Playdate!

Hard not to love it.

Bike sync

More, nice, synchronicity.  Within two days of getting back from Amsterdam I finally gave into the itch and bought a Dutch bike Reasoning was somewhere between wanting the old sore back to be able to ride in an upright position, and just plain old wanting.  The urge was there after the last two trips, but this time it was overwhelming.  So, from Rolling Orange in Cobble Hill, home came, I don't don't know, what shall I call it?  Mr. Bike.

(Baguette not included, stardust-embedded tires glowing very nicely at this angle.)

So early yesterday morning Mr. Bike took me for a ride and we found a 20 block detour to the bakery on the corner.  Leaving the bakery I realized I had dropped one of my gloves along the way - old buff leather work-gloves.  Sigh.  I'd had them a long time, and really liked using them for riding.  Wella.  So, back home, and wouldn't you know it, I pushed Mr. Bike into the yard, and there on the ground,  right where I'd started out from, was glovey!

Well, that made me so happy I decided to photograph it and Mr. Bike and go right inside and post about them.  But when I got inside, there was a better surprise.  Raymond had forwarded mail from Larry, and it started like this:

We just went for a bike ride - to the India border and back, about 6 km each way (although it didn't seem that long).  The very nice hotel manager loaned me his brand-new cycle, and they managed to get another for Parsu Ram.  It was good exercise (although I couldn't beat PR at racing as I could last time! old age is creeping up).  Anyway, the border is alive with all sorts of activity, a lot of it probably illicit.  It was a nice straight shot on the highway but the usual traffic, bullock carts, rikshaws, big smoke-belching trucks, etc.  We had some tea at one of those highway-edge shops, looked filthy but tea's not such a risk I hope due to necessary boiled water...

 ... and goes on to describe "innumerable adventures, not always but mostly good adventures."

NY bike riders, please vote!

From TA:

Dear Street Activists,
Crain's asks: Should we pull the plug on Manhattan bike lanes?
Transportation Alternatives asks: Are you serious?
Please vote!

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/polls/2010/10/should-we-pull-the-plug-on-man.php

And forward!
Thanks!

She never saw it coming

Right here in the Slope, kids.  Brooklyn Paper: OyPhone! Thieves are picking Apples right out of people’s hands!  Takes fairly good bike skills and well oiled gear.

The Fifth Annual Memorial Ride and Walk / Ghostbikes / Street Memorials

I looked at a heck of a lot of bikes in Amsterdam

Looked at them both on the street and in bike shops and gave serious thought to whether I should maybe pursue buying a Dutch bike.  Thankfully the current answer is no - but I would love to make some changes to my Bianchi Milano that would make it, I don't know, more sensibly dutchy.

Virtually every bike I saw in Amsterdam has a bell, has lights - almost always hooked up to a generator, either an old friction generator or a generator front hub - has fenders and rear side splash guards, at least one rack, a kickstand, a rear wheel hand-cuff style lock mounted to the frame, and a second lock, more often with a chain than a long U.

The bells are used sensibly to shoo pedestrians out of the way on bike lanes and in the narrow streets and alleys.  The lights are used primarily to be seen, not to see, though I saw a couple (out of thousands) of bikes with lights meant to brightly illuminate the road.  The kickstands are to keep the bike upright when parked, and the racks are for carrying stuff.  Saying these things sounds kind of morinic, I know, but might be revalatory to most of my fellow Brooklonian bike riders, who primarily yell at people to shoo them out of the way, ride invisible after dusk, hardly ever stand a bike on its own, and generally like to emulate bike messengers and sling their loads, if any, around their shoulders.

I particularly liked the mid-frame kickstands that sit under the bike and have two feet.  The seem more stable and more usable in the city.  I also particularly like the front racks on many of the bikes I saw, and of these I particularly liked the frame-mounted racks rather than the handle-bar mounted racks.  

Some of the frame mounted racks (like on this three seater stretch baby limo) mount to either extensions of the down-tubes, or insert into holders welded onto the down-tubes.  Gonna talk to bro re whether he thinks he can add these holders to my bike.  Bikes at Het Zwarte Fietsenplan, like the (I wet myself) NX7, have them.  Looks like they also sell bolt-ons...

An amazing number of the bikes I saw had second and sometimes third seats on them, and I saw lots of kids in these - the seats are not for show.  I also saw a fair number of older folks getting transported, sitting side-saddle in the rear.  Also lots of cargo bikes, with kids sitting in the front-mounted truck.


Saddles.  Ah, saddles.  I should say now that I saw two, exactly 2, fixies in the 6 days I just spent in Amsterdam, and these two bikes were maybe the only ones I saw that had hard, skinny seats.  For all I know lots of folks have sporty second bikes at home with spartan seats, but that's not what they use every day for in-town.  I saw lots of sensible, cushy, waterproof seats.  Top-o-the-line bikes tended to have Brooks saddles.  A few bikes have these button seats that completely eliminate the technical hoops and fire for avoiding numbnuts: they just put the seat under your sit-bones and no where else.  (Do they work on bikes that are less upright than the oma and opafietsen?  Dit is het perfecte zadel voor dames met (korte) rokjes is what I hear.)

And the people I saw kept their butts in the saddles.  Hardly anyone posted.  Here in BKLYN, people post out of most stops.  Is it just part of looking cool?  In Amsterdam I only saw the most hurried riders do so.  Amsterdam riders are more likely to rock around in their seats to get up steepest rises at the canals rather than post.  Could also be because Amsterdam riders so often have a cell phone or (in November) an opened umbrella in one hand.

Blah blah blah.  Here's my to-do list:

• Put bell on bike;
• Check w/ Het Zwarte Fietsenplan if their bolt-on mount will work on my big-round aluminum down-tube, and if not maybe trick Bro into helping, or look at something from Steco that will bolt on to the head tube;
• Start looking into getting a front wheel built around a generator hub.

I'm feeling all aflutter about the Batavus BUB

The article at Bicycle Design is particularly interesting, I think, describing contemporary bike culture in the home of Batavus.   Lota and I will be in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks - and I'll probably be pretty glad that the BUB is not available yet.

Bikes, Cameras, Beers - and you!!

Bikes, Cameras, Beers: PSA Tickets on Sale Now

Transportation Alternatives presents a special evening screening of Public Service Announcements to promote why Biking Rules in NYC! Over 80 artists submitted new and creative images, documentaries, narratives and animations that promote safe, civic-minded cycling as part of T.A.'s Biking Rules campaign.

Come see the premiere of jury-selected PSA entries at BAMcinématek. The evening will include prizes and a special reception afterward with free beer courtesy of the Brooklyn Brewery.

The Biking Rules PSA Competition and Festival
Tuesday, November 17th
7:00 pm
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY
Advance tickets available at: bikingrules.org/tickets

Proceeds from advance tickets support Transportation Alternatives.

David Byrne: Live on Two Wheels

Nice New York Times video of David Byrne re biking in NYC.

Bike shop, Ganges, Salt Spring Island, BC

Bikey buzzsaw nightmare

O, brothers and sisters. You lock your bikey tighty to the pole, u-lock and cable, but when you comes back the pole is gone... and where's your bikey!!!

Turns out the DOT guy was just as concerned as I (the innocent bystander) was. I saw what was going on (and covertly snapped pics), and decided I'd wait by the bike in case it was a messenger's and he / she'd return soon. DOT guy was just following instructions to remove the dead pole, didn't want to see the bike get ripped off, and after removing the pole he placed the bike next to a safe pole and metal-strapped it to that pole. When I saw him do that I approached him and thanked him. Bikey's owner will have a heck of a time getting the strap off, but that's way better than losing the bike. (BikeMacho will have thought DOTMan shouldn't have taken the pole - maybe just told his boss No? Get real.)

Rapha Gentlemen's Race

OK, let's add this to the list of things I will never do in this overweight, asthmatic, and pretty happily undisciplined lifetime. I'm pretty proud of myself when Lota and I ride the bikes from home to a pizza at the Flea and back. I do not ever expect to hear myself say The landjaeger salami I brought for everyone helped out immensely at mile 80...

via bikehugger

How I saved $1,500 this afternoon

I've been completely creepy with bike greed lately, and edging closer and closer to a big investment that would have necessitated saying goodbye to my dear old Milano. But, I've been saved. Cost $45 at the corner Brooklyn Bicycles shop: a sporty pair of Portland Design Works Dapper Dan ergo grips. Sassy!

Of course... it was Dapper Dan (non ergo) that started me down this whole path to MORE, if I remember rightly. That and the damned white tires. They're on the Dutch Master...

Woody mo

Juju emailed me this link to the astounding Renovo bikes of Portland, OR, which defnitely turned my volume up way past 11. But it also reminded me that we ran into these fine folks in Redhook one day, the Bamboo Bike Studio. Read up. Maybe, if I'm fighting of a large cash splurge and I know I'm going to lose, this is where I should lose it?

New Amsterdam Bike Slam

Be there, or begorrah!

Dutch Master - total Brooklyn bike porn

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Gasp. Core77.

Pulse - obvious, but will it irradiate your garbanzos?

Via treehugger.

Which, sadly, reminds me that I lost a favorite hat on the way to work this morning.

Very unlike me, I decided I would wear a helmet for the ride this morning, then I decided I would wear a cap under it - my Prospect Park Alliance cap - and then I decided not to wear the helmet, but the cap was still on my head. Avante! Whizzing down 11th St. & close to 2nd Ave the cap kept coming up so I pulled it off and looped it on the left side of the handlebar. Yada yada yada, until I got to Jay & Fulton, pretty deadly spot in the morning rush, where I like to ride the yellow line so I can turn left into the extension that heads toward Boro Hall. Well, it was clogged with panel trucks, pick-ups & buses and I decided it might preserve my wished for life expectancy if I used a hand signal while turning through the gap between a couple of buses... and that's when it happened. Saw a little something flutter behind me, didn't think much of it but when I got to the next light, no cappy. Lah. I liked the little guy.

Back on the bike

After some nice late spring riding there was that month of rain, and I just didn't get it back together again until this morning. Big snakes of bikes at every intersection. And, lookee, a sea of chairs and tables outside Boro Hall. Summah! Coffee and lemon iced scone. Just gonna eat half the scone and save the rest for later. Nah!

Sent via thingy.

Bike lane projector

@ H2Ovissions, via /.

Safety in numbers

TransAlt