On August 15th, Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters, made comments on PBS News Hour with Jim Leher, that funding of bicycling facilities was an example of inappropriate, non-transportation use of the federal gasoline tax. We urged you to send your comments to Ms. Peters. I wrote a polite, but pointed comment to Ms. Peters…
Commute by Bike
Silicon Valley bike commuters
A few people asked for commuter profiles from around the nation. Here are some thumbnails of what bike commuters look like around the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. You can read a little more about Emily (with the pink cruiser), Aaron (with the orange Masi) and commuting in Silicon Valley over at…
Act now: Illinois Complete Streets veto override
The Illinois state legislature passed a “Complete Streets” bill this year which would require full consideration for pedestrian and cyclist access in the design for all new public roads in the state of Illinois. Governor Rod Blagojevich vetoed this bill last month, but the Illinois Senate voted 53-0 yesterday to override the veto. The Illinois…
Reelight bike lights
The Danish Reelight has gotten quite a bit of attention over the past year ever since they introduced their unique, battery-less bike lights. The iFlasher light was nominated for an award in the Danish INDEX Design Competition. Hiawatha Cyclery in Minneapolis has had the Reelight bike lights available in the U.S. for a while now,…
$1200 bike light
Yes, you read that right — Lupine Lighting Systems in Germany has introduced the “Betty” lamp with a suggested retail of $1185. Seven Seoul P4 white LEDs convert 22 watts into 1400 lumens of light for up to eight hours. That’s twice the brightness of a standard 55 watt car headlight. This light is marketed…
Open thread: Ask the experts
Trust me, we don’t lack for material to write about here on Commute By Bike — the main limitation is simply time. However, to ensure we’re meeting the needs of our readers I want to ask what you’d like to know about. Rain riding tips? Night time riding help? How to get started? Fear of…
"Simple cycling" trend at Interbike
The Boston Globe sent reporter Ross Kerber (shown here interviewing Raleigh marketing maven Carey Schleicher-Haselhorst) to Interbike to cover the growth in sales of commuter bikes. He writes in “Simple cycling” that orders and sales of commuter bikes are up 20% in the Boston area. He mentions the Surly Big Dummy, Shimano’s Coasting group, Masi,…
Something like a bakfeits
Several people asked about Dutch-style long cargo bikes at Interbike. An American derivative of this is the Zigo Leader shown here. The child sits in front of the adult in a detachable carrier that doubles as a jogging stroller. This is a pre-production model you’re looking at, and Zigo is still working on getting dealers…
Dutch & other Euro bikes @ Interbike
There was quite a bit of response when Seattle Bike Supply began importing the Dutch Batavus bikes into the United States. Seattle Bike Supply had a huge display at Interbike 2007 with a large portion devoted to the Batavus Dutch Bikes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to ask how much interest there’s been in…
City bikes at Interbike
Commute By Bike readers already have seen several of the city / urban bikes announced by some of the bigger names in the bike industry. I talked to several vendors who confirmed that they view city bikes and cruisers as a hot trend, and many of them have jumped in on the action. “City Bikes…
GT Transeo
For those who think the $1900 Breezer Finesse is a bit much for a commuter bike, here is GT Bicycle’s take on the utility bike: The GT Transeo Series. It’s fairly bare bones, but this bike starts at $395. Unlike some fancier commuter bikes introduced at Interbike 2007, you don’t have to worry about this…
The ultimate commuter bike
This is Joe Breeze with his new Breezer Finesse. Breeze calls this his “dream bike.” This 28 pound dream bike is equipped with Shimano’s Alfine group and has a carbon fiber seatpost and front fork, bright integrated lights (with standlight) powered by the Shimano Alfine front hub dynamo. It’s a beautiful bike and will retail…
Korean Minibike
Korean Minibike Originally uploaded by richardmasoner. I’m at Interbike now and have uploaded my first batch of photos which you can see here. Shown here is a lightweight mini bicycle from the Korean Alton Sports. Minibicycles are big in Korea and Japan, but haven’t made much headway here in the United States. Alton is at…
Combat Commuting
Do you think your commute through down town is rough. Broken bottles, craze. drivers & stop lights. How about commuting to work at a military base in Iraq. “The Baghdad Badass Cycle Club” does just that. Instead of walking the couple miles to work one of them started to commute, extending their commute they had…
Boston businesses promote cycling
The Boston Herald published this article on how Massachusetts businesses promote cycling: Leave your car at home, bike into work and get an annual $700 raise. That’s Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s proposition. The Cambridge-based biotech offers employees who bike to work $175 extra per pay quarter. The 1,100-employee company supplies bike racks, locker rooms and showers…
Real life Spike Bike
Some of the old timers might remember Bob Fishell’s Spike Bike series of posts to Usenet in 1989. Spike Bike was a fictional cyclist in “the cyclist’s paradise” of bike-free Detroit, Michigan. He carries a submachine gun in his water bottle cage, stuffs a couple of grenades in his jersey pockets, and a Rambo knife…
Do You Look Cool?
Well if you don’t – you can now! TwinSix.com is all you need to know. They have their 2008 line up and it’s amazing.
Bike vs car
I’ve had three close encounters of the car kind in a lifetime of cycling. I present them for your education, enjoyment and evaluation. 1. G.I. Jane in Tokyo. This was around 1981 when I was 15 years old and riding my dad’s Japanese custom hand built touring bike to meet a friend at the Yokota…
Interbike next week
Just a quick note that I will be at Interbike on behalf of Commute By Bike and the Crooked Cog Network. I promise to post plenty of photos and maybe some video, along with product previews. If you have any special requests please feel free to post them here and I’ll see what I can…
BBC wants your commute photos and videos
The BBC wants to see photos and videos of the daily commute from around the world for a special short film they’re creating made up entirely of content they receive. When it is ready they will show it on the BBC News website and on BBC World. Photos and video can be emailed to yourpics@bbc.co.uk,…
Commuting with kids
When my children were smaller I sometimes had to transport them from work to home by bike. When they were both smaller, they both fit in the trailer. When their combined weight exceeded 100 pounds, though, we moved up to the “bike train” — my bike towing a trailer bike which towed the child trailer….
Breaking Ground
This week at Wandertec: 1. Watched the new shop construction begin. 2. Shopped for a multi website platform. 3. Listed Ortlieb Pannier Accessories on the Bike Trailer Shop. After months of making arrangements and waiting around, the Wandertec shop expansion is finally underway. I’m hoping to have it closed in and the heating system operational…
rec.bicycles
Before Web 2.0, blogs, web pages and even before the Internet existed, there was Usenet. Usenet is a collection of “newsgroups” — thousands of different discussion topics loosely organized into various hierarchies. One of the hierarchies is rec.bicycles. Rec is for “recreation.” rec.bicycles — pronounced “wreck bicycles” — is further subdivided into rec.bicycles.soc, rec.bicycles.marketplace, rec.bicycles.misc,…
Converting Bike Trailers to Hand Trolleys
It can be convenient to have a bike cargo trailer that converts into a trailer that is easily pushed around by hand. This can be useful for wheeling your gear down to the beach while leaving your bike parked. Or pushing your trailer through the grocery store. It is a useful mode if you have to push your trailer through an apartment building or to the office.
The Carry Freedom Large Y-Frame Trailer has been set up by the good folks at Carry Freedom as a walking trailer. This has been a somewhat custom modification that they’ve offered. They are working on offering the walking handle as a standard accessory. Some of their customers have used this setup for long distance walking trips.