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Spike Bike

Since some people are talking guns and bikes in the previous post, I thought I’d bring up Bob Fishell’s old “Spike Bike” stories from the late 80s. Bob wrote those stories in 1988 and 1989. One story was published in an issue of the now-defunct Cyclist magazine. Bob told me a short while ago that…

The continued clash of bike and car commuters

This New York Times article, Moving Targets, is a fascinating read about the growing animosity between cyclists and drivers on the roads. While the main subject focuses on the issue of sharing the road, there’s also several interesting nuggets of information gold buried in there. Here’s my take on it…

Friday news and blog roundup

SF Bay Area firm pays 58.5 cents per mile for employees who bike for their jobs. “Schools move to eject cars from campuses,” USA Today. Dutch Bike Company Seattle to open a store in Chicago next month. They’ll sell Bakfiets, Velobris, Retrovelo, WorkCycle and other European utility bikes in the Windy City. Check out this…

Billy the Boombox (Custom Music Bike Trailer)

Our fellow bicycle trailer enthusiast, Ryan Cooper, contacted us about a custom music bike trailer that he cooked up. We decided to post up his words and photos about his project. Also, check out another music trailer we reviewed. The Origin of The Project: “The local Critical Mass group completed their May ride and pedaled…

Setting Up a Commuter Station

Recently Cool Breeze Cyclery in Mooresville, NC gave me a small sector of their store to make into a “Commuter Station.” The idea is to have all the prominent commuter products in one place, with information and maybe a Trek 7.2FX bike with all the accessories installed to show how they work. My question for…

Sport Utility Bike

Anthony and Nickie Stout live car-free in Longmont, Colorado with their two small children. Among their several bikes is the “Lllama” — a Surly Big Dummy with custom crafted rear seats that they use for camping trips in the Colorado Rocky Mountains Front Range. Of the Big Dummy, Anthony writes: it is remarkable how much…

Bike Shops See Boom Amid Rising Consumer Costs

courant.com They’re peddling as fast as they can over at the bicycle shop. Restaurants aren’t doing well with energy prices sky high and the economy souring. You wouldn’t want to be selling powerboats this summer with gas at $4 a gallon. But long after the usual springtime crush of business, bike shops are still overrun…

Seven things bike commuting has taught me

“You can buy some pretty nice bike gear for the price of a tank of gas these days.” This is among the seven things Jason Gilman in Spokane posted in “Seven things bike commuting has taught” at his Metric Century blog. Traffic: Why we drive the way we do by Ted Vanderbilt explains why American…

Nema Jewel, Thunder Bike Shorts Review

Up until recently I used to say that I would never be caught wearing cycling shorts. I didn’t see the need. Then came a 50 mile ride on Missouri’s KATY Trail last year. A good friend of mine told me that I’d me miserable without the padding the chamois in a pair of cycling shorts…

Swobo's bike designer

Swobo is a favorite among a couple of the editors at Commute By Bike, and I was delighted to see this interview with Sky Yaeger. Sky, who left her product management position at Bianchi USA two years ago to design bikes for Swobo, talks about her design influences and philosophy in the interview. Sky predicts…

The Bike Trailer List

We’ve decided to start compiling and organizing a list of available and unavailable bike trailers. We are breaking down the list into categories such as Bike Child Trailers, Bike Cargo Trailers and Bike Pet Trailers. This list is part is part of our Fixer-UP Bike Trailers series of posts. These posts will address fixing up…

Online maps update

Some changes have occurred in the world of online maps since I last wrote about what’s available. Ask.com used to be the only mapping service with an option for walking directions. They eliminated that when they migrated their map to use Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, which provides only driving directions. While Ask.com removed the walking feature,…

North America's Most Bicycle-Friendly Cities

ForbesTraveler.com: Exhibit A: Portland, Oregon, just displaced Copenhagen as the #2 most bike-friendly city in the world. Exhibit B: In Davis, California, more people cycle to work than drive. Exhibit C: A growing number of Minneapolis residents continue to commute by bike through the winter.

Bicycle Trailer hitches and couplers

Probably the most common question here at the shop begins with, “so, I bought a used trailer on eBay.” Our follow up question is always, “what brand is the trailer?” The answer will invariably come from this list: Kidarooz, Rhode Gear, Bell, Kool-Stop, Winchester Original, JD Razor, Cannondale, Tanjor, Yakima, Norco USA, or Trek, those…

Bike commuting forces fashion dilemmas

Scripps News: When the weather is favorable, Terry Plowman can get from home to his downtown Pittsburgh job in about 45 minutes. Not by car or bus, but by an increasingly popular mode of commuting — bicycle. And after a quick change from his biking gear to business casual, Plowman is ready for another day…