2011 Utility Cycling Year in Review

By Melanie Colavito Posted in The Archives Tagged with

Another year has come and gone here at Utility Cycling. It’s been a year of ups and downs. The year started out strong with lots of great posts from myself, Josh Lipton, and Stacey Moses. We made some good progress in the summer towards the Utility Cycling book we’ve been dreaming up for a while. About midway through the year, Stacey moved over to Commute By Bike; Josh busied himself with launching Bike Tech Shop; and I found myself with a badly broken arm. Whoops. Anyhow, the product of all that was that the steady stream of posting you may be used to here dried up a bit. Nonetheless, we kept our ears to the ground of Utility Cycling with lots of great video posts. Now that a new year is nearly upon us, we are ready to jump start things here again and will be coming at you full steam with plenty of Utility Cycling posts. Thanks for sticking with us through a tough fall, and we are looking forward to a great 2012! Anyhow, as has been the tradition for the last two years (2010 & 2009), we’d like to take a little stroll down memory lane. So with that, welcome to the 2011 Utility Cycling Year in Review!

Utility Cycling Guest Posts & Interviews

Kathleen McDade of Techno Earth Mama: We were very pleased to have Kathleen McDade from Techo Earth Mama provide us with some great family cycling posts. Kathleen has a lot of experience bike commuting with children, and she’s got 8 Reasons to Bike Commute with Your Kids. Also, if you’ve just started a family and are ready to bike commute together, Kathleen has some good advice for Getting Started with Family Cycling. Thanks to Kathleen for the great posts!A Fish’s Wild Ride: This has to be one of my favorite posts of the year. I had a great time interviewing Jed Proujansky, who is known here at Utility Cycling for riding his bike with a bucket full of fish! Want to know why? I recommend you check out the post to learn more about Jed’s awesome use for a bicycle.Bike Move!: I’ve never participated in a bike move, but Sam Haraldson and his friends in Bozeman, Montana, have. Fortunately, they were willing to share some insights and advice about bike moves with us. Check out what they have to say about moving a house by bike and how much fun it is!Utility Cycling While Injured: Ok, this isn’t exactly a guest post. Althought I kinda felt like a guest with the infrequency of my posts this fall due to my broken arm making typing rather difficult. Nonetheless, I thought it might be helpful to post about dealing with injury as a Utility Cyclist, but hopefully you never need this advice!

Utility Cycling Events

Bike Tech Shop: In November, our friends over at Campfire Cycling were pleased to announce the grand opening of Bike Tech Shop. Bike Tech Shop is a one-stop-shop for all your techy needs on the bike. Lights, GPS, and E-bikes, oh my!Bike Mapping at the University of AZ: Although this wasn’t necessarily an “event” per say, this bike mapping project was a fun foray into using technology such as video and photography to enhance a Google Map. This map has nearly 15,000 hits, so hopefully it is helping people get around campus and learn the area visually before they hop on a bike to get around.

Utility Cycling Categories

One of our fundamental goals at Utility Cycling has been to develop an extensive “encyclopedia” of sorts of all things Utility Cycling. We have been slowly working towards completing that encyclopedia over the last two and a half years. Over that time, we have added, removed, reimagined, and revised a long laundry list of categories and subcategories and sub-subcategories of Utility Cycling. We plan to turn all this into a book in the not-so-distant future, but for the time being, you can check out our progress below. As always, we welcome suggestions and additions to our list if you see anything missing or just plain crazy.

  • Family Cycling
  • Bicycle Mapping
    • Bike Map Projects
    • Local Bike Mapping Projects: Univ. of AZ
    • National/International Bike Mapping Projects
    • Opportunities for Bike Mapping Projects
    • Methods of Developing Bike Maps
  • Google Bike Maps
  • Bike Map Interfaces
    • Traditional Maps, Books & Signs
    • GPS Devices/Smart Phones
    • Mounting GPS & Smart Phones to Bikes
    • Desktop & Laptop Computers (Printing or Remembering Routes)
    • The Future In Bike Map Interfaces (Glasses, Bike Navigation Systems)
  • Bicycle Delivery
  • Cycling Services
  • Community Building
    • Cycling Community Events
    • Cycling as Statement

      • Utility Cycling in 2012

      Boy oh boy am I looking forward to 2012. I suppose it is rather silly that the month of January should feel like more of a fresh start than the beginning of any other month, but it is what you make. And I plan to make 2012 a great year for Utility Cycling. Although, I may be rather absent here for a few weeks during January, as I’m about to take my PhD comprehensive exams. Yikes. Anyhow, after that, we will be finishing up our “encyclopedia” of Utility Cycling and working on our book. As always, we welcome guest posts and interview opportunities, so feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions or ideas we should hear about. Happy New Year and Happy Riding!

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