going soft?

Are you going soft? A’ME Heated Grips will be right up your alley. twitterer

HTFU!

Jahvahaah: not enough cool to go around.

The best route to road safety: don’t drive

Professor Hank Weiss, director of the Injury Prevention Research Unit at New Zealand’s University of Otago, aregues that the best route to youth road safety is not driving:

They call for deep change in road safety instead of the old paradigm of focusing in on trying to make people safe while they drive more. We should think about the more holistic approach, and think about the safety that stems from driving less, and about the multiple benefits across society from driving less…

I’m talking about active transport as a safety measure…The more you drive, the more you’re at risk…There’s a multiple flow-on effect from reduction in vehicle miles traveled in terms of safety.

Logical really: reduce your exposure, reduce your risk.

Put down that damn phone

Meanwhile road.cc on How to make the roads safer? Turn off those mobiles:

As cyclists we all know that mobile-phone-using drivers are a dangerous nuisance, and here’s the proof. UAE newspaper The National reports that during the recent outage in the Blackberry network, which affected email, internet and messaging services for users of the popular smartphone, accidents fell by 20% in Dubai and 40% in Abu Dhabi.

Evolution of speed

New Scientist: Cars have evolved to go faster – but humans haven’t

Car buffs more likely to be aggressive drivers. In other news, grass green, sky blue [twitterer]

Speed cameras work

Yes, speed cameras work, now shut the hell up.

Active transport FTW!

NPR.org on the secret to a long, healthy life: bike to the store:

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin were wondering if getting people out of their cars just a wee bit would create measurable improvements in health…They found that if the Midwesterners ran half of their short-distance errands by bike rather than by car, 1,100 deaths would be avoided each year, and $7 billion would be saved in reduced health-care costs. The trips were 2.5 miles one way; less than a 25-minute bike ride, the researchers figure.

Meanwhile, research out of Lund University finds that car and public transport commuters report poorer health than bicycle and pedestrian commuters.

Ridiculous!

Kim Harding: say no to ridiculous car trips, while Karl McCracken and Carlton Reid trade ideas on how to increase the proportion of short trips made by bike.

Utility cycling discouraged

The Courier Mail reports on a video campaign to axe mandatory cyclist helmet law. [twitterer]

So, what is wrong with bicycle helmets? [Thanks tom]

Car-free livin’

msnbc.com lists the best cities to live car-free in America:

The majority of cities that are easy to maneuver on foot or by public access also have relatively large bicycle communities. For example, more people bike to work in a city like Portland, Ore., than in a city like San Antonio, Texas, which is not very pedestrian or bicyclist friendly. These cities tend to have an exceptional number of programs and bylaws for bicyclists. Seven of the cities on the 24/7 Wall St.’s list are also featured on Bicycling magazine’s list of the top 50 bike-friendly cities.

Urban design fail

The Washington Post asks Can we stop gas prices from squeezing the middle class? [twitterer]

Speaking of design failure, BikePortland.org on ODOT ready to install 29 new bikeway signs near I-5 bridge. [via Paul Johnson]

29 wayfinding signs required for one bridge?!? Sounds like a fundamental design fail to me.

Zombie bike apocalypse

Is America ready for the Zombie-bike-pocalypse? [twitterer]

The zombies are coming, I tell you!

More crap

The Melbourne Urbanist on more bikes are for creeps and losers crap. See also the discussion kicked-off by Richard Masoner.

Passing

Remember Ian Walker’s reseach on passing distances? Well the most ‘dubious’ of his findings, based on how feminine Dr Walker looks in a long wig, has been replicated in a report by Florida Department of Transportation [PDF]. Yes, female riders do generally get more passing space. [twitterer]

Keep calm

The Urban Country Bicycle Blog argues the topic traffic calming a waste of money? [twitterer]

Punter

Hobsons Bay Leader on getting a free punt on the Yarra. Yep, the Westgate punt is back.

It doesn’t happen overnight…

How the Dutch got their cycle paths [twitterer]

But “how did we lose our pedestrian-, bike- and transit-friendly cities so easily?” The answer, as always, is “politics”.

Bikes outsell cars: the illusion

Preventive Medicine: “Where have all the bicycles gone?” Are bicycle sales in Australia translated into health-enhancing levels of bicycle usage? [twitterer]

Unusually good

Here’s something unusual in the mainstream media: a generally positive cycling story with generally positive comments:

But it’s now clear the benefits of regular riding with mates go way beyond just keeping physically fit, allowing participants also to tap into the sort of social support network psychologists say is essential to good mental health. In fact, while cycling has long been labelled “the new golf”, increasingly it is also winning a reputation as “the new men’s shed”.

The Japanese way

Toyota proposes 250,000km of bicycle lanes across Japan over 5 years [twitterer]

The Russian way

Moscow builds it’s first cycle path—and it looks like they used Crap Cycle Lanes of Warrington as a reference guide.

But today’s incident was so laughable, so rich in irony, I only regret that I didn’t have a video camera to share it with you.

First I need to explain a little about the road where it happened: heading north-to-south on Elzabeth St in North Melbourne there are two traffic lanes, and just before the Victoria St intersection the left lane splits into two left-turn lanes and the right-hand lane continues as the single through traffic lane (there is actually a second through traffic lane, but it’s separated by a traffic island). See this section of Google Maps to get the idea (note: left-hand rule of the road, if you’re not from around here).

I was riding a Bike Share blue bike and, as the traffic was pretty light, I was sure that I’d be of no inconvenience taking the inside lane while faster moving vehicles passed on the outside.

Apparently not.

My man came up behind honking and carrying on. I really couldn’t work out his problem—why didn’t he just go around? I was going straight ahead at Victoria St, so I changed over to the right-hand lane without a problem—why couldn’t he do the same?

He pulled up beside me at the traffic light, me in the right hand (through traffic) lane, he in the second left-hand turn lane. His window was down. Here we go…

Driver: What do you think you’re doing, holding up the traffic?

Me: [never believing I'd actually say this] Mate, I am traffic.

Driver: Well, what’s the bike lane for?

Me: [pointing out the obvious] Where is the bike lane here?

Driver: Well, ride on the footpath. [AKA sidewalk, if you're not from around here]

Me: It’s illegal for an adult to ride on the footpath.

I was in the middle of suggesting that if he was so ignorant of the road rules perhaps he should hand-in his license, when the the green turning arrow appeared and his line of traffic started moving, and he along with it. But then he pulled up at the intersection, even though the green arrow was still showing—thus holding up the row of traffic behind him!

I was already hooting with laughter and pouring derision on his driving ‘skill’ when the left turn light went red, the through traffic light changed to green and he leapt away from the line like a startled rabbit—going straight ahead. Yep, it turns out that he should have been in the right-hand, through traffic lane all the time—where he would have been if he’d just pulled his head in and gone around me in the first place.

Astonishing ignorance and stupidity, and he had the gall to abuse me for operating my vehicle completely legally and safely.

How then could I resist, a little further down the road, from ringing my bell and giving him a cheerful wave as I breezed past his car, stationary in a line of traffic? I mean, I was riding in the bike lane—just as he’d instructed me to.

Fat tyre!

Is Andy Schleck in yellow?

isandyinyellow.com/

Letter From Rwanda

Philip Gourevitch in The New Yorker on Team Rwanda.

Obesity

Over 60% Australian adults now overweight or obese, and yet the myth persists that exercise makes you eat more food and gain weight.

Work it out

Bike advocates often point out how much people can save by driving less, but their general numbers are tough to translate to a personal level. [Thanks tom]

Gadgets and gear

• GPS Systems For Bicycle Touring
• Stuff That Worked – Patagonia Torrentshell Jacket

Mapping a route to an alternative

Once the pace-setting for online bike route mapping, bikely.com has been a bit shaky of late and some users seem to be abandoning ship for other services. Leading alternatives appear to be:

• Ride With GPS
• Bike Route Toaster
• MapMyRIDE

We’d be happy to hear about other interesting options.

Design

tom selects:

• Parlee Cycles is building a bike that encapsulates the forward-thinking design ideas of the Toyota Prius
• Solar + Cross (e bike)
• Pedal Powered School Bus—not a lot of fun to pedal back to the depot when all of the kids have got off.

Take a tip

Urban Riding Tips—hilarious.

Tech + bike = share

Engadget:

SoBi interfaces with a mobile app, which lets you locate and unlock unreserved bikes around the city…The system implements a clever financial incentive to have bikes returned to strategically located hubs, charging a fee for users who prefer to leave bikes elsewhere, then offering the same amount as a credit for riders who rent that bike and return it to a hub.

[Thanks tom]

In other cities

New York

Jason Gay at WSJ.com:

That’s the beauty of a bike, a simple machine with two wheels and zero ideology. When you can turn a pedal and feel safe, it’s fun and makes sense.

And anyone can ride. There have been cheesy distortions of cycling as a trendy, elite activity—to link bike paths to ongoing gentrification, and claim the city is catering to a hipster fringe.

You want to see what a fraud that argument is? Get on a bike and ride. For every Spandexed obsessive tucked on a $3,000 carbon fiber frame you’ll see 100 people of every imaginable background just trying to get to work, do their job, have fun with their kids, safely spin from A to B.

On the other hand, Christine Haughney at nytimes.com:

When Julie Hirschfeld opened a bicycle boutique for women, she envisioned fashion-obsessed customers with a disdain for spandex flooding in to buy bikes and accessories they would model along New York City’s paved catwalks: miles and miles of new bicycle paths…One year later, Ms. Hirschfeld has conceded that it takes more than fashion to get women on bikes…

Despite the city’s efforts to become more bike friendly, male cyclists in New York continue to outnumber female cyclists three to one, just as they have steadily over the past two decades. Data tracked by the city and private groups shows the gap between male and female cyclists is even wider in areas where vehicular traffic is more concentrated.

twitterer

Amsterdam

Peter Preston at guardian.co.uk

Cyclists rule in this city. Take a population of 780,000. Reckon that 75% of them over the age of 12 owns a bike, and that over half of them take a spin every day. Then look, in amazement, at the kit they wear (or rather, the kit they don’t wear). No lurid jackets or flashing lights. No protective pads, gloves or twiddly bits. And no helmets, either. Nobody wears a helmet.

Zurich

Elisabeth Rosenthal at NYTimes.com

“In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”

To that end, the municipal Traffic Planning Department here in Zurich has been working overtime in recent years to torment drivers. Closely spaced red lights have been added on roads into town, causing delays and angst for commuters…As he stood watching a few cars inch through a mass of bicycles and pedestrians, the city’s chief traffic planner, Andy Fellmann, smiled. “Driving is a stop-and-go experience,” he said. “That’s what we like! Our goal is to reconquer public space for pedestrians, not to make it easy for drivers.”

Plus a little note of reassurance for nervous Swanston St traders in Melbourne:

While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has generated controversy in New York by “pedestrianizing” a few areas like Times Square, many European cities have already closed vast areas to car traffic. Store owners in Zurich had worried that the closings would mean a drop in business, but that fear has proved unfounded, Mr. Fellmann said, because pedestrian traffic increased 30 to 40 percent where cars were banned.

Rotterdam

Orangemaster at 24 oranges:

The city of Rotterdam is currently looking into the possibility of giving people whose bikes were stolen a new bike — well no, ‘another’ bike, one that was ‘towed away’. Illegally parked bikes (yes, if you park it in the wrong place because the racks are too full or whatever, the city takes them away) are to be re-used and given to people who had their bikes stolen.

[Thanks tom]

Riding without headphones

Problem solved: I don’t wear headphones while I’m cycling.

Look around

xcmankan:

My advice to you is that when you’re out on your bike, as often as possible, look up from your Garmin, heart rate monitor and bike computer, and look around and enjoy. Maybe even leave technology at home?

Envy

• Fallen Leaves
• Northern Italy is beautiful for mountain biking. Highly recommended!
• A European super classic in the middle of northern province with the taste of ketchup.

Saddle

Are you sitting comfortably?

Beauty in Utility

Mike Rubbo’s upcoming exhibition: Nothing but bikes: Beauty in Utility. [twitterer]

Hack: bike appliances

• Bike-powered sewing machine [twitterer]
• Spincycle is a washing machine that can be powered by pedalling [Thanks tom]

Watch out for the lumberjack

Tree vandals and bike thieves [twitterer]

Tourture

Not sure why Skoda doesn’t seem to be playing its Tourture advert in Australia. It beats the one with the dude playing glasses of water. [twitterer]

Doing it tough

American David Zabriskie aims to compete in the world’s most grueling bike race—as a (near) vegan:

Experts say he is the first cyclist to attempt the most difficult bike race in the world sans meat, dairy or eggs. (He will cheat slightly, he says, because he plans to eat small amounts of salmon two days per week to increase iron absorption).

Whoa! Respect.

Ride big: claim the lane

Helping motorists with lane positioning:

When the cyclist is in the center of the lane, it’s immediately clear to the motorist that passing within the lane is impossible, so the driver changes lanes at the earliest opportunity.

With video demonstration.

So I’m not at all surprised that the pattern continues in 2011…

Three weeks ago I sustained a back injury (I know not how) which progressed to the point that two weeks ago I could barely stand or walk. I had a preview of my fast-approaching dotage, as the offspring fussed about helping me dress, tying my shoelaces, bringing me hot packs, and generally seeing to my needs. Fortunately I was able to feed myself and wipe my own bum, so a shred of dignity was retained.

Apart from the disappointment of being separated from my bike, I found the experience of being temporarily disabled gave me pause for reflection: how good my life is, how fragile and valuable is one’s health, and how very glad I am not to have debilitating chronic pain.

These ponderings were reinforced last week when, just as I was preparing to return to the saddle, I woke one morning to find that the back pain had returned.

Or so I thought…

By that afternoon I was in hospital having a few bracing shots of morphine pumped into me. You know how whenever you go to the Accident & Emergency Department there’s always some poor sod groaning behind a curtain? Last week, that was me. Who’d have thought that passing a few tiny kidney stones could be quite so excruciating?

So while I’m missing the fun and convenience of pedalling myself to work (certainly getting no comfort and joy from travelling with Metro-Bloody-Trains!) and I can feel my physical fitness draining away, I’m keeping things in perspective. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that…or some time soon, I’ll be throwing my leg over a bike again. And things could be a whole lot worse than that.

A man takes a ride with his best friend

Bike share done right

Streetfilms presents The Biggest, Baddest Bike-Share in the World: Hangzhou China.

A good problem to have

Amsterdam’s Unique Problem: A city with too many bicycles [twitterer]

Fuel for randonneurs?

While investigating possible uses for a batch of marshmallow that didn’t quite work out, I discovered the Flutternutter Sandwich “a calorie-laden sandwich made with two slices of bread layered with peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff, and sometimes along with the occasional banana”. My first reaction was to hold back the almost overwhelming urge to retch, but on second thoughts I began to wonder if this might become the new fuel of choice of the weary randonneur. Then I saw some actual pictures and my doubts returned.

Hello sailor!

@KarlOnSea thought he’d seen it all. Now he probably has.

‘ello ‘ello ‘ello

Carlton Reid reports on BikeBiz that “Zealous cops in London don’t know their transport law as they prevent woman carting her two kids on a cargobike”.

Meanwhile, ‪caseyneistat‬‏ gets booked for not riding in the bike lane, then proceeds to demonstrate why it’s often not safe to ride in the bike lane. [via Biking in Heels]

The Cannibal

Videos of Eddy Merckx in action.

All the answers

Some answers to just about any bike forum post I’ve ever read. Read of the week.

Consider this

Carlton Reid on travel time considerations by car or by bike.

Danger?

I looked at the The Seven Most Treacherous Paths In The World and thought, “Gee, the Sichuan-Tibet Highway looks like it would be a cool ride!”
[twitterer]

The numbers

From ‘The Vancouver Observer’: More bikers means fewer accidents.

Gear you need

How to get a pizza home on a bike.

Butt ugly

Securing bikes and other very portable but expensive stuff: is the answer to uglify?

DIY

• Bicycle Generator and USB Device Charger
• What the hell is sugru?
• Possibly the most complicated guide to making your own panniers [PDF]
• Helmet mounted LED light? – having it my way!
• Build a bicycle trailer and another approach

Want

Bike Light by Fraser Mort. OK, now I want one of these. [Thanks tom]

Explosion

@_rogers: Brilliant photo of an exploded Mercian bike (pre-assembly).

Small wheels

Another Brompton review: the M2L. Oooh, look a review of the Moulton TSR2 as well. However will I choose?

Bloggage

• Lovely Bicycle!
• Biking in Heels
• A Girl and Her Bike