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Devon rides for Fly Bikes.
From Cycling in the South Bay:
Suzanne Rivera is dead. Contrary to comments posted in various news articles, she didn’t die doing what she loved. She died trying to avoid a race support van that had parked in the middle of a fast, blind, downhill curve, obstructing part of the lane for no good reason at all.
Dave Trimble is the man behind the now infamous Redhook Criterium races and since his first venture into unsanctioned race planning, he has continued to expand his resume. He’s mainly thrown unsanctioned bike races, but has begun doing the same for running races. As a competitive runner and urban bike enthusiast myself, the idea of hosting an alley cat for running has certainly crossed my mind, but I wasn’t sure if the athletes in my (red)neck of the woods would be down for something like that. The story is probably a lot different in New York and Trimble is pulling a page from unsanctioned bike races to see what happens in Brooklyn, NY during The Midnight Half.
Organized just like a standard alley cat, sans check points, runners will begin a half-marathon (13.1 miles) on the Lower East Side and have to navigate the streets of New York to get to the finish. Knowledge of the streets and shortcuts are all part of the game. This time, however, the streets won’t be cleared of car traffic and so all normal dangers will be present.
An extensive interview with Trimble is here and gives a lot of the backstory to the Red Hook Criterium beginnings.
Via Animal
There aren’t many deals out there on older pursuit track frames anymore, but for those into the look and handling of them the Affinity Lo Pro is available once again. $500 gets you the 4130 chromoly frame and fork with twitchy pursuit geometry and a traditional 1″ headtube and lugged fork. Check out the level toptube Metro as well, sporting the same fork and keirin inspired geometry to mimic the handling many street track riders (myself included) favor. More info on each at the Affinity Cyccles blog.
Printmaker and artist, Pilar Nadal, has put together this beautiful bike that also serves as a printshop, gallery, and postal service! Crafted with beautiful pannier cabinets that hold all the necessary supplies, Nadal rides her bike to various events around Portland, Maine and makes prints on the spot for you to send off to loved ones (or hated ones, if that’s your thing). For a small membership fee, you can also join The Tired Press printshop community and use the press with your own supplies. Nadal is also willing to make special arranged trips to your house or business location to do some work for you. Seriously though, I love those pannier cabinets.
WHERE THE HELL IS WALDO is an all city “Alley Kat Style” Scavenger hunt race. Cyclist are given an address and clues of where to find Waldo (real person or wheat paste) at key landmarks through out the city. No route, however you get there is up to your knowledge of the city.
This year, in honor of our 3 year anniversary, we will be hosting the WHIS3 in Brooklyn NY, Los Angeles CA, and San Antonio, TX on the same day!!! After parties are TBA, but request to host have already been put in our ear. As you know we like to ride hard and play hard so lets have fun!!!!!
Check out the Facebook event page for more info.
Ant Bike Mike wants to invite everyone to visit Somerville, MA to attend the Redbones bike party this coming Monday. “You could win a fabulous ANT Basket bike and hang out with the Boston Bike scene.”
I’m surprised I haven’t come across a steampunk bike until just now. Who knows what it does, if anything, but it sure looks cool. I wouldn’t mind cruising around on a trike if it was decked out with all these doo-dads, but I still wouldn’t grow a crappy hipster handlebar mustache. Anyways, this was made by Roger Wood for a sculpture show in New York.
Via Boing Boing
A stray dog in China follows a bike team to complete more than a 1,000 miles in a 24 day journey from Sichuan province to Lhasa. Via Reuters.
New York City already has some of the most harsh sidewalk laws around—I’ve heard more firsthand stories of giant fines for simply hopping onto a deserted sidewalk to lock-up than I can count, with many resulting in an actual summons rather than a mail in fine. New York City already disproportionately targets bicycles for tickets and fines, and now they’re looking for more specifically aimed at delivery drivers often seen on the sidewalk according to the New York Daily News. I’m not saying people should speed along on the sidewalk or that there aren’t a lot of clueless delivery drivers in the city, just that there seem to be more important traffic problems to deal with than even more tickets for cyclists.
Not sold that bicycles are being targeted unfairly? In 2011 the NYPD issued 34,813 criminal court summons and 13,743 moving violations to cyclists in NYC while commercial truck drivers received a mere 10,415 criminal court summons and 14,962 moving violations according to Transportation Nation. Anyone who has been to NYC can attest to the number of trucks running red lights at speed, double parking, etc and common sense is clear on whether a bike or truck running a red light is more dangerous to the community. In 2011 only 8500 drunk driving arrests were made, meaning the four times as many cyclists had to go to court for traffic transgressions than people were picked up for driving drunk in all of New York City.
According to the city’s own traffic safety press release, traffic deaths happen at the hands of cars, not bikes.
As of December 27th, there were 237 traffic fatalities in 2011, 40 percent fewer than in 2001. Included in the 2011 numbers were 134 pedestrian fatalities in crashes with vehicles, an all-time record-low and a 31 percent reduction since 2001; 47 senior pedestrian fatalities, a 27 percent reduction since 2001; and a record low of only three child pedestrian fatalities. Bicycle fatalities have held within the same range over the last decade, despite bike ridership quadrupling during that time period.
Share your stories of getting ticketed in New York City, or your take on this in the comments below.
Skateboard culture has always overlapped with and morphed into other similar counter-cultures like surfing, hip-hop, punk, motorcycles, etc., but I was always surprised it didn’t find a commonality with urban cycling. I’m stoked now to see that happening to different degrees and this pairing of Fairdale bikes and Roger skateboards is one more solid connection. Limited to a run of 50, The Roger comes with a complete Roger skateboard and Fairdale skate rack. The Roger sells for around $800 through dealers and all graphics are custom. If you don’t need the complete set, you can still buy the skate rack through Fairdale for $44.00. Skate (or Ride) or die.
The Los Angeles based company Avicii Bikes is one of the new breed of independent bike brands that have realized that you don’t need to be a multimillion dollar operation in order to import and market bikes in the US. In fact, you can be just another 20 year old cyclist like Kevin Huang.
Of course that’s not to downplay what Kevin has done. He looked at the market for customizable fixed gear bikes and decided he could do better. He claims that his bikes are of a higher quality than the competition, and that the color choices reflect his desire for bright anodized components. He says, “I want people to be able to experience great design and complete customization with our bikes.”
Check out www.aviciibikes.com.
On my last trip to Brooklyn I visited Red Lantern Bicycles, a combination bike shop, coffee shop and bar located in the Fort Green neighborhood. A large, inviting space with the bar service area located up front and the bikes in the back, Red Lantern is striving to be both your repair shop of choice and a chill place to hang out on the way to work, or on your lunch break. If you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend a visit and chat with with owner Brian, pictured behind the bar, and the rest of the knowledgable, connected staff. Visit www.redlanternbicycles.com for hours and upcoming events happening at the shop.
Oh man, I so WANTED this to be real. Crappy park jobs are everywhere, but they seem to be especially offensive in Russia, which led The Village, a Russian blog, to create this fictional app that allows you to take a photo of the offending car’s license plate, and attach it to internet ads that pop up on anyone’s computer in the local vicinity. The web surfer is then forced to share the photo of the “parking douche” on a social media site in order to make the ad go away and in the process shame the driver. Obviously, this breaks all sorts of rules regarding internet privacy and such, but it’s still hilarious. Maybe someone can make a similar “shaming app” for cars parked in bike lanes… There are enough offending drivers to warrant one!
The guys at Abus are seriously passionate about locks. When they found out that I have been using one of their cable locks for over 12 years, they got very serious and explained that even though I was using it when locking my bike in low-risk areas, I needed to start using their latest technology.
Enter the Abus U-40 Mini, a high-security, mini U-lock. The U-40′s temper-hardened steel is coated with a soft shell that not only prevents it from scratching your bike, it makes the lock look thicker and more theft-proof. But when it comes down to it, it’s the steel and the lock technology that truly keep your bike safe.
Many locks on the market are case hardened, is a process in which the steel to be hardened is dipped into a hardening solution for a pre-determined time—the longer it sits in the hardening bath the harder it gets. This steel is very cut resistant, but it’s also somewhat brittle, which isn’t good for a lock. So Abus uses temper hardening, a multi-step process where the steel is dipped at different intervals into a hardening bath, and let rest in between. The multi-step process is more expensive and time consuming but renders a steel that is very hard (cut resistant) yet more malleable to allow the lock to flex without breaking. Abus says, “This is perfect for a lock where you need it to resist torsion attacks without breaking. Our U-54 can resist over 2000 nm, or the force of 4 Porsche engines of twist force and still return to neutral and function. All at –80 degrees!”
Abus went on to explain that the lock cylinder of the U-40 mini is highly pick-resistant due to the high number of key variations—250,000 to be specific. “We have a machine that processes the key cuts which automatically kicks out any key combination that has more than two of the same numbers in a row. For example, a 2,2,2,6 is an easy lock to pick as it does not have big variances in the cut, while 1,6,2,4,3 is a much more resistant key cut. This, again, is an extra step that ABUS takes, but we find it imperative.”
Finally, the double locking shackle secures both sides to the lock body. What this means is that should a thief want to cut the lock off, they would have to cut the shackle twice in order to separate it.
I knew that many ABUS locks are made in Germany, so I was surprised to learn that the U-40 is made in Asia. However I’m assured that their Asian factory has had an Abus sign on the door for 35 years, and that they shipped all of the machines and tooling there (along with German engineers to set them up). So Abus feels that they’re able to maintain an exceptional level of quality control over all our products, regardless of the country of origin.
The Abus U-40 retails for $65, comes in red or yellow and includes four keys. Check out www.abus.com
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