bikes

Is your town?

What if cities had no sidewalks and everyone walked on the road? Or, for urban recreation, they walked on a few scenic trails? What if the occasional street had a three-foot-wide "walking lane" painted on the asphalt, between the moving cars and the parked ones?

Well, for starters, no one would walk much. A hardy few might brave the streets, but most would stop at "walk?! in traffic?!"

Fortunately, this car-head vision is fiction for most pedestrians, but it's not far from nonfiction for bicyclists. Regular bikers are those too brave or foolish to be dissuaded by the prospect of playing chicken with two-ton behemoths. Other, less-ardent cyclists stick to bike paths; they ride for exercise, not transportation. Bike lanes, in communities where they exist, are simply painted beside the horsepower lanes.

People react reasonably: "bike?! in traffic?!" And they don't. "It's not safe" is what the overwhelming majority say when asked why they bike so little. (As it turns out, it's safer than most assume -- on which, more another day.)

So what would cities look like if we provided the infrastructure for safe cycling? What does "bike friendly" actually look like?

The wheels on the bike go round and round …

Happy Bike-to-Work Week! (She said hypocritically, eyeing her bus pass.) If you can’t handle the whole week, this Friday, May 18, is Bike-to-Work Day. (She said hypocritically, eyeing her invisible bike.) And FYI, May is Bike-to-Work Month. (She said tardily, eyeing her calendar.) Here are 50 things you can do to celebrate [PDF]. Or just […]

Why we need to make makers take back what they make

Here's an actual photo of something some bikers found while doing a bikelane/bikepath cleanup day -- now, who says we don't need extended producer responsibility laws?

Critical Mass Seattle style

I participated in my first Critical Mass ride a few Fridays ago. I thought I'd better post on it and get this photo out of my cell phone. Can you spot the guy with no pants on?

There was also a dude with a drum on his handlebars and someone else with a nice sound system on a trailer. I'm guessing that there were about 300 riders.

Excellent writing

About eleventy-hundred people have written to draw my attention to an article in the Wall Street Journal about bike living in the Netherlands and Denmark. It’s worthy of the attention — it’s rare to see biking taken so seriously and written about with such an eye for detail and color, at least in a U.S. […]

Electric hybrid bikes going mainstream

Now, before you start calling BS, take a look at this video.

And if you are still skeptical, take a look at this one:

Bike racks in rain, smokers under cover

I am pissed. I just learned that my county would rather provide shelter from the weather for its employees who smoke (and drive up healthcare costs) than let those citizen-terrorists on bikes park out of the rain near the county building.

Umbra on bicycle tires

Dear Umbra, Is there such a thing as recycled bicycle tires? I have looked and even asked a friend’s husband who wrenches in a local shop. He was not aware of any. I think because people ride their bike they automatically assume they are Earth-“friendlier” than others. But I go through two sets of tires […]

The lost art of conversation

I passed a big rabble of bikers on my way to downtown Seattle yesterday evening. Several complimented my bike as I passed. There were a couple of talls in the mix. I assumed it was another Critical Mass ride, but maybe not. Sure looked like fun. I need to participate in one of those someday.

I periodically attend a monthly gathering of Seattle atheists. There are always new faces, and they pick a different restaurant every month for variety's sake. We chatted about things like global warming, the recent shootings in Virginia, diesel verses hybrid cars and, of course, the American propensity for religiosity.