Road Rash

"I believe people powered transportation can contribute to vibrant communities. Bicycles aren't just for kids and hippies. I'm a girl that likes good food, interesting people, and pretty dresses. I ride a bike.

So here I am, up in Canada. Trying to change the way people (women in particular) think about transportation. One bike; train; bus ride; carpool at a time.

These are the stories from the life of a girl who loves to bike."

I have included this introduction to Miss Sarah's blog because in there you will find a rather interesting paper titled: Road Rash.  I find it interesting because it summarizes quite well what I am trying to accomplish with this blog myself.

I will even give you the address so you can go and look at it and come back and tell me pros and cons and what else you think. I personally agree with every part of it and wish this town was now to cold and snowy. If you lower 49ers think you have it bad in the winter, think about this: us here in Anchorage are still waiting for the temperature to get up above 30 degrees. Click on girls and bicycles to access the full paper. Enjoy the ride.

The Power of Bicycles

Biking Politics

It's nice to see our two presidential candidates here riding their bikes. We know though that this was done more for the picture than because they really bike either for commuting or for sports.

Very few people nowadays don't know how to ride a bike. Even though very few of us really bike only for transportation.  My boss makes a gigantic operation out of biking. I mean, she mounts the bikes on the car, all the gear, water bottle, map, and who know what else as if going on a space expedition.  To begin with, a bicycle is a method of transportation.  That means you shouldn't have to put in inside a car (another method of transportation) to then take it to a second place, dismount the bike from the car, mount the bike, go a few miles, come back, etc.  You get the picture.  Biking should rather be a quite simple activity.  Just get on the darn thing and pedal. 

Perhaps the first mistake I see people making when acquiring a bicycle; when they see the weather changing every year as the summer approaches, is that they get the one bike with the fattest tires and the most gears.  Some how that gives them the impression that the wheels will do the pedaling and that the wider the tire, the faster they'll go.  Granted, fat cross tires will allow you to get into many more places such as grass, dirt, on and off sidewalks, but the thicker the tire, the more drag it creates,  the more vibration and the heavier the bike it will get.

Many people quit bicycling because they start out with the wrong bike. One that is uncomfortable or one that makes them look silly. The one bike that makes them also waste a bunch of money on Lycra, carbon, fleece, shoes, etc - just to look official.

My personal opinion is that as beginners, we should get a bike, new or used, that is comfortable. A bike that is not expensive.  That way, if we don't bike again, if we fall and don't like it anymore, we can just store it in the garage or leave it outside all winter and never lose much money or sleep over how much money we spent on the bicycle that we are no longer using.  It could be a comfortable city bike so that we can just jump on it without having to change clothes or shoes.  Upright/cruiser/beach/city/comfort bikes allow us to do that. They are not designed for performance. Just to go easy around the park and enjoy ourselves.  We shouldn't expect to go fast, nor should we expect them to be light.  That is not the point.   They should be comfortable and easy to use. If we then feel that biking is our thing and we see that we spend more and more time doing it, we can go and spend the money on an upgrade.

The pictures that we have here exemplify exactly that.  These two presidential candidates are clearly not the type of commuter/biker that they pretend to be.  Mitt Romney in a suit and on a road bike to which he was not used to.  It does not even look like he ever rode it on the weekends.  A city commuter would not choose that combination of bike and clothing.  Good for the picture perhaps.

And Obama, riding a bike that's too small for him. His daughter wearing helmet down her neck. 

When you bike periodically, you get to know your gear because almost every time you wear it, you make small adjustments to it until it fits good.  None of these bikers seem to have a clue.

I'd say you don't have to be good at everything.  Stick to the politics and may best one be the winner.

Biking through Disaster



Bowers Beach - DE - Source  Latimes.com

Every time we experience disaster or at least during the last 200 years, there is a constant that keeps showing up as a prevailing survivor, and perhaps more as a survivor's companion. A tool to emerge from debris and despair.  It's our two wheel hero, the bicycle.

 

As you can see in our  May 17, Biking the Way out of Disaster post, the bicycle is the one companion that prevails, that is not dependent on electricity, not restricted by satellite connectivity. The bicycle is blackout proof. Not constrained by fuel shortages and for that matter not affected by any of the other casualties and consequences of a disaster. 

In the aftermath of the Japan Earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown, all the shortages that followed could not stop this metal steed because the bicycle only requires you and your willingness to survive either by escaping or by staying to recover and rebound.



East River, NY - Hurricane Irene

Yet after you have used it and abused it and taken yourself to safety, you can leave your bike outside in the rain, in the wind, in the snow and whenever you decide to come back to it, it sure will be in the same place waiting for you.  What an unconditional friend. Only a dog would do that for you. The problem though is that your dog might need to be rescued also.  It's only fair. The bike however, is made for one thing and that is to take you places without requiring much from you.





Bay Shore NY  - Source -  NY Times



We have seen time and again during Hurricane Katrina, Irene, Sandy, Pedro, Maria, etc.  The one element that survives with the survivors along the damage is the bike. I have selected a few pictures that exemplify precisely that.   Having said that, I will also say that not always is a good idea to face nature with simply a bike.  Hurricane Sandy and most tropical storms will bring torrencial rains with high velocity winds.  Remember that a bicycle, as heroic as I might make it seem, only has the lineal support of two wheels.  As opossed to a car, which stands on a four-point support plus it has an iron cabin. Of course cars seem to be the first victims  of hurricanes.  If all else fails... RUUUUUNNNN!!!




 

Crawford, NJ - Source - Sternassociates.com

   Thanks to: The New York Times

                 Framework.Latimes.com

                 Sternassociates.com

                 Keith Bedford - Reuters

                 Karl Merton

                 The dailybeast.com

                 observer.com





Cycling While Pregnant

Since my wife is now pregnant I have stated to wonder if she could still bike with and what would be the potential risks, so here are the results of my modest research.

According to Australia's Bicycle Network Victoria:

Bike riding can help maintain your well-being during pregnancy. Is it safe to ride a bike with a baby in your belly? Cycling education guru and mother Nicola Dunnicliff-Wells investigates. It's widely accepted that regular physical activity is highly beneficial for mums-to-be.

According to Active & pregnant, a guide produced by VICFIT and the Royal Women's Hospital, a sensible pattern of exercise can help maintain wellbeing during the pregnancy, help prepare the body for labour and help in recovery from the birth. Glenys Janssen, midwife at the Royal Women's Hospital Childbirth Education and Training Department, encourages exercise, citing multiple benefits. "It also helps you feel good about yourself, and it might help control weight." The rate of diabetes in pregnancy is increasing dramatically, she says, largely because more women are overweight."You're much less likely to get diabetes, and you're more able to control it if you're exercising regularly."

Glenys says that while some people worry that exercise could cause a miscarriage or damage to the baby, no studies have shown any negative effects of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise in a normal, healthy pregnancy.

photo - Simplybikeblog.com

"If you have complications, such as a multiple birth, or high blood pressure, you wouldn't do exercise," she says. "Or you would only to do it in consultation with a doctor and physiotherapist."

For women with normal pregnancies, moderate-intensity is key. Fiona Cooper, health educator and former midwife recommends cycling to help women build up their endurance for labour, but cautions against riding too strenuously. Staying cool and maintaining the body's water balance is important. "It's the same as the SunSmart message - take a water bottle and ride at times where you're not out in the heat," Fiona says.

Glenys Janssen says that nausea can be quite debilitating. "If you're feeling tired or you don't feel like exercising on a particular day, give it a rest. It's very physically demanding being pregnant."

The Active & pregnant guide stresses that every pregnancy is different: "The pattern of exercise which works well for someone you know may not be the right one for you. Choose exercise to suit your own level of fitness [and] your lifestyle. If you decide not to exercise, this is a perfectly reasonable decision. Give yourself permission to slow down or not to exercise at any time."

Photo: Simplybikeblog.com



Precautions during pregnancy

• Avoid getting too hot 
• Drink more water than usual 
• Don't push yourself (pulse shouldn't exceed 140 bpm) 
• Don't get fatigued 
• Avoid falls 
• Don't exercise if you feel ill 
• Stop if you get dizzy, pain, headaches or short of breath. 

After the birth of her son Lucas, Kathy Brunning decided she wanted to be fitter. "I wasn't particularly fit the first time around, and I wanted to get myself really fit for baby number two." When Lucas was two, she took on the challenge of riding Around the Bay in a Day.  Some time afterwards, she became pregnant with Callum. This time, she says, she felt much fitter and kept riding until the last few weeks of the pregnancy. Riding felt good, and helped to relieve the queasiness in her tummy and, later in the pregnancy, helped her aching legs.  Kathy Brunning also believes her recovery was much quicker because she was fitter. "I was also smaller [the second time] because I didn't put on excess weight."

Deb Chambers rode competitively before she became pregnant, typically riding 400km a week. During pregnancy she eased back on the intensity. "I used a heart rate monitor to make sure I didn't go above 140 beats per minute. "I stopped going up hills, or I just took it slowly."  At six months, Deb rode shorter distances, and raised the handlebars to ride in a more upright position. "At the end it was easier to ride than walk, because the bike supports your weight," she says. "But the best thing was I think it really helped my labour and recovery."

Not everyone has such an easy time. Megan McDonald, who was very active before pregnancy, had bad nausea. "I rode to work for the first few weeks, but when the nausea started, I'd be doubled over dry retching in the sink when I arrived. I don't know if riding actually made it worse, but it was one more thing to worry about, so I stopped." Megan believes it's important not to have big expectations. "You might plan to keep riding right through pregnancy," she says, "but things don't always go to plan. You have to listen to your body and do what's right for you."

Bike the way out of disaster

I thought about writing my views about the novelty of the bicycle. Once I heard or read that the bicycle was noblest invention and even though I knew that it was quite an understatement, I had not stopped to think of the reasons for it. I suppose you can come up with them the more you use a bike and study the subject. This next post and the pictures that you will see will show you what I am talking about.

The novelty of the bicycle comes from: 

• The inexpensive way in which it can take you places
• being the most personal vehicle
• the fact that, like a book, only takes you as far as you want to go
• its environmental impact or respect for it
• its efficiency - energy per mile yield
• last but not least: it is one of the only vehicles that when it cannot longer carry you, will  allow you to return the favor.
• it will always wait for you
• its comparative extremely low need for maintenance
• the fact that you are its fuel

All these images of the Tsunami in Japan are clear examples of what I just described.   When all else fails, a bicycle will deliver. It will deliver you and your cargo, but if it takes you to a place where its access is denied, then you can carry it  across and keep going. 

Very few times has it been said that the success of a bicycle lays on the the fact that its only fabricated with the most minimum  components needed to take you from point A to point B. No windows, no motor, no extras. Only you and a few tubes and cables. That's all it takes for a bike to carry a person.

No matter how many bicycles you ride or if the entire population of this planet decides to ride a bike each. You will not be able to count a single CO2 molecule in the air from its emissions.

 Of course, it can be argued that to produce all those bikes it will take electricity and gas and coal and whatever else you use to power the machines that weld and shape the bike. I say though that it does not matter. With that minimal energy used you are producing a vehicle that does not suffer the cultural effects of age.

A bike is always a bike. You could have given Michael J Fox a bike to go back to the future and he would have had less problems for the bike would have fit right in. That gives you an idea of the agelessness (if that's a word) of the bicycle.  An instrument unaffected by radiation, immune to gas shortages, and invisible to ambiguity. No other country better than Japan can attest to the disaster and radiation combined effort to bring a country to a halt. Yet after every one of Japan's disaster aftermaths such as the atomic bomb and the Fukushima tragedies, the bicycle remains to provide unconditional support.



Photo by Reuters



Photo by Associated Press



Photo by Associated Pres

Photo by Reuters

Photo by AFP

Photo by Christian Science Monitor

Thanks to: Associated Press - Japan, The Chicago Tribune, AFP, Corbis, Reuters, The Christian Science Monitor

A Day in the Life of a Folding Bike :)

And if bikes could talk, the number of stories they would tell us.

My bike , for example would tell of all the people that stop by to look at its internal gears, all the people that stop by to drop off other people, how little I use it, etc.  What I like the most about this short film is the simplicity of its cast, including the bike.  A simple old folding white bike :0        GENIOUS!!!

A CARDBOARD BICYCLE?

Izhar cardboard bike project from Giora Kariv on Vimeo.

You all probably saw it on Yahoo and other content agregators. The big news for us entusiasts of the bicycle is that there is someone out there working on a light and  inexpensive bicycle that breaks all the parameters.
Lets see if it goes into mass production one of these days.

Enjoy...

Why do Women Ride a Bike?

Why do women ride a bike is a question along the lines of our first question: How to get more people to walk/bike?

This short video gives us some answers from a group of young girls in Britain. I decided to share it with you. Enjoy :)

BICYCLE FRIENDLY STATES

According to the League of American Bicyclist:

2012 State Rankings Released

Adding more excitement to National Bike Month, the League has released its latest Bicycle Friendly States ranking. For the fifth year in a row, Washington continues to lead the nation, with outstanding performance in all categories. Riding the wave of significant bicycle improvements, other states like Colorado and Delaware charged into the Top 10.

Click on the map above to explore the state ranking

“We are encouraged to see significant progress in top states like Washington, Minnesota, Colorado and Massachusetts,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “But, as the scores clearly highlight, there’s much work to be done in critical areas like infrastructure and funding. Overall, we see states — and especially state Departments of Transportation and state legislatures — lagging behind cities and the expectations of local cyclists, despite the many well-documented benefits of a more active lifestyle.”
The 2012 rankings mark the launch of an updated and improved evaluation process. Throughout 2011, the League held Bicycle Friendly America listening sessions across the country to understand the successes and shortcomings of the program.  Based on public input, the Bicycle Friendly State survey was revised to give a clearer picture of a state’s accomplishments and next steps towards becoming more bike-friendly.
Click here (or the image below) to see the rankings and how each state scored in the five evaluation categories.

Even with the revised survey, Washington once again set a high bar in 2012. With support from the highest levels of government, the state leads the nation in creating new bicycle infrastructure and using federal funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects. In 2011, the state passed a safe passing / vulnerable user law, due in no small part to the efforts of the Cascade Bicycle Club and Bicycle Alliance of Washington, which have some of the highest advocacy capacity in the country.
“People in the Pacific Northwest embrace bicycling as part of a lifestyle that honors the environment, healthier living and transportation choices,” said Washington Governor Christine Gregoire. “This title once again confirms that we’re on the right track, supporting bicycling as a transportation option in our communities.”
Also on the right track, Colorado and Delaware rose to #4 and #10 respectively in the 2012 rankings. Colorado exemplifies many of the qualities the League looks for in a bicycle friendly state, including a bicycle commuter mode share that’s more than double the national average, a bike-friendly department of transportation, and a top-notch statewide advocacy group.
Delaware also jumped to #10 thanks to visionary support from top government officials. With dedicated state funding for bicycling projects, Governor Jack Markell and the state departments of Transportation (DelDOT) and Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) are leading the way to create a multi-modal transportation system. And the partnership between state leaders and Bike Delaware, the statewide advocacy group, is a model for other states seeking to become more bike-friendly.
“We welcome our rise in the ranking as recognition of what we are doing to make walkable, bikeable communities a priority in Delaware,” said Governor Jack Markell, who is himself an avid cyclist. ”Trails and bike routes are a part of a vision for a state with interconnected communities. We will continue working to make Delaware an attractive place not only to bike, but to live and work.”
But the BFS program is more than an annual assessment. Throughout the year, League staff work actively with state officials and advocacy leaders to help states identify and implement the programs, policies and campaigns that will improve conditions for bicyclists. While Mississippi placed #38 in this year’s rankings, Melody Moody, executive director of Bike Walk Mississippi, is confident her state won’t be in the bottom tier for long.
“Mississippi is a state typically ranked low in bicycle friendliness, but bicycle advocates across the state are working hard to make these changes, and fast,” Moody said. “Bike Walk Mississippi is working one-on-one with local communities to provide on the ground assistance to connect leaders to tools and resources that can be used to create better and safer infrastructure, policies, plans, and programs.”
Learn more about the BFS program at www.bikeleague.org/states and stay tuned to the blog for more analysis in coming days.

Carolyn Szczepanski
Communications Director

Szczepanski joined the League in March 2012, after two years at the Alliance for Biking & Walking. Before she crossed over to advocacy, she was a professional journalist for nearly 10 years.