Oh Portland, What Will You Think of Next?

Sometimes I really wish I was back home in Oregon. Okay, well all the time, but stuff like this makes me want to be there even more.

Local Bike Shop Runs Cash for Clunkers Sales Promo

[via Bike Portland]

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See, I told you...

...that old bikes are just as good as new ones. This caught my eye in a story at the San Diego News Network about two environmental advocates who bicycled from Vancouver to Tijuana to raise awareness of the plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre:

“Our bikes are both reused bikes,” Eriksen said of the bike he just rode for 2,000 miles. “The point is that it doesn’t take a huge investment to get a bike and to start riding it.”

I agree.

Read the story.

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Stupidity or Cosmic Justice?

There is some justice in this world, it appears. A couple of days ago, there was a particularly tragic hit-and-run accident here in which a bicyclist was killed while riding in a bike lane. The following story from the San Diego Union-Tribune tells the story of how the suspect was caught. May all hit-and-runners receive such swift justice:

Suspect Arrested in Fatal Hit and Run With Bicyclist

ALPINE – An Alpine man suspected in Tuesday's fatal hit-and-run collision with a bicyclist was arrested Thursday night after he went into a bar in view of the victim's friends and family at a candlelight vigil, authorities said. Relatives and friends of Edward Costa, 30, of Alpine were gathered at the spot on Alpine Boulevard near East Victoria Drive where he was killed, California Highway Patrol Officer Brian Pennings said. About 6:15 p.m., some in the group saw a white Ford F150 pickup with front-end damage drive past and pull into the Liars' Club bar parking lot, Pennings said. He said the witnesses, knowing the CHP was looking for a truck of that description as the hit-and-run vehicle, called the county Sheriff's Department. Deputies found Travis Weber, 44, in the bar and detained him for the CHP. Pennings said Weber was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving to the bar and on suspicion of felony manslaughter and hit-and-run from Tuesday night's collision. Pennings said the CHP received hundreds of tips, and Weber was one of several people mentioned by tipsters as a possible suspect in the case. Investigators had been trying to find Weber and the others named. Pennings said officers are confident that Weber was the driver behind the wheel of the Ford pickup, which was towed Thursday night as evidence.

RIP Edward, hope his helps.

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Mumbai

I know I have some readers in India, and perhaps even a few from Mumbai. As the current crisis unfolds there, our thoughts and best wishes are with you.

Photo: Mumbai Daily Photo

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African DIY Ingenuity

From the terrific and inspirational AfriGadget blog, the story of a bike-mounted radio that's good for more than just entertainment. Check out the site for a couple of other bike-related posts, as well.

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Bike-Riding Robot

No, no, no, no, no, no!

Holy crap, people, it's a robot riding a bike! Forget about Iran and North Korea, I say Japan is the major threat to global security until they stop making so many bloody robots. Prepare, everybody, the Robot Wars are coming (on bikes!).

Via BoingBoing.

 

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Hurtling Toward Another Great Depression

I don't usually get into economic matters here, other than to say that DIY work on old bikes is a thrifty way to keep yourself mobile, but I want to take that a half-step farther today in light of the dire financial news that broke yesterday and today. With big finance falling about our ears in a manner akin to the early days of the Great Depression, it's yet another reminder to take a good look back at the strategies that kept some working families afloat during the 1930s, including the use of bicycles as transportation, a policy of repair instead of replacement, and an ethic of save, save, save. Our financial infrastructure, our transportation infrastructure, and the prejudices many Americans still harbor against "old" things are the lingering products of post-WWII prosperity, but as it becomes evident that this financial trouble is not going to simply go away, hard times will prove more instructive than prosperous ones for furnishing a path forward. And what better way to ride that path than on an old bike?

Image: From Flickr user laurasmoncur, used with permission.

 

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Are Americans Losing Their DIY Skills?

Um, yes? Is this news? Not specifically bicycle-related, but this article from Popular Mechanics is very much in keeping with what this blog is really all about.

I think that a modicum of ability in dealing with the physical world is good even for those of us whose jobs are mostly cerebral. Engineer Vannevar Bush, one of the great minds of the 20th century, made his mark on everything from the Manhattan Project to the development of computers. But when he wasn’t commanding vast enterprises, Bush spent a lot of time in his basement workshop building things. He said that trying to make a finished project match his blueprints taught him humility and problem solving.

I'll second that with a vengeance. Especially the humility part.

Link, via Neatorama.

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I'm a Trend-Setter, I Guess

From the New York Times, via Paul Dorn's Bike Commute Tips Blog:

BICYCLE lovers, thrifty as well as trend conscious, are pulling neglected 10-speeds from storage and readying them for the road again. (Let the environmentally aware bragging rights begin.) These bicycles, made in the 1970s and 80s, used 27-inch wheels, which have been replaced with the smaller 700c wheels by road bike manufacturers. But a recent surge in sales of 27-inch tires suggests that the lowly steeds of yore are gaining new life as commuter bikes and weekend cruisers.

My 1970s Peugeot has 27-inch wheels. Whoopee, I'm cool. I don't look nearly as hip as these people, though.

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Police Attack NYC Critical Mass Rider

Regardless of how you feel about Critical Mass, this is a pretty disturbing video.  I'm actually fairly ambivalent about CM, and I don't endorse anyone intentionally breaking traffic laws while riding, but I do believe that cyclists have as much right to the road as anyone else.  That the fellow was arrested and charged on top of getting randomly creamed by a cop, is just the height of absurdity.

Via BoingBoing and Gothamist.

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CNN Gives Old Bike Refurbisher "Hero" Status

And well-deserved, too:

"The thought that I can reach out and permanently improve someone's life for the better is addictive," says Dave Schweidenback. Several times a year, the 55-year-old can be found prepping large shipments of used bicycles bound for a developing country. For Schweidenback, gathering and breaking down these bikes is a labor of love -- one that is helping to keep the bikes out of landfills and give them new life.

"Used bicycles can transform the economic and social condition of families," says Schweidenback. "[They] give people access to jobs, health care and education that is too distant for walking."

Since 1991, Schweidenback's nonprofit Pedals for Progress has collected and shipped more than 115,000 used bicycles to 32 developing countries worldwide, where they are sold at a low cost to local residents like Don Roberto Garcia.

"A used woman's mountain bicycle changed my life," says Garcia, 54, a house cleaning supplies salesman in Nicaragua who works six days a week to support his six children and buy medicine for his wife, who suffers from cancer.

Read the entire story here.

Also, see this story from Chicago from a while back.

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How's That? Forbes Says San Diego #3 Most Bike-Friendly?

Just a week after Kathy Keehan's (San Diego County Bicycle Coalition) critical observation at the Voice of San Diego that "it takes more than a bike path" to make a city bicycle-friendly, Forbes Traveler ranks San Diego as the third most bicycle-friendly city in North America, behind only Portland, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado and ahead of bike mecca Davis, California.  

This in itself is bad enough, but among Forbes' most glaring gaffs, the statement that San Diego is "flat."  That's so wrong, it's funny.  The photo shows Upas Street between Florida Street and Park Boulevard, coming up from Florida Canyon on the north side of Balboa Park.  Indeed, the city is built around canyons.  I can't think of one core neighborhood that doesn't have at least one substantial hill.  Obviously, these Forbes people have never tried to squeeze into the bike lane alongside two narrow lanes of aggressive traffic to get either up or down the epic Texas Street hill between Interstate 8 and Adams Avenue.  Or how about trying to get from the vaunted velodrome on the east side of Balboa Park to the zoo or museums on the west side?  Yeah, there's a hill.  Don't even get me started on Little Italy or Banker's Hill (yeah, "hill").  There's another neighborhood called "Hillcrest."  It's right there in the name.  Hill.

And that doesn't even begin to address the wheel-bendingly horrible condition of the streets and roads, the pathologically aggressive drivers, the dense network of freeways that bisect otherwise perfectly serviceable bicycle corridors, or the general lack of interest in meaningful bicycle development shown by city and county officials.  Not to be a nay-sayer or anything, but really, just what the hell were the Forbes people thinking?  The weather is nice, I'll give them that, but only if you like to be all hot and sweaty when you get where you're going.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, I know.  But really, the point is this: if San Diego is #3, I worry that we're setting the bar waaaay too low for what it means to be bicycle-friendly.  There's a long way to go before San Diego even approaches bicycle-friendly for people who commute or ride on a daily basis, and while this ranking could have the benefit of spurring greater improvements in the future, I do sincerely hope that it doesn't create a sense of complacency among our public officials.  I know that the SDCBC will continue to push for meaningful improvements, and that others will continue to work to try to make San Diego live up to its undeserved high-ranking, and until then, I guess I'll take comfort--while laboring up to Park Boulevard from Florida Canyon--that San Diego is flat.

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Adults Learning to Ride

I can't decide if this is depressing or inspiring.  What do you think?

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Old Folks on Old Bikes

From the Fresno Bee, via Bike Commute Tips Blog (image: Fresno Bee):

Fred Mathes rides his bike to the post office (which in this neighborhood is inside the local video store), to the local diner, and out through the open fields.

He's 92. His bicycle--a black, still-shiny, three-speed Schwinn--is 56.

Mathes feels no need for a newer bicycle. "Did you hear about the centipede who fell in a ditch?" he asks. "He couldn't get up. He was too exhausted trying to figure out what foot to put first. Same thing with a bike. Who needs 18 gears?"

For his 80th birthday he rode to Oxnard, Calif.--some 380 miles. For his 90th birthday he went for a 40-mile bike ride to Friant Dam and back. He hasn't made plans yet for his next birthday bicycle ride in October, but Friant is in the running because he likes to have lunch at the Dam Diner...His typical out-and-about ride is 14 miles.

He does not favor Lycra or cycling shoes. His riding clothes are whatever he happens to be wearing, usually a pair of trousers (he rolls up one pant leg), a long-sleeved western shirt and a stylish cotton hat from Italy.

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Chicago's Old Bikes

This today from my old stomping grounds, via the Chicago Tribune:

It is the great bicycling irony. Some people lock up their bikes and, an hour later, they're gone, stolen. Yet others languish in bike racks for weeks or months, abandoned as their metal rusts and paint job fades. And if you've ever abandoned your bike in Chicago, there's a good chance it eventually found its way to Lee Ravenscroft. Ravenscroft is the founder and president of Working Bikes, a non-profit cooperative that fixes up bikes and either sells them (usually for around $60) or ships them overseas to places such as Africa and Central America. In fact, the group just sent 550 bikes (plus spare parts and tools to fix them if they break down) in a container to Angola last weekend. "I think a lot of those bikes are abandoned because they need too much work," he said. "I'd say 9 out of 10 are broken and need repair."

Read the full story here.

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Bikes on Campus: SDSU Students Want to Ride

A story in today's Union-Tribune discusses the ban on bicycle travel on SDSU's campus, and the students who are trying to get the ban repealed. The university cites safety concerns because of sidewalks jammed with pedestrians, as well as the damage some cyclists cause by cutting across green spaces and landscaping. Campus safety officers actually ticket bicycle riders for riding on most sidewalks on campus. Students are citing environmental and parking concerns in their efforts to get the ban repealed.

My wife works at SDSU, and I can confirm that during the semester the sidewalks are very crowded, but the answer is not to ban bike travel. Bike lanes and approved bike routes on campus would help a great deal, as would an education and enforcement campaign to encourage responsible cycling. If officers are already ticketing riders, why not focus only on the irresponsible ones?--the ones who cut across lawns, ride too fast, and disregard "Yield" and "Stop" signs. So many students live within cycling distance of campus, why not create a safe and welcoming environment for them once they arrive? Cycling on campus is possible, and on a sprawling campus like SDSU, should be encouraged. Instead of banning bike travel altogether, campus planners should look for ways to integrate bikes into their campus plan.

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