This little fella is better than a bike lock—he nearly took my arm off when we went to pat him!

Plane vs bike

Bicycles beat commercial airliner—was there ever any doubt?

Get a fix

Bike Fixtation

Bicycles are incredible tools for transportation and recreation. And of course, they’re a blast to ride. But sometimes you get a flat tire, forget to bring a snack (beware of the bonk!), or need to make a minor adjustment. That’s where Bike Fixtation comes in.

Bike Fixtation offers self-service kiosks on an extended-hours basis for bicyclists in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. You can buy a tube or patch kit, pump up your tires for free, and make simple adjustments using supplied tools.

[Thanks tom]

Urban planning and design

Can bicycle networks create socially sustainable cities?

Can bicycle infrastructure increase the rate of cycling enough to reduce obesity and the costs of health care? Will people develop a new sense of place in their cities, discovering areas they never knew, and spend money in local businesses in the process? And will bicycle infrastructure encourage a new audience to use a bicycle (a vehicle which, despite its affordability, is still mostly used by those with a higher income, and avoided by ethnic minorities)?

[twitterer]

More on the same sort of thing:

• How to Plan Good Cities for Bicycling [twitterer]
• This pretense of neutrality[twitterer]
• Mia Birk’s TED Talk on pedaling towards a healthier planet [twitterer]

DIY

• Bike seat cover tutorial
• Bicycle Hoist or “How to get the wife’s bike out of my way”

Getting a woody

Custom hand-built bike [twitterer]

Advice

• Cyclist’s guide to safe driving, recommended by @exframebuilder “One of the best pieces I’ve read on the subject”.
• The Ten Golden Rules To Becoming A Better Cyclist

Moths

Should You Flash Motorists? The Moth Effect and The Bicycle:

Should the rear light blink or remain steady?

The debate arises from something dubbed the “moth effect.” Studies considering when emergency vehicles should and should not utilize flashing lights at a crash scene have sometimes demonstrated this effect. Like a moth to a flickering flame, a human being behind the wheel will be attracted to a light blinking in the darkness. The implication is that blinking lights on vehicles, and on the back of bicycles, may be more dangerous than steady lights.

My rule: flash and static, front and back.

(And as an aside, I’m astonished that any jurisdiction would allow any vehicle on the road at night without it’s own lighting. See my previous thoughts and observations on rear visibility)

Touring

• She packs it and she leaves it: disposible biking wardrobe.
• Biking adventure takes Israeli around the world
• Life is a wheel: the story of the bike
• Bikamper Tent: “fits nicely on your bike and protects both you and the bike from the outdoor elements.” [Thanks tom]

Getting it backwards

Our backwards approach to road safety

Similarly, when a plane crashes, they don’t decide to hand out parachutes to all passengers on similar planes just in case people need to jump if something goes wrong mid-flight. They get to the source of the problem and prevent it from happening (by implementing a change to the mechanics or inspection processes for airplanes).

[twitterer]

Meanwhile @CycleAdagio wonders if the author of this Letter to Australian Cyclist thinks that “removing the Dutch & Danes from the gene pool would be a good thing”.

Bike share

@CycleAdagio also on a related topic:

What disappoints me so much about the current plight of the Melbourne & Brisbane bike share schemes is the resigned shrugging of the shoulders from our so-called state cycling advocates…

Video

• dirt spineology: white knuckle viewing [twitterer]
• Victoria’s Secret [SIGH]
• Alas, it’s yet another cute video of a dog on a bicycle
• Angry bike guy [twitterer]
• Vanoise Express by Bike—but why? [twitterer]
• Mountain bike skills holiday in Spain
• Unicyclists in Edinburgh or “Nutters R Us”
• No tom, I don’t care how good he is I ain’t doing that: Cirque Eloize Bicyclist

Tour de France insights: crashes

Brooks blog on why are there so many crashes in this year’s Tour?

Absence of Hoxton Basket on Front of Most of the Bikes- The Hoxton conveys a subliminal message to those around it. “Hey. Slow down. Don’t overtake me. Give me some space here. Thank you!” We’re already discussing plans with several teams for 2012.

Tour de France insights: amateur racers

Recommended read of the week is winning with style and honour:

At the amateur level, however, in the racing that you and I partake in on the weekend or during the week, there are no monetary or professional factors at play…Cycling is both beautiful and brutal and we have an obligation to emphasize the former. As such, the burden of fair play and riding like a gentleman is much higher. As such, we would be wise not to follow many of the examples of our professional heroes. We would do well to adopt their style and sang-froid, but not their refrain of ruthless riding.

[via gusk]

Reminded me of Elizabeth Coxhead’s quote:

A sport is advanced by the handful of people who do it brilliantly, but it is kept sweet and sane by the great numbers of the mediocre, who do it for fun.

Tour de France insights: science

The science of elite cycling: Tour de France stages 1 to 11 and stages 12 to 21.

Tour de France insights: food

Masterchef meets TdF: feeding riders on the Tour de France. [twitterer]

Or if you want it graphically, how much does a Tour de France cyclist eat in a day?

Or straight from @andy_schleck: our cook put together what each rider in our team eats a day during a day in the TDF .

To your health

OregonLive.com: Cars versus bikes: why medics are choosing to pedal:

There’s pretty good evidence that switching from car to bicycle transport produces a net health benefit for the individual – and society.

[twitterer]

Gadgets

• With the Mopha Tool Roll you can carry your bike tools just like how professional chefs keep their knives in a roll-up then lay them out when it’s time to go to town on a whole pig. [Thanks tom]
• Cycling apps for the Android
• Cycle EXIF has found “how to transport the pushies on the back of my moto”.

Hub-bub

• Aerospace Hub for bicycles aims to give bearings a break [Thanks tom]
• The NuVinci Shifting Experience: no gears!?

Commute

Your bike commute stories—the good, the bad, and the opossum:

My best commute: Portland, Ore. Surprise snowstorm at 3 p.m. Worst traffic snarl I have ever seen. I left work at 5:30. That night, it took people up to eight hours to get home. Buses were caught off guard without chains and were stuck behind abandoned automobiles.

It took me one hour.

[twitterer]

Warning! Concept bikes ahead!

• Audi Electric Bike Concept takes brand’s eco campaign one step ahead [Thanks tom]
• Vanhulsteijn Cyclone Bicycle Defies Gravity [Thanks tom]
• 4H – A four person unicycle for individual and collective experience [Thanks tom]

The best job in the world?

Calling all cyclists – Growler delivery riders wanted in St Kilda—what work could be more satisfying?

[twitterer]

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.

Great Ocean Road Classic on Vimeo

Instant legend

Susie Weber rode her bike to hospital to deliver her baby. [via JSOnline]

Not being part of the problem

How not to buy stolen bikes online: “There is no such thing as a free lunch or a cheap, expensive bike. If it looks dodgy, it is.”

Cycle chic

• Hot chicks and their fixies
• Bike Fancy

HPV

• The velomobile: high-tech bike or low-tech car?
• Velomobille + ice [twitterer]
• Pedal-powered hydrofoils!

DIY, Mexico-style

Guerilla DIY bike lane created by Guadalajara citizens!

Bottle hygiene

• How safe is your water bottle?
• Cleaning water bottles made easy

Air time

Giants Of Dirt Part 2 featuring one serious nutjob on a BMX. Love it. [twitterer]

Gravel Grinders

Melbourne Gravel Grinders first ride is on next weekend at Hurstbridge.

The last word on lightweight mudguards

Birds of a feather fender together…

Wax it up and ride

Chain Waxing Revisited, “for the non-believers in the crowd”.

Red light runners?

An article in Accident Analysis & Prevention found that “The majority of Melbourne commuter cyclists observed (93.1%) stopped at the red light.” [twitterer]

Tourist-envy

• Cycling Gypsies: “In July 2008 we quit our jobs, sold whatever couldn’t fit on the back of our bikes and pedaled into the sunset with our two doggy co-pilots.”
• “While Out Riding is a photo-story blog charting a bike journey south from Prudoe Bay, Alaska, along quiet dirt roads where possible. At the moment I’m not completely sure where I’ll end up…”

Real leadership required

• Public transport for outer suburbs: Units not crucial
• It’s crunch time for Melbourne: we need a congestion tax
• Beijing car restrictions backfire
• A critical review of the legal penalties for drivers who kill cyclists or pedestrians: “Every year as many pedestrian and cyclist fatalities occur on Britain’s roads as all combined homicides”
• Mia Birk: “What do you see as the biggest obstacle to turning any city into a cycling city? Political will.”

This “war on cars” thingy

• “War On Cars”: A History [twitterer]
• In search of the famous ‘war on motorists’
• The War On the Carless

Commuting and cyclocross

Have you ever considered a cyclocross bike for commuting?

Cyclocross racing and commuting have a few things in common. Both are for the hardy, attracting cyclists who don’t mind riding in foul weather, over imperfect terrain or in adverse conditions.

Kids

• "Get off F—book and go ride a bike!"
• Want a safe place to raise kids? Look to the cities [twitterer]

Design

• Aesthetic of the Impractical [Thanks tom]
• Bike Portage Strap
• Bamboo Bikes [Thanks woowoowoo]
• The Rael road bike concept includes accident recording technology. [Thanks tom]

Smart use of technology

Why cyclists should use GPS

No excuse

The No Excuse Zone Map “shows the distance a healthy person can cycle within half an hour, to or from Melbourne’s city centre”.

Boris Bike hot spots

Boris Bikes/Barclays Cycle Hire Average Journey Times

Find -The Mountain Bike Film on Vimeo.

No longer acceptable

Streetsblog San Francisco asks Why are we building bikes lanes that are hurting people?

It is no longer acceptable to lure people onto bicycles with a network of bicycle lanes that look inviting, but in reality can cause injury or death when used as directed. Our bicycle infrastructure design and our bicycle safety curricula should complement, not contradict, one other.

Indeed. [twitterer]

Time to get seriously scientific

Sara Phillips on the ABC Environment Blog:

Cycling advocates want more bike lanes. They want more people riding more often. They tell us that life is better on a bike; that we’ll be fitter, we’ll emit less carbon dioxide and our cities’ air will be cleaner.

But unless they gather hard data to present their case to government for funding, they are going to struggle to make their point.

Furthermore:

Currently, Australia’s biggest cycling advocacy group, Bicycle Victoria, doesn’t sponsor any research into the health or environmental benefits of cycling. Spokesman for the organisation, Garry Brennan says they try to remain focussed in their approach and target activities to encourage more cycling.

Ride, kid, ride

Carlton Reid reckons kids have an insatiable appetite for cycling, and I reckon he might be right. [twitterer]

On that subject, teach your child to ride, an extract from Carlton’s Family Cycling. We think it works.

Ride first, then drive

And here’s an idea: learner drivers should cycle first. [twitterer]

Off the presses

Treadlie magazine is on sale 17 December.

Witnessing a bike theft

In the Guardian, James Walsh asks what would you do if you saw a bike being stolen?

My advice: it ain’t worth having the shit kicked out of you for a bike.

Sucking and loving it

Letter of the Week in Surfing Magazine on converting from surf snobbery to bike snobbery:

I’m filled with pride at the top of a modest incline, or when my cleats clip in successfully at a stoplight, or while admiring a nascent thigh tan naked in the bathroom mirror. Sucking at something, it turns out, is great fun.

[twitterer]

Doin’ the eagle rock

Swooped by a magpie? Pfft! Try a bloody great big wedge-tailed eagle! Seems possible, but there’s a faint whiff of bullshit about that story. [via Audax Australia Google Group]

Design

• The Seoul Cycle Design Competition 2010 produced the ‘horsey’ bike, guaranteed to squish your goolies if you brake heavily or have a crash. Design fail, IMHO.
• The Mutandem: Whoa! [thanks woowoowoo]
• Wood and Bamboo [thanks woowoowoo]
• Cool bike hands…until you need to ditch quickly. [thanks tom]
• A bike rack that sucks—in a good way [thanks tom]
• Bicycle lock climbs lamp post to escape thieves. Cute idea but the cyclist can’t fit anything else in his bag… [thanks tom]

Repair

iFixit’s Self-Repair Manifesto [via monkeyphoto]

Liability

According to the New York Times, a 4-year-old can be sued for negligence following a bike collision. You know, sometimes accidents do just happen.

Schadenfreude

Wend Magazine brings you a cyclocross crash collection. (Yes, inevitably, Yakety Sax…)

How to…

…fall from a bicycle. Ouch. [twitterer, via treadlie]

Nice shots

Autumn riding pictures.

Utility

• Camioncyclette Bike with Shopping Cart [thanks tom]
• Taga the ultimate alternative to bike trailer and child bike seat

Recreational and/or transportational

We need real bike paths for real bike transportation—shared paths are problematic, dangerous and occasionally deadly.

I’ve certainly noticed that shared paths in Melbourne are rarely engineered with transportation in mind.

Fashion

Safe and shiny, the way to combine fashion and safety. [via LikeCool.com, thanks tom]

Buy space, make space

Shepparton riders buy space for awareness in local paper, and the message they shared. [twitterer]

Register here. Or not.

Grist on why an additional road tax for bicyclists would be unfair.

Pothole? There’s an app for that

In the UK, FillThatHole.org.uk has released a pothole-spotting app, which is pretty cool.

And, thanks to nikdow for the tip-off, in Australia there is Neat Streets:

What Issues Can Be Reported?
Anything important to you – road obstructions, vandalism, potholes, fallen trees, abandoned trolleys, litter, and graffiti.

Mistakes, I’ve made a fwe

Endurance Cycling: Five mistakes to avoid.

DIY

• Simple bike computer
• Sewn bike innertube chainstay protector
• Specialized RC turbine jet powered rocket mountain bike hack—I have never, ever understood why anyone would want to put a rocket anywhere near their genitals… [twitterer, thanks tom]

Bike lane appears

According to the Cycling Embassy of Denmark, when riding in Copenhagen, “The trip continues through a high street, and a cycle track appears”.

Tour by share bike

Melbourne bike share tours with MELTours.

Epic tour

13 epic Australian trails.

Weather (or not)

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing…—advice directed at racers, but applicable to anyone who wants to keep riding all year round.

Bike share as public transport?

James May is concerned about bike share:

…being yoked to the rack system, the bicycle, this ultimate symbol of mobility and freedom for the masses, effectively becomes public transport: it doesn’t leave from precisely where you are and doesn’t arrive at exactly where you want to be. Unless you work as a bicycle rack attendant, the very point of the bicycle is somewhat defeated.

[twitterer]

Cheapskate

Speaking of bike share, I’m off to get me one of those $5 helmets—bright blue and with a big “Melbourne” banner down the side. Ace! Likely to be cool in an ironic way for about 5 minutes.

DIY

• DIY Recumbent Trike—no welds required! [via Lifehacker Australia, twitterer]
• How-to make a cycling cap.
• Knit your own bike helmet earmuffs.
• ADV Bike Holder
• Brooks saddle “anti-splaying” modification [twitterer]

Stamp stamp

Stamp Collecting: brevet stamps as mementos of past rides. We don’t seem to have the tradition for brevet stamps in Australia, which is a bit of a pity really.

Garmin-envy

Garmin Edge 800 In Depth First Look Review Want. Now. [twitterer]

Roll out the Astroturf

Roadjustice.ca, for poor beleagured motorists.

Gadgets & Gear

• Pop-up bicycle basket
• Looxcie wearable camcorder [via Incredible Things, thanks woowoowoo]
• SPD urban sneakers—kind of an exercise in keeping your urban street cred, while not keeping your urban street cred…

Don’t give ‘em ideas

Airbag helmet? [twitterer]

Design

• Saul Griffith’s Onya Cycles!—might even make trikes cool. [Thanks tom]
• Bicycle Chains Get an Oil-Free Update
• Write a Bike—I think Mahthilde looks like my speed. [Thanks tom]

Recycling

A truly re-cycled fence.

Component dating

Date of manufacture of bicycle components can be used to date a bike.

The crime of female cycling

Iranian Police Chief Targets Women Cyclists, Roller-Skaters [via Wend Blog]

Tribal

Are you in any of the bike snob’s cycling tribes?