How to win the argument: Read Roads Were Not Built For Cars Here’s a risk free Kickstarter project: Carlton Reid has raised and exceeded his £4,000 ($6073 US) goal for his forthcoming book. So, if you pledge now, it’s too late to say “I pledged before it was cool to pledge,” but you will be betting…
A LoJack-style device for a bike. The best idea yet? I bet you agree, because I bet you thought of it yourself — just like I did. And just like me, you didn’t have the wherewithal to make it yourself. And like me, you Googled for it, and found some unsatisfying attempts to create such a…
Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood would have turned 85 today. Somehow I think I appreciate him more as an adult than I ever did as a kid. As a child, I thought his show was really boring. If I ever watched it, it was by process of elimination. And when Trolley went to The…
When we started remodeling our house last year we moved some walls around, and we have had to resort to temporarily storing some household goods in BluesCat World Headquarters, resulting in reduced square footage available for bike parking. One day, I made the mistake of grumbling about having all the bikes jammed together now, and…
I’m very happy that there is a good network of mountain biking trails where I live, though I rarely use them. But here’s how stupid I am: I’ve always thought that bike infrastructure for daily life (getting around town, running errands, biking to work) was it’s own thing, and not related to recreation. I live…
Janette Sadik-Khan is the rock star of transportation bureaucrats, not just because she is the current Commissioner of the Department of Transportation in America’s largest city. But that has something to do with it. Embarrassing confession: I’ve passed up the opportunity to see Sadik-Khan two previous times. I mean, how exciting could a transportation bureaucrat…
Wouldn’t you think that if some smart folks had solved a problem more than 300 years ago, that the problem would have gone away? In the 1650s a gambler asked his smart guy friend, Blaise Pascal for help with gambling. Pascal was intrigued, and struck up a correspondence with another smart guy Pierre de Fermat…
I haven’t been in the cycling industry too many years, but I’ve already seen some proprietary systems for racks and accessories that attempt to lure you into a particular brand’s inbred family. These are racks and bags that work best with sibling products. Racktime has it’s Snapit system, and Thule has it’s Pack n Pedal…
I’m heading to DC again to attend, participate, live Tweet, and blogify the National Bike Summit hosted by The League of American Bicyclists. The event culminates with a day of lobbying Congress for cycling programs. I wasn’t certain if I’d be able to go this year. I put off even thinking about it. But something…
As a long-time cyclist, I cannot think back to a time I was not using kickstands on my bikes, and in this article, I will be offering my thoughts on the ESGE Double Kickstand, a Swiss-made heavy-duty twin kickstand that is great for touring bicycles loaded with racks and panniers and has been providing me…
The first time I saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a in movie called Brick: a weird homage to film noir set in a modern day high school. Instead of a private detective, Gordon-Levitt’s character is a high school student investigating the disappearance of his girlfriend into the underworld of stoners. Instead of a corrupt district attorney,…
Obtaining these Vaude Roadmaster Rear Panniers coincided with an odd turn of events in my life, which must be duly noted before I can continue with this review. I’ve had a trusty Xtracycle for an undisclosed number of years. It was a college graduation gift from my brother and the family “truck.” This Xtracycle happened to be mounted…
Funny thing about Abraham Lincoln (as others have pointed out) is that he is a magnet for the One of Us phenomenon — whether based in fact, conjecture, or only in the imaginations of those who want to claim some Abe cred for themselves. Abraham Lincoln was a bartender Abraham Lincoln was gay Abraham Lincoln…
In making the transition from car to bike as my vehicle, I found that many of the things that applied to my car now apply to my bike. My car had a good windshield so I purchased a good set of Oakley Goggles. My car had studded tires for the winter, so my bike does…
Alison Lucien knows her accessories. With ten years of fashion-industry experience behind her, she understands that the right bag or earrings can take a vintage dress from kitsch to cool. And the same goes for bikes. She rode her vintage Schwinn"”which she brought all the way from her Ohio hometown"”to work for years in NYC,…
This is my third winter as a smart winter commuter — rather: a prepared winter commuter. But there was a winter — four winters ago — when I worked from home. Although I did all my out-of-office errands and went to all my meetings by bike. I remember the first time I decided to go…
Continued from “Learning to Ride In the Wind "” Real Wind“ Since this is the first year that we don’t have a car, we have had to learn how to pack things home, and have had quite a few mishaps along the way. I knew that without studded tires, I had to walk over the…
Writing this review has been very difficult for me. Ordinarily, I like to inject a bit of levity into my contributions to Commute by Bike, but this product from Two Wheel Gear has frustrated me at every turn. There’s really just not much funny about panniers in general, let alone panniers designed to carry work…
It snowed all night last night in Flagstaff. It’s supposed to snow all day today, and tomorrow. And it got me thinking about some of the reactions to Shanna Ladd, our guest blogger who is learning to bike commute in Alaska — 10 miles from her cabin in the boondocks into Wasilla. Some readers have…
Commuting by bike through the winter has presented several challenges. One of the challenges has been adequate lighting. Without good lighting, I have lost the trail and ended up off my bike. I have had to stop many times by the highway until the bright lights of the oncoming cars passed, because the headlights completely…
Says Gus of his winter rig: I don’t have a car and use a trike for my shopping trips in the winter (about 10-15 miles round trip). This is my newest creation using 20″ Wandertec Bongo wheels. The BionX I had from my previous trike. In the warmer months I use a conventional touring type…
Cuff straps and cuff clips are designed to do one thing, which is to keep your pants cuff away from your chainring where it can be exposed to sharp, gnawing, nasty, greasy teeth. They don’t always do a good job. Like many — perhaps most — American bike commuters, I use a repurposed bike that…
Matthew González is a pedestrian, cyclist, and in-denial vegetarian who blogs his adventures at www.mgregueiro.com. He formerly worked in Miami with Teach For America and now travels Europe doing research as a Fulbright Fellow. He launched www.mgregueiro.com as a place to discuss great ideas with the many great minds hiding throughout the wrinkles and corners…
So that Lance guy has fessed up to cheating. I got wind of it yesterday on Facebook. My first reaction was a giant yawn — which perhaps could have been bigger and louder with steroids. It didn’t even occur to me that Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah had anything to do with the work that…
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