Monsterbike

Picnic Table Bike

The Waffle Bike

Bicycles in a Disaster Zone

With the opening of hurricane season this year, I was reading an internet article penned by a person considering escaping a hurricane zone by bicycle. The writer listed the advantages, and there are some. However, as much as I love bicycling, I consider a bike to be best used as a secondary mode of transport, one strapped to the exterior of an enclosed vehicle that offers some protection from the elements and from looters during evacuation. Cars can carry more, they can be used as shelter, and if well maintained and used appropriately and in a timely manner, they are vastly superior to a bicycle. Remember, you may be going 300 to 400 miles, with your family in tow, and probably setting up a temporary residence elsewhere. Give yourself the best chance possible.

A bike comes into it's own as a secondary vehicle. It requires no fuel, it can travel over and past things a car cannot. Bikes are great for taking a five mile trip to a gas station, scouting ahead of traffic jams for better places to turn off congested highways(use a partner on the bike and communicate with the FM walkie talkie things), and to get around campsites crowded with evacuees.

If you use a bike to go back into the disaster zone, I recommend a heavy chain lock and a U-lock for when you leave it unattended. A basket is great, and I would run kevlar belted mud grip tires. Roofing nails will be more common than broken glass in the disaster zone. Strap a gallon jug of water to the back. It’s going to be hot and humid. Know your routes.......And alternate ones. Wear gloves and a helmet. Do not travel alone. Carry a gun.

"The debris on Lake Catherine was more interesting and varied as well as more plentiful, to the pile I crossed in Slidell. Besides the usual stuffed animals and TV sets, I noticed a shotgun in a plastic carrying case, bottles of Vodka, Scotch, and J.D., a nearly complete black Naugahide bar with matching naugahide stools, and believe it or not, a dildo. I was in Orleans Parish, after all. They don't call this town the "Big Easy" for nothing."

Here is an informative website about using a bicycle to get around the disaster zone. Remember that you may be the only human life for miles. Give yourself the best chance possible.

Know Your Bike

Bicycle Uglification

I touched on bicycle uglification in my first bike theft prevention post, but I felt it was necessary to go a bit farther. Uglification is a current popular trend among bike commuters. True enough, not much sucks as much as getting off work and finding your ride gone or stripped of essential parts. I can understand the need to make your primary mode of transportation undesirable to thieves. The less incentive they have to liquidate your ride, the better. The problem is, thieves are not stupid. Sometimes they just want transportation themselves.

Uglification of bicyles by commuters seems to be simply a backlash against the expensive shiny bikes ridden by the lycra clad weight weinies. Most of the tricks cyclists use either weakly disguise an expensive bicycle, or ruin it. It is far better, in my opinion to resurrect a previously discarded bike for the purpose of commuting. Regrease dry bearings. Oil the chain. Rebuild the bike as inexpensively as possible, without caring about appearance. Then get a lock that will deter all but the most determined thief. It's all about the work to benefit ratio.

But if you want to explore bicyle uglification, here are a few links:

Ugly Your Bike

Ugly Your Bike #2: A Case Study

10 Uglification Tips

8 Ways To Ugly Your Bike

Junk-ify Your Bike

Update on Riding a Bike with a Dog

It was a cool Saturday morning, with dew on the grass. Ilsa had been waiting several days to go for a ride, watching mournfully as I rolled the commuter bike out on the porch each morning to ride to work. This morning though, was her's. She lept into her training vest as soon as I removed it from the hook beside the door, jerking it out of my hands in the process. "Settle down girl," I told her, "We're going to ride......." The word ride just made her tail beat the floor more vigorously.

Ilsa is a large exuberant dog now, and the possibility of disaster increases with every day she doesn't get her ride. I also wanted to take photos this morning, so I was looking for a safer way to manage Ilsa's enthusiasm than simply holding the leash in my right hand on the handlebars with the loop around my bicep. After some experimentation, I found that I could run the leash from my bicep to my right hand, then around the bike's handlebar stem, and finally to Ilsa. This arrangement gave me the mechanical advantage I needed to to better control the dog while using the camera. I have decided to use this arrangement at all times now, and I have wrapped the quill of the Raleigh cruiser with electrical tape to prevent the leather leash from chaffing the black finish of the handlebar stem.

Here are a few more pointers I have learned along the way. Remember your riding buddy is running barefoot. Avoid taking your dog biking when the pavement is hot. Monitor your buddy's feet. The pads of a dog's feet wear down at a faster rate on pavement. Be aware of glass and other sharp objects in your path not only for your tires but also for your dog.

Your canine is going to get thirsty. They will become thirsty faster and to a greater extent than yourself. They are running in a fur coat. You are riding in comfortable clothing. Take an extra bottle of water for your dog, as well as a collapsible dog dish.

All of the other advice about training and using a cruiser bike with a coaster brake still applies. Make the ride fun. Let your dog set the pace, you set the direction. Take treats. Play some games at your destination. Enjoy the ride. Your canine certainly will.

Read the original post on Bicycling with a Dog.

Copenhagen Cycle Chic Stickers

If you are a fan of Copenhagen Cycle Chic and the entire biking for normal people in normal clothes, for pleasure/transportation thing, read on. You can now get stickers for your ride to advertise the fact. In fact, you can get three bike frame stickers for the price of one bumper sticker. You just have to cut them apart yourself. Go here for the deal.

Bicycle Security

I am using a Kryptonite New York Noose to secure my commuter bike. At present, I am removing the front wheel to secure it in the noose. My only complaint about this lock and chain is that one more link would have been helpful. The chain I am using is the 27 inch version, and it is barely enough to bind the frame and both tires around a reasonably large pole. A fifty-two inch version is available, but it entails almost twice as much weight. I prefer the chain to a U-lock due to the increased flexibility.
Soon, I may purchase a U-lock to secure the front wheel on the bike. The extra lock will also give me the ability to lock up my wife or little girl's bike, so we can travel by bicycle to places together. I am considering a different brand from the Kryptonite, just to have two locking systems on the bike.

Cyclists chuckle and say that any weight savings on an expensive lightweight bike is quickly offset by the locking device necessary to secure it. There are many schools of thought regarding the prevention of bike theft. One thing all bicyclists agree on though, is bike thieves suck. All it takes is a quick search on You Tube using the keyword "bike thief" to become convinced that a determined thief can make off with almost any bicycle. Here are some strategies to help make certain your bike is still there when you return from your errands.

1. Always lock your bike. Many stolen bikes were never locked in the first place. If you lean your bike outside a convenience store to dart inside for a soft drink, the thief will have a head start plus your bicycle to help him escape. You will be on foot, and you will likely never catch him.

2. Buy a quality lock. Cheap chains and cables easily fall to bolt cutters. Standard lock shackles are sliced in under 15 seconds with bolt cutters. The cutters get stashed back in the thief's backpack, and he makes off on the bike in under a minute. For details on how to properly use your lock, visit Sheldon Brown's Lock Strategy page, and mechBgon's Bicycle Locking page.

3. Lock your bike to something secure. Bike thieves are known to remove or loosen bolts holding together bike racks to quickly remove the prizes locked to them. Parking meters may have the heads loose for quick removal. Poles may not be secure in the ground. These are known as "sucker poles." The thief waits near the pole, a sucker quickly locks the bike to the pole, and enters a building. The thief pulls the pole from the ground and off the bike, and rides off on the bike or tosses it in the back of a pick-up truck if the wheels are bound.

4. Secure the small parts on your bike. Quick release seat posts are an invitation to ride home with a seat tube poking you in the ass. Even if you discard the quick release in favor of a bolt, use a chain to secure the seat to the frame. I like to use a bicycle chain for that purpose. Walking a unicycle home sucks even more than a seat tube up your butt. If you have a quick release on your front wheel, secure the wheel with a lock. Locking skewers are available, but the cost is almost as much as another decent U-lock. When you purchase lights, make certain they have quick release fittings so you can take them with you. Riding home without handlebars sucks too. If you have an Allen bolt(s) securing your handlebars, fill the recesses with glue. A pick will quickly pop out the glue in the shop, but the thief with only an Allen wrench will move on to the next target. I decided to put kiddie handlebars on my commuter bike for several reasons. First, they were free, off a junked little girl's bike. Second, they give me a narrow riser bar. Third, a bike thief just wouldn't find them desirable. Which brings up another point......

5. Make your bike one of the least desirable ones on the rack. It doesn't have to be a junky clunker, it just has to look like something that a bike thief can not sell quickly. Chain it up right next to the shiny Orbea or the Cannondale. Many cyclists wrap expensive bikes in Saran wrap, duct tape and such. Bike thieves are not stupid. They know a marketable prize lies beneath the wrappings. Reflective tape and latex house paint work better to make the bike thief choke and move on. Another tactic is to buy or build a bike that suits your needs, but which nobody would really desire. Check out pawn shops and garage sales. Forget expensive stuff. Buy an older, middle of the road bike with functional but obsolete components. Rusty bolts never hurt anyone, just spray them with some penetrating oil so they will turn when needed. Scratches and scuffs in the paint just increase the odds the bike will still be there when you get back. Once you have a suitable pariah bike, remove any of the good stuff, and bolt on the stuff you need to make the bike more utilitarian, and even less desirable. For more ideas on how to make your ride less appealing to a thief, go here.

Lock It or Lose It

How to Keep Your Bike from Being Stolen

Avoiding the Bicycle Thief

Locking Your Bike

Victim Complex: Coping With Bike Theft

The Redline R530

Redline has introduced what they call a European styled bike, the R530. The Bike Geek has written a review on it. He was kind.

What I see is a compact aluminum framed hybrid bike with crappy brakes, fenders and a full chain case slapped on it to capitalize on the Stateside Euro-bike fascination. There is indeed a place for an upright riding posture, and a bicycle of style and sophistication in the United states. Presently, the Electra Amsterdam is the closest approximation from a US bicycle company, but even the Amsterdam has a compact frame.

Compare the Redline product with the esteemed Batavus Favoriet. The Favoriet frame has a horizontal top bar. It has a seat tube that places the feet forward. It has a leather sprung seat, and no pneumatic suspension front fork. The frame is steel, and so is the chain case. On the aluminum Redline, the seat is a gel filled pillow, and the chain case is brittle plastic. The Favoriet comes with lights, a skirt guard jassenbeschermer (coat protector), and a tire pump. The Redline R530 comes with puncture resistant tubes instead. The Favoriet uses a SRAM 5 speed with a coaster brake. The Redline bike uses a Nexus hub with a Shimano roller brake. The Shimano front roller brake on the R530 is weak.

Hopefully, at some time in the future, an affordable American bike with an authentic Dutch geometry and flavor will become available. There is a ready market for such a velocipede. The Redline R530 is not it. The R530 is like a pair of Chuck Taylors trying to masquerade as Chanel.

Tips for Cyclists from a Car Driver

Bike Bias

Kid gives up cheap efficient transportation for a piece of crap so he can sink more dollars into a money pit and have a chance at taking a girl to the prom.

Heck, I couldn't say it better than Brad at Streetsblog.

The Armstrong

I found this advertisement over at Classic Rendezvous.

Then


Now

Mr. Mathes

Fred Mathes is 92 years old. His ride is a three speed Schwinn Traveler that he purchased in 1952. He doesn't feel the need to purchase a newer bike any more than he feels the need to purchase more gears. Three is more than enough.

For his 80th birthday, he took a 380 mile ride to Oxnard California. For his 90th birthday, he took a 40 mile ride. His average daily ride is around fifteen miles.

Mr. Mathes does not wear flamboyant lycra or special cycling shoes. He climbs on his bike and rides in what he happens to be wearing at the time. If he is wearing long trousers, he rolls a pants leg up. Simple as that.

The Mathes Gestalt of cycling is "the breeze in your face, the exercise, and the constant change of scenery." Yep.

If I make it to 90 years of age, I hope I am as cool as Mr. Mathes.

Early Morning Ride

The morning sun saw the Armstrong being unloaded from the rear of the Cherokee among the corn fields. It was nice to get out and ride on long stretches of desolate blacktop, with no intersections to cause concern.

The old Armstrong will fly. It was not long that I had sweat streaming down my face and being swept away by the wind.

Surmounting the Obstacles to Cycling

BSNYC has some words of wisdom for anyone wanting to get into or get back into bicycling.

If you are a cyclist and you have not found Bike Snob's blog, you are missing the bike worlds equivalent of Tam's View From The Porch. Total, unmitigated, well honed and incisive snark that has teeth that cut to the bone in one snap.

Couchbike

A Dad

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly

More about Team Hoyt

Nader on Bicycling

"If, during the Second World War, the United States had retooled its factories for manufacturing bicycles instead of munitions, we’d be one of the healthiest, least oil dependent, and most environmentally sound constituents in the Nazi empire today."
Ralph Nader

As I was googling for a pic, I found this. Heh!