Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Happy Bicycle Day!
Bicycle Day is April 19, commemorating April 19, 1943, when Dr. Albert Hofmann first took LSD intentionally. Three days earlier, he had absorbed a small amount of the drug either through his fingertips or by accidentally ingesting it. On Bicycle Day, he took 250 µg of LSD intentionally and, fearing he had made himself ill, cycled home from his lab. On the way, Hofmann’s condition rapidly deteriorated as he struggled with feelings of anxiety, alternatingly believing the next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch, that he was going insane, and that the LSD had poisoned him.
Here is a short film made to celebrate Albert's 100th birthday. He died at the age of 102.
Monday, April 18, 2011
* ARTcycle opening this thursday At The Vanishing Point
ARTcycle will be launching itself with a party and fundraiser this Thursday evening at ATVP gallery, 565 King St Newtown. Nibbles, beer, wine, music, Cycle Maximus rickshaw rides, a ‘collective visions’ map for people to record their memories or desires, and more.
7pm – 10pm. Thursday 21 April.
565 King St Newtown, between Dickson and Wells Sts.
All welcome. Free entry!
ARTcycle is an artist run cycling initiative, a social club that promotes the arts and environment friendly transport.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
We'll all be riding these soon...
The Street Flyer is a hang-glider for the streets. It’s like an oversized tricycle, but instead of sitting on top to pilot it, you hang beneath. To propel the vehicle, you run and then just drop into the harness and cruise. This obviously works better on a downhill stretch, and uphill runs are probably best avoided altogether, unless M.C. Escher designed your city’s streets.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Chocolate Ride
This morning we went on Fiona's fabulous Chocolate Ride around the Inner West. It was lots of fun, very informative and safe. Met some nice cyclists too.
Full set of photos is here:
This is our pile of bounty, doesn't include a lot of stuff we ate on the way.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Cop Nearly Doors Cyclist, Then Chases And Arrests Her
On Monday, cyclist message boards lit up with outrage over the story of a woman who was arrested after supposedly running a red light on her bicycle on Amsterdam Avenue. But it turns out the truth is actually more outrageous: Christina Thede, the cyclist in question, tells us she didn't run a red light at all. Her crime? Criticizing a plainclothes cop who nearly doored her.
Thede, a 28-year-old theater technician on the Upper West Side, tells us she was biking home on Sunday around 6 p.m. when the driver's side door of a double parked black car popped open suddenly on Amsterdam between 76th and 77th Streets. "I had to brake so abruptly that a delivery biker behind me ran into me," says Thede. "I had a verbal exchange with the driver in which I told him to watch what he was doing." Then she rode on, but soon realized that the guy had gotten back into his car and was zooming up behind her. She still had no idea this man was an officer of the law, and the situation devolved from there:
He was driving after me and I was scared. He kept slowing down alongside me, so I cut all the way over to the left lane. But he angrily skidded to a stop in front of me, pulling his car perpendicular to traffic in the left lane. Then I got off my bike and tried to walk my bike onto the sidewalk because I wasn't going to run out into traffic. That's when he grabbed the back of my bike and started pulling it.He didn't say he was a cop and I thought, 'This guy's crazy, he's attacking me!' I screamed for help and he started restraining my arms and holding me so I couldn't move. People on the street stopped and started asking him what he was doing. I did not hear him say he was a police officer or see any indication he was a police officer, so I was terrified. Then an NYPD squad car arrived and my initial thought was that they were going to save me from this guy; I figured the bystanders had called 911.
But instead of handcuffing her assailant, they slapped the cuffs on Thede, and that's when she realized that it was a policeman who had chased her. "I asked one of the police officers who was telling me to calm down if this guy and the passenger in his car were really cops," Thede recalls. "And she confirmed that they were from the Central Park precinct. I overheard a bystander say, 'I think she ran a red light.' But that's not true. "He was hotheaded and couldn't take someone telling him what he did was wrong so he needed to come after me and teach me a lesson."
Thede was charged with reckless operation of a bicycle and disorderly conduct, and spent about an hour at the local precinct station house. During that time, the cop who arrested her, one "Sgt. Santiago" according to the summons, tried to justify the arrest. Thede says, "He told me that when I went around the door of his car to continue, that that was reckless because I was going into traffic. He maintained that I wasn't allowed to swerve around. But I came to a complete stop, exchanged words with him, then rode around his still-opened door. He said he arrested me because he was concerned for his safety."
We're waiting to hear back from the NYPD on this, but Thede's lawyer believes the tickets will be dismissed, and she's considering suing the city.Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
"for the equivalent cost of a single mile of freeway, we have a bike infrastructure"
Portland Mayor Sam Adams says Portland’s spent on its bike infrastructure what it would normally spend on a single mile of highway.Portland’s biking infrastructure is the stuff of legends. The city boasts the USA's highest bike commuter rate. You’d think, then, given the strong feelings, that Portland has made significant investments to get a significant infrastructure. But according to Mayor Sam Adams they built their bike network for about the same amount of cash that a mile of highway would set us back.
"You know in 1993 we weren't the bicycling capital of America," he says. "Seventeen years later, for the equivalent cost of a single mile of freeway, we have a bike infrastructure."
Roger Geller is Portland's bike coordinator. Geller said that in 2009, the staff set out to put together an estimated total cost for the city’s bike infrastructure in 2008 dollars.
When all was said and done, they came up with an estimated value of $52 million and adjusted it up to $60 million to be safe. Here’s how they arrived at that figure:
"We assumed that all elements that contributed to the city's bikeway system were reasonable costs to include, even if they were not built for the express purpose of creating a bikeway. For example, we included the cost of pedestrian half-signals and bicycle-pedestrian bridges across I-5, among others. These signals and bridges facilitate crossings for existing bicycle boulevards, even though they were in place before the bicycle boulevards were constructed.
"For multi-use trails we split the construction cost of the trail in half and assigned half the cost to pedestrians. For the Eastbank Esplanade I believe we divided the cost into thirds and assigned one-third of the cost to park development, as much of the construction of that pathway was not about transportation but was also about creating a parklike environment."
To be clear, he added, the network did not actually cost $60 million. It was probably less than that: "The $60 million figure is essentially the replacement value of our network as it existed in 2008 in 2008 dollars. In other words, if the bikeway network disappeared overnight -- and all the elements that contribute to its functionality, whether built by the city's bikeway program or not -- $60 million is approximately what it would cost to replace it all."
The one thing Geller said it didn’t include was city programs that deal with bicycles -- Oregon Safe Routes to School, for example. Even so, the cost of those activities, stretching back to 2004, could be absorbed in the rounding up from $52 million to $60 million, Geller said.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Don't vote for the religious right
Moore hits back at O'Farrell on cycleways
Sydney mayor Clover Moore has hit back at NSW Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell over his promise not to put more "crazy" bike lanes on Sydney's main roads.
"I am sure his statements will be alarming to the thousands of bike riders who support and use our cycleways every day - freeing up space on roads and public transport for others," Ms Moore said.
Her comments come after the Opposition leader claimed she had "deliberately set out to inconvenience motorists" with the city's 200km bike network.
"Whether you want to come into the city by pogo stick, cycle, jog or whatever, we should encourage everyone to leave their cars at home or use public transport - but that's not real life for people," he said.
"You can't ride your bike to the city each day if you live at Penrith. I think we can deliver better bike access to the city without getting in the way of cars."
But Ms Moore said no traffic lanes have been taken out for cycleways or shared paths and that the numbers of bike riders has doubled and tripled in areas where links have been built.
"The cycleways are there to provide another transport option for those who live close to the city centre," she said.
"Once the network has been built it will take 300,000 car trips daily of the road - easing congestion and freeing up valuable road space for those who do need to drive."
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Le Cyclists de freak 1899
these images are drawn from the pages of an 1899 French Sports Newspaper ("Le Sport Universel Illustré"), this incredible gang of Music-Hall "freaks" riding their bicycles all appeared in a show in a live show in London.
For those of you who do not "parle vous Francais" "Le Pédaleur à la tête de veau" ("calf-head cyclist"), "Le cycliste à la tête de chien" ("dog-head cyclist"), "Le pédaleur-squelette" ("skeletton-cyclist"), "La cycliste barbue" ("bearded-woman cyclist"), "Le cycliste cul-de-jatte" (it's explicit...), "Le cycliste manchot" ("no-armed cyclist").
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