<
Super7.com is celebrating National Bike Month by offering a 25% discount to OMG Posters readers (or anyone who uses the “OMG” promo code – that’s you!) for the entire month of May. Super7 is a clearinghouse of “Toys, Art, Design & Culture” and they have a number of awesome bike-themed designs. The posters usually run $40.00, so take advantage of this deal while it lasts.
Author Archive for Scott Spitz
Running on a treadmill at the Y last week, while watching others spinning like mad on the stationary bikes, I couldn’t help but wonder why they haven’t hooked these machines up to generators and started recycling the energy. It seems like a no-brainer to me. So, imagine my surprise when I found this article the very same day.
An eco-friendly bed and breakfast in the UK has hooked up a stationary bike in one of their rooms to the television, so if you want to watch your favorite shows (let’s assume it’s just raining outside) you have to start pedaling. This may be a sort of novelty experience for the visitor who wants to have as eco-friendly an experience as possible while traveling, but I don’t see why hotels and other such institutions can’t harness this power on a larger basis. Feel free to add comments on places you know that have done just that.
Let’s kick off the week of Bike To Work Day with this simply awesome video that is what the title says, “How a Bicycle is Made”.
Part of me thinks I’m about to watch a Tom & Jerry cartoon and another part is waiting for the MST3K silhouettes to pop up and start delivering witty snark. But really, it’s just an incredibly fascinating and detailed video from 1945 that shows questionably young workers putting bikes together with “bracket pieces” and makes me wish for ye days of olde when the bike industry necessitated seemingly endless rows of warehouses to keep up with the demand.
Do you think this is how they do it in Taiwan today?
Videos about fixed gear bikes are a dime a dozen, so it takes something a little extra to make yours stand out. The folks in Bristol did just that when they put together this beautiful piece of work for a 30 minute documentary about fixed gear riding in the Bristol area called Boikzmoind. Instead of just releasing the video they also crafted a 95 page book to complement it, using screenprint and digital printing processes to bring it all together. The video looks to be shot with equal attention to detail, mixing standard philosophical waxings with a good dose of humor (what’s up with that bunny?!).
The package will run you $47 and you can purchase it here.
More shots of the book are here.
New York released the look of their much anticipated Citibike bike share program on Monday. Sponsored by Citibank, the rides look like rolling advertisements, because they basically are. Citibank fronted a significant amount of money for the program and this is their return. The program details haven’t been devoid of criticism, but that hasn’t been directed toward the aesthetics as much as it has the price of renting the bikes. This, I discovered, is due to a lack of understanding as to how the program works.
The bikes can be rented through a $95 yearly membership, $25 for a week, and $9.95 for a day. These membership prices don’t get you a bike for an entire day though, only 30 minutes (45 if you’re a yearly membership card holder). Extra time usage for the bike skyrockets after that, adding up to $13 for another hour, $25 for an hour and a half and upwards. It sounds laughably expensive, but the comments from this post explain the system further.
These bikes are meant to be rented for very short periods of time and to get you from point A (the rental station near your house) to point B (grocery store, library, etc.). You pay nothing beyond the membership for that short ride. You then lock the bike up and when you need another one to get back to your original destination (or somewhere else), you check out another bike. The point is to keep these bikes in constant circulation and refrain from having a bike checked out in the morning and put out of commission with one rider all day, in case they planned on taking it somewhere and locking it up all day before riding it back to the rental station once they are through with it. High prices are a huge part of the incentive to use the bikes on a short trip basis only. I must say, I agree with this approach.
Hopefully an educational component will help people understand the seemingly high fees and get them over the fear of using this rental program.
More about the program here.
A friend of mine bought one of those bike air horns that ran on compressed air from a water bottle sitting in his down tube cage. It was compressed using a standard bike pump and when activated was loud enough to induce wetness in the crotch (not the good kind) from any unsuspecting driver with their windows down. This thing was awesome and my friend attested to the effectiveness as he began using it fairly liberally against the slew of drivers who insisted on cutting him off, pressing him to the curb and, well…just being drivers.
His horn, however, PALES in comparison to this beast. This is a functional novelty bike called The Hornster, which holds a TRAIN horn to its frame, powered by a scuba tank. I pity the fool who cuts this guy off as the blast reaches an ear drum damaging 178 decibels, hence the hearing protection worn by the rider. The sound in the video isn’t even all that impressive, but take note they were only feathering the horn and not running it at full pressure. Another video will be released later this week documenting it at full volume.
Originally seen on Wired.
We’re all familiar with Bike To Work Day and maybe you’ve heard of Walk To School Day, but this Wednesday (tomorrow!) the National Center for Safe Routes to School is rolling out Bike To School Day. In conjunction with the League of American Bicyclists and the National Bike Month celebration, individuals and schools around the country are hosting their own Bike To School Day events.
The website for Safe Routes guides you through the many ways you can participate in one of your nearby events or host your own. There is even a bike rack giveaway incentive being offered to organizers and participants by Saris. If you want in on the chance to win a free bike rack you need to move quickly as only two more drawings are scheduled.
According to this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a four-year project that split $100 million between four communities showed bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure increased alternative forms of transportation by over 50%. These should be pretty solid numbers to sway congress to fund more of these sorts of projects. I mean, the study also showed that carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 7,7000 tons, health care costs were reduced by $6.9 million and 1.2 million fewer gallons of gas were burned. This seems like a no-brainer right? Wrong. Despite other encouraging statistics generated by the study, the article ends with this downer.
Still, the report and its findings are not likely to affect how Congress funds transportation, Fowler said. The House and Senate are now wrangling a $100 billion federal transportation bill that does not include any new funds to build infrastructure for alternative modes of transportation. At best, she said, the bill will preserve most of the $821 million, about 1.5 percent of the federal transportation budget, that is now dedicated to building recreational bike trails, safe routes to schools and other programs.
Thanks congress dudes. Thanks a lot.
The Netherlands should be called the Never Never Lands because it seems like some sort of made up utopia where bikes rule the roads, clothing is always functional yet stylish and no one gives a CRAP if you’re wearing a helmet or not. Seriously, count the helmets in this video. Let me know if you see one. Granted, that’s probably because, as I said, bikes rule the road and the dangers are significantly less than what we are accustomed to. Let’s not get into all that though. This video gives a quick history of how bikes came to be so much in use and then focuses on what is happening in the present. Anyone wanna go on vacation? For, like, ever.
Big Brother is watching, sort of. In this case it was Little Brother, when a bicyclist caught a hit and run driver taking out both himself and his riding partner while on a training ride in Berkeley, California. The rider was filming Brazilian racer Bruno Gregory when a car slid into both of them and took them down before continuing to drive off.
GoPro video cameras run between $150 & $200, but it wouldn’t be the worst idea to have a filming device on you when out riding. Take note of the camera man’s helmeted head bouncing off the pavement.
Remember when the Critical Mass ride during the 2004 Republican National Convention brought out around 5000 – 6000 people on bikes? We thought that was HUGE, but that wasn’t even about bikes as it was about using them to take over the streets.
In London this past Saturday 10,000 CYCLISTS (not just people on bikes) took to the streets in a show of force to convince the mayoral candidates (who also rode along) in the next election to put safe streets for cyclists at the top of their agenda.
The Green candidate for mayor was quoted as saying, “…cycling is the future.” Damn, can we get some of what their drinking over to our city’s politicians?
Oh, and did we mention it was rainy that day? And they STILL brought out 10,000 riders? You go London, you go.
Today kicks off the League of American Bicyclists’ National Bike Month, so to celebrate we bring you a really cool series of videos created by BikeWise, a bike advocacy group from New Zealand. The videos follow a rider from points A to B around the area, noting dangerous intersections, advising proper signaling and offering other important information to get you to the destination safely. This would be a great resource to create for new riders in any area.
I remember when I was giving “commute reports” in my zine back before the expansion of the web and such easy access to videography, which amounted to crappy, photocopied photos taken with a disposable camera and placed next to typewriter copy (now get off my lawn kids!). Oh how far we’ve come. These videos are much more practical and helpful, of course.
Plug similar videos for your area in the comments and enjoy National Bike Month! Bike To Work Day will be here on the 18th.
This happy little video was sent to us by some readers from Gyor, Hungary. They said it was about cycling and friendship and this seems to be the case. Some nice videography accompanied by a posi-sounding song and lots of bike riding footage. I think the highlight is the bike-centric stoplights they have in their part of the world. Watch this and get rid of your case of the Mondays.
The Onion has just released it’s Transit Issue here in Indianapolis and posted some bicycle safety tips on the website from an old installment. In typical Onion fashion, the tips are as hilarious as they are impractical. My two favorites are the following:
Visibility is crucial when biking. Ride with a lit highway flare in each hand.
Does your city have adequate bike paths? If not, consider bitching about it to your local government for the next 40 years.
This article was written back in ’01 and sorely needs some updating. Add your own Onion-esque bicycle safety tips in the comments.
We ran a feature on the “Bicycle Portraits” project in issue #20, but want to make mention of it again as NPR just put up a story about it as well. “Bicycle Portraits” is just what it says, but extends beyond bike culture fetishization by showcasing riders in South Africa who aren’t necessarily part of a bike culture, but simply ride to ride. For many reasons, mainly infrastructure and safety, South Africans don’t ride bikes, so those that do each have a unique and personal story for doing so. Photographers Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler have compiled these photos and corresponding stories on their website in hopes of inspiring other South Africans to begin riding in order to elevate themselves socially and economically. Check it out and purchase the book of photos here.
Recent Comments