Unfortunately it happens in every city—cyclists and pedestrians assaulted on city trail and greenway systems. These places can make for easy targets to less scrupulous individuals, with one of the latest assaults happening in Minneapolis, as reported on by the local CBS affiliate, WCCO.
Knutson was riding on the Greenway bike trail around 8:30 p.m. Monday when two men approached. One then lunged towards her, pushing her off her bike.
“The other guy came up from behind me and wrapped my scarf around my face and then they just starting hitting me a bunch,” said Knutson.
Knutson gave them her backpack with her phone and wallet, but said the men kept beating her, dragging her off into the woods.
“I thought they were going to knock me out, rape me, kill me or something,” said Knutson. “I kind of thought it was over and I was screaming bloody murder.”
At that very second, Ebbin Martin rode by on his way home, first seeing Knutson’s tail light from her tipped bike. He said he screamed and charged the men, who took off up the 12th Avenue bridge steps.
Even without the gold foil exterior, white suit and double watches this is artistic hilarity. Take one of the world’s fastest and most glamorous cars, build a replica out of cheap hardware materials (to scale, of course), turn it into a bike, then cruise the streets and pray no one rear ends your ass.
All comedy aside, I couldn’t help but wonder the legal issues this brings up. Without question the vehicle is not “street legal” as an automobile, but under what parameters would this be banned as a bicycle?
Fyxation introduced the nylon bodied Mesa pedal last year, and it quickly became a personal favorite on my polo bike. Still sing the same set I reviewed back then, over a hard year’s worth of play I’ve only lost a couple of the plastic pins. Fyxation just introduced the Mesa MP pedal, with a similar super slim and lightweight nylon body but now with replaceable metal pins for people prone to busting them or looking for more grip, especially when wet. See more at www.fyxation.com.
The 2011 Chris King commuter rewards program totals have been added up, and the miles are no joke. Between all of the employees, there were 17,818 bicycle commutes for a total of 136,419 miles, $27,900 in cafe credits earned and 216 days of paid time off awarded for participants.
We visited the Chris King HQ this past summer and posted a tour of their bike commuter facilities.
Burd Phillips, track stand wizard and all around good Hoosier dude, shows his stuff in this quick film by AnC Movies. They used a green screen to run footage of the Indianapolis city center while Burd shows balance who’s boss.
NiteRider has been ramping up their commuter offerings in recent times. The Mako 2 Watt is targeted at the everyday cyclist who needs more than just “to be seen.” It’s a no nonsense headlamp that it puts out some serious light. It runs on AA batteries, and you can expect a 25 hour run time on high and 50 hours on low. Like its namesake, the Mako has gills, only these are red side lights make you considerably more visible at intersections.
NiteRider claims the Mako 2 Watt pumps out 130 lumens thanks to a 2w Cree LED, which I can neither verify or deny. I can say that it’s plenty bright enough to avoid potholes on a pitch black roadway. The beam pattern is fairly condensed, allowing it to stretch far enough ahead for confident high-speed descending at night. Part of me wishes the beam could be a tiny bit more diffused in order to gain a slightly wider immediate field of vision, but I’m not complaining.
The Mako is helmet mountable, but I only used the bar mount. The quick release mounting system is one of the simplest and most effective I’ve used. I do have two nits to pick with it, though. One, it jiggles ever so slightly. This seems to be unique to the Mako, however, as I have another NiteRider light on test with a similar mount, and it doesn’t shake at all. The jiggle isn’t terribly noticeable while riding, but I definitely think it’s something that can be improved upon. The other nit to pick is that the mount is a tiny bit wide. Because of this, I’m not able to use the Mako on my bike with interrupter levers. This won’t be a deal-breaker for most people, but if you’ve got narrow or cluttered bars, you’ll want to make sure it’ll fit before you buy it.
The Mako 2 Watt weighs 165 g, retails for about $50 and includes 2 AA batteries. Check out www.niterider.com.
It’s a rare bike magazine that relies on word nerds and the literary inclined to keep a project afloat, but The Ride is sustaining itself so far having just released issue number five. This may be a testament to the aesthetic attention to detail or just plain good writing. I would tell you to decide for yourself and order the latest issue, but they printed a limited run that was so limited they sold out! Fortunately, they offer past issues for a free download on their site in case you don’t live near any of their sellers.
The Ride also offers select articles to peruse from past issues, one even penned by Greg Lemond! If you’re looking for something a little more literary and artsy, but without neglecting your cycling passion, The Ride might be worth your time.
Richard Sachs has a well earned reputation as a first rate frame builder, concentrated on being the best as possible at what he does, always a continuing student of the craft. Early on he realized that the lugs and dropouts that make one by one framebuilders possible were slowly becoming unavailable simply due to reduced demand and created his own line. The pictured Piccoli Gioielli dropouts are his latest addition, and are in production now. I’d imagine these are destined to grace some beautiful, traditional frames.
Posting news from the Bike Snob’s blog is culturally redundant and almost to the point of being self-referential, but hey, the dude has a book coming out and it should be obvious by now that anything in print needs as much help as it can get. I’ll spare you any attempt at being witty, self-debasing and snarky and just point you to his blog for all that sort of goodness.
Suffice to say, this book, like the previous, should give us all an evening’s read of entertainment and hilarity, poking fun at those we self-righteously ridicule before The Snob deftly turns the handlebar mirror upon ourselves as he is so effectively able to do.
He mentions the book will be published by Chronicle again, so expect the same attention to aesthetic detail that came with the first (stickers!).
Mike Ahrens is one of the new school of builders to come to prominence in the age of NAHBS. I believe he and I first met in San Jose at the 2007 NAHBS and in the years since I’ve continued to keep an eye on the projects coming out of the Ahrens workshop. He’s had his hand in the design of the Broakland track bikes, and recently started down his own track bike project, the aluminum frame Aluminate. The real thing that caught my attention were the cusotm track ends, designed to alleviate the problem of aluminum frames wearing prematurely with wheel swaps or alternately that of stainless steel inserts being too hard allowing the wheel to slip. I’ve experienced both scenarios first hand.
My main challenge would involve a new rear dropout design that was functional and durable since rear wheel swaps can chew up even steel frames after a while. … The ‘off the shelf’ dropouts had stainless outer plates that I knew would slip under heavy load – obviously not good.
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To alleviate the wear issue, I designed an insert that cups all critical surfaces of the dropout. This insert is made from aluminum-bronze, a common material found in ship building due to its excellent corrosion and wear resistance. The material is harder than aluminum yet soft enough for the axle bolts to bite and remain tight.
This package should come in at a price point that undercuts the likes of Rapha and at last offers a full range of easily accessible street orientate kit rather than the odd piece here and there.
Although the project is mountain bike specific and not at all “urban,” the CrankBrothers Dreambikes program is worth mentioning (especially since a lot of us ride off-road as well as on). In a nutshell, CrankBrothers created 14 ultra high-end bikes in cooperation with various industry partners. The bikes will be auctioned off, and the goal is to raise $50,000 for Hans Rey’s Wheels4Life charity. That means putting 500 bikes in the hands of people in developing countries, including healthcare workers.
A jury on Friday found Volagi co-founder Robert Choi liable for breach of contract. Choi was ordered to pay his former employer, Specialized, $1.
Choi’s partner Barley Forsman was found not liable.
On Thursday the judge eliminated some of the claims in the case, which originally included theft of intellectual property and interference in a contract, to just the breach of contract charge against Choi and Forsman.
Specialized founder and president Mike Sinyard said he was satisfied with the outcome.
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