Patriotic Recumbent Bike

On the bike trail along Four Mile Run, Arlington VA

I don't really understand why he isn't hot in there, although I suppose some air circulates from below and it is somewhat open in front of him to let hot air out.

Bicycles Expressing Some Opinions

All free space covered in bumper stickers

Mostly Arlington is not a place where one sees lots of cars (and trucks) plastered with bumper stickers - or bicycles either. This one in Shirlington is an exception.

Florida Leads Nation . . . in Cyclists Killed by Cars

Well, and pedestrians too. That's what this article from a Florida newspaper says.

Florida leads the nation in bicycling and pedestrian fatalities. Gancarz is at least the 20th bicyclist to be killed since July while riding on area roads.

According to the article, "blame" (as determined after the fact) was split evenly between drivers and cyclists.

One of the first books about travel by bike I read was by Barbara Savage, who in the 1980s went around the world with her husband by bike and wrote Miles from Nowhere. I recall that they found Florida to be one of the least friendly states for cyclists - have things not changed in 25 years? (Barbara Savage died in an accident with a truck while cycling after returning to California . . .)

Yike Bike & Picycle - Electric Bicycles For All?

It seems likely that cyclists will be seeing more and more electric bikes - for some reason, this seems to take some getting used to. Performance Bike has several Schwinn models now for under $1,000 that looks pretty good and at that price, when people are otherwise buying "city bikes" for close to that price (or more), it seems like a reasonable option.

Some of the options seem a little too exotic, however. The Yike Bike in particular I find puzzling since it doesn't include any ability to pedal the thing at all. Is this really a bicycle?


Promotional video for a Yike Bike

Actually, I can't tell if it is legally a bike or not - the focus of the explanations of the legality of electric bikes is usually on the upper limits for the amount of electric power and not being able to exceed 20 mph unassisted.


Video that attempts to persuade that the Yike Bike can cope with the real world - does not seem the rider read the Yike Bike "warning" page

The above video looks convincing but I doubt I would want to be out on the road much on one. Apparently most of the rider's weight is distributed to the front wheel, but that tiny back wheel . . . And the various Yike Bike videos never show a rider wearing a helmet. I'm not obsessive about helmets, but it seems at least as likely to crash a Yike Bike as a regular one, so why not a helmet? (The unsettling "warning" page for Yike Bike says "always wear a cycling helmet which meets the latest safety standards applicable in your region for YikeBike usage." Oh.)

The steering set-up for the Yike Bike would take a little getting used to (and yes, the "warning" page has some advice there, too). The basic "handlebars from behind" isn't a new idea - a patent I looked at in an earlier post is the same in that regard although the small wheel is in front (and the materials are mainly wood and not carbon fiber!).

In one respect the Yike Bike goes way back, to the "ordinary," with it's extra large wheel in front and tiny wheel in back, when strong braking could lead to "headers" as the rider went over frontwards upon a sudden stop, landing on his (or her) skull. The safety video above actual shows such a sudden stop, but presents it as a "feature" - but on grass. Going down a steep hill might be a bit different. The "warning" page advises (among other things) "never use the YikeBike on steep hills (over 5 degrees) and only go slowly down hill."

Another issue is that the Yike Bike has zero built-in cargo capacity, other than for the rider to carry a backpack or messenger bag. The Yike Bike site states that the combined weight of rider and bag should not exceed 100 kilograms (or 220 lbs, give or take). The Yike Bike itself (the basic model) weighs 23 lbs, which is more than a typical high end road bike these days and about the same as my 30 year old steel Bridgestone road bike. When folded and tucked in the optional $60 carry bag, that would be a bit of weight. And of course if the drive system fails this isn't a bike in the usual sense (that is, with pedals) so carrying would be the only option.

A more traditional electric bike, if not in appearance, is the Picycle.


The basic Picycle

Here the exotic aspect comes from the design, and not from most of the electric bike features. The base version is under $3,000 while another version with a fancier internal hub system (for the pedaling) and a belt drive rather than chain (again, for pedaling) puts the cost up around $5,000. Of course, for either sum, you have a "bicycle" that will attract lots of attention!

The main technical advantage (or difference, anyway) of the Picycle over "traditional" e-bicycles is that the drive system does not boost the existing drive system to the rear wheel but rather has a motor in the front hub. However the Schwinn models for under $1,000 use the same approach. The Picycle also recharges as you coast down hills. On the other hand, it takes 3.5 hours for a Picycle to recharge (per their site) while the cheap Schwinn claims 30 minutes to full charge, allowing the same 20 miles of riding (without pedaling - this seems to be the basic metric for these things).

A version of the Picycle is available with two motors (and no pedals/chain) but that model, able to hit 35 mph, is not legally a bicycle (but the Picycle people ignore that). I certainly wouldn't want such a thing on the bike trail (where the speed limit, much ignored, is 15 mph).


A review of the Picycle from the LA Times - the reviewer wears a leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet since she is apparently more a biker than a cyclist.

The Picycle models have rear fenders, in part because the seat post is integrated with it (I think) but no front fender. Typically I'm not too concerned with fenders (by which I mean none of my bikes have them even though I ride in all weather) but because the front wheel is motorized I suspect it would spit up far more debris in all weather, so I think despite the uncool design aspect that a fender for the front wheel would be good. The Yike bike also allows attachment of a typical rear rack, but generally the publicity photos don't show that kind of ordinary set-up.

The Picycle is heavy - over 60 lbs. If the drive system fails (which is probably not that likely) or you run out of battery power, pedalling this thing would be a chore; still, in a pinch it is better than the Yike Bike no-pedals-at-all approach. (For comparison, the Schwinn models are said to be 12 lbs over the "normal" weight for such a bike, which I would guess would put them at something under 45 lbs.)

The Picycle people offer an amazing set of (pricey) options, including belt drive (rather than chain for the pedal-driven "drive system") and even "PiFi" which is some sort of wireless system (for a bike?!) and naturally, at prices of $5,000 and beyond, GPS theft location capability.

I'm assuming the thinking of the Yike and Picycle people is that there is a market for thrifty green "cyclists" who would find a traditional bike that has added a motor to a traditional bike design to be too pedestrian (perhaps that's a pun?) and that these thrify folks will gladly part with several additional thousand dollars to be special.

It's a theory.

Bike Event in Berlin Closes Streets, 150K Riders

English language news story with video about an annual event organized in Berlin that this year had 150,000 riders - all the roads temporarily closed to cars.

Amazing.

14th St Bridge to GW Parkway Bike Trail Detour Still Wanted

Fence opened allowing access to what was a temporary detour

When construction work closed off the regular route (now restored - see photo below) a presumably temporary detour was put in that was eventually paved (see photo above). Now that a detour isn't needed, the Park Service has installed temporary fencing along the top of short "cut-through" to prevent its further use, but people who like the idea of a shortcut (perhaps cyclists, perhaps walkers/runners) keep opening the fence up. Last night when I rode home, it was closed. By now I'm sure it's open again.


The USPS "authorized" route

It would make sense, I think, to have stairs (or something bicycles wouldn't try to use) instead of the old detour to pull some of the foot traffic away from the busy intersection (admittedly not busy at this time of the morning) shown in the photo above. In the meantime, we have this silly situation where there is a "sometimes" option that wasn't very good as a detour and isn't any better as a shortcut for combined bicycle-foot traffic.

I didn't get a photo of it, I'm sad to say, but one morning a cyclist had ridden up the cut-through only to realize that the fencing closed him off, and instead of disconnecting the fencing (or turning around), he had put his bike over the fence and was in the process of climbing over to join it. Hmm . . .

Two Years Blogging on Bikes

Screen shot of Blogspot most visited posts for this blog, for "all time"

Total pageviews are given as one number (available for various intervals) - this includes pageviews of individual posts and to the blog as a whole (wheelbike.blogspot.com). In my case, 80 percent, 90 percent, and sometimes even more of the pageviews are for individual posts.

I now have several hundred posts. Some are on fairly obscure things, but it turns out that my blog posts on these perhaps obscure topics will pop up fairly high on a Google search, such as the one on Arthur Conan Doyle's full quote on the benefits of cycling, so every couple of weeks, more regularly than I would have guessed, I can see that someone looks at that page having searched for its content with Google. My version is better (says I) than most "quote sites" because I have the full quote (typically it is reported only in part), and it is both transcribed and I have a page image of the Scientific American where it appeared in the first place.

So, for most of my pages traffic comes from Google searches (although often not just Google.com but Google-dot-some-other-country's-domain). I suppose it doesn't hurt that I use Google's Blogger and also have built up some content (with my 200 posts) and of course some of the stuff about cycling in the 1890s isn't that commonly written about.

Most the leading posts, however, have reached that status because a light went on in my head and I wrote the owner of some other, more popular blog and they published a link to one of my pages. Jan Heine's blog published a link as part of a sort of joke about fat-tired bikes to my post about a giant tricycle in 1896 and his hefty popularity (in certain circles) meant that this post had hundreds of page views in a few days and over time, went above 500 pageviews.

Similarly, I wrote to the guy behind the Washcycle blog about a lovely newspaper article about cycling in D.C. that included a great map and it has almost 300 pageviews. Several other high posts are mostly references from Washcycle.

Two posts about women cyclists of the 1890s are the top performers for posts I have done where the pageviews are driven almost entirely by Google (and other) searches and not be links from other blogs. Google searches have also driven higher-than-average pageviews for my posts on unusual old tandems and my description of my 29 year old Bridgestone. I have observed from the traffic source information that a fair percentage of page views come from Google image searches, so I generally try to include an image with my posts - or really, I guess at this point I am mostly inspired to post about topics that will have an associated image.


The traffic sources information confirms the importance of (a) other blogs, and (b) Google

A couple of these are oddballs. Someone once tweeted a link to a page with a photo of a bicycle built for four leading to several dozen page views and "pingywebedition" and a couple of other sources are simply a mystery.

My numbers are certainly not very large, but having figured out certain things about cycling, both today and yesterday, I find the evidence that these discoveries have been shared to pleasing. Also, I have built up traffic over time. The first year it was really quite negligible. After 24 months I have had 5,500+ page views total but over the past month, 800+, which seems respectable.

So, for anyone who has read this far, thank you!

New Stop Sign, GW Bike Trail

New stop sign added for traffic coming off the 14th St Bridge (from DC) - sorry, lousy phone camera photo

A new stop sign has been added where traffic coming from DC on the 14th St Bridges meets the north-south George Washington Parkway bike trail. They have also added some helpful (I suppose) directional information - "trail north" and "trail south" for example.

The stop sign is in a somewhat unorthodox location - instead of being on the near side of the intersection, to the right, it is across the intersection, in the middle. I don't see that this clarifies the situation and it may just confuse things.


My favorite - "dismount before crossing"

For bike traffic northbound, there is a "dismount before crossing" sign, apparently pertaining to the humpback bridge a 100 yards on. The Park Service seems to have lots of these "dismount" signs to put up (to no purpose). Also, the sign is on the left side rather than the more conventional right side (presuming I am understanding who it is intended for correctly).

Aside from all this signage, this intersection is a mess for the kind of mixed cycling/walking/running going on here. Neither the north-south trail nor the one coming from the 14th St Bridge are wide enough.

Voice of America Covers DC Bike to Work

A good set of photographs from this month's Bike to Work day in Washington DC is on the Russian language VOA site - scroll down and the slide show launches. Knowledge of Russian not required.

As associated article in Russian isn't much for non-Russian speakers, but Google translate will render something like (but not exactly like) English - certainly it is understandable, if quirky.

Often in machine translation, the story becomes more dramatic in the telling, such as, "Move along the wide roads designed for a more dimensional and fast cars with gasoline engines - it's not only scary but dangerous. Therefore, local authorities began to pay greater attention to road safety. Cyclists immediately responded to these steps, rushing into the streets en masse."

I will be on the lookout for these cyclists storming the streets of DC.

(Not even slightly connected with bicycles, the translation business reminds me of the infamous Time article about Madonna's interview supposedly translated from English to Hungarian and back - which turns out to be an urban legend.)

"Complete Streets" Video

Complete Streets: It's About More Than Just Bike Lanes from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Very well done video about implementation of bike lanes as part of a "complete streets" strategy. Local political types, journalists, drivers, pedestrians, business owners, and bike riders all comment. Well worth watching.

This simple video makes it clear that the argument in favor of bike lanes needs to be about how everyone can benefit, not just the bike riders. That everything about the roads shouldn't be about people in cars.

Stated as though obvious (and OK) is that slowing down speeding motorists as part of the general strategy benefits everyone, even the motorists (who are no longer terrorizing pedestrians and cyclists). Narrower lanes? They slow the cars down. Islands? The encourage the motorists to stop and wait for pedestrians.

Nice 1912 Columbia Bicycle Catalog

A nice catalog, digitized by the Smithsonian

Here is a link to the
catalog's cover and from there you can navigate to the rest of the pages as individual page image thumbnails. Columbia bicycles, from the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut.

The catalog is quite text-heavy for the first few pages, arguing heavily for the benefits of bicycles in various ways - economical, reliable, and health benefits as well (with a quote from a physician, as was often done in the 1890s).

Bicycle Built for Four (1898)

Orient Quad bicycle built for four, from the Library of Congress photograph collections.

Just for fun. Can't figure out why I hadn't see this before ~

Apparently Orient was known particularly for making tandem and other multiple riders bikes, such as this quad. There is a picture of an Orient "built for ten" that was presumably a stunt of sorts.

My BikeDC 2011 Experience

The last time I rode in BikeDC was in September 2001 - the George Washington Parkway portion was removed that year because it was something like ten days after September 11 and they could get the police support required (or something). I'm not a person who likes crowds but I have had this interest in riding on the GW Parkway so once it was clear that the weather would be OK this year (for a change - last year was a downpour) I signed up.

The event has a more or less rolling start - I got there (having ridden in on my bike from home) about 15 minutes are the first riders hit the course from just west of the (U.S.) Capitol, riding off through closed (to cars) streets in downtown DC, crossing the Roosevelt bridge into Virginia and heading north(ish) on the George Washington Parkway and heading a few miles down the Parkway before turning around and heading back up the Parkway, then the official route crossed back into DC for the finish (but I just road home).


Sparse (relatively speaking) bike travel in downtown

Starting 20-25 minutes after the initial bunch seemed to work out well at this point - not too much (bike) traffic.


Not long before the Roosevelt Bridge, we rode through a short tunnel

After crossing the Roosevelt Bridge and approaching the GW Parkway, the bikes bunched up more.

Here you get a sense of the mix of riders - there are some spandex "we could go a lot faster types" but the crew on the tandem are just rolling along and then there are kids, too.


Nearing the GW Parkway

Beyond the Key Bridge the bike traffic became quite heavy - the bikes only had one side (two lines) of the divided highway, with bike traffic in each direction confined to one lane (with cones down the middle). Round about now I began to wish for more common sense and more common courtesy from my fellow riders. As we climbed, relatively slow moving (bicycle) traffic filled the entire single outbound lane. Some people riding uphill nonetheless impatiently tried "on the left" when what they meant was, "you're in my way; I want to go faster." Some crossed over into the oncoming lane (for bikes - usually a lane of traffic in the same direction) to pass the entire column, then pull in with the other riders (who would more or less have to let him or her in).

Some riders barreling down the GW Parkway on the return side presented a more intimidating picture - here there were some people whose cries of "on your LEFT" really sounded like "OUTTA MY WAY or I may run into you."

Now this sounds like chaos, but probably it was one in 250 or less that was acting in this way, but when you have thousands of riders on a few miles of road, 1-in-250 makes an impression.

Fortunately all the bike crashing I saw was small-time stuff and no one was significantly injured. I observed several obviously (or one assumes) really new riders fall for no particular reason and on the Parkway, fortunately while moving only a few miles per hour, a bike turned into another causing a tangle of metal and rubber.


Nearing the turn around to head back on the GW Parkway


Last but not least - the one guy I saw who wasn't wearing a helmet, wearing a WABA jersey.

Yeah, image is a bit out of of focus, so his head looks funny - but there isn't a helmet on that head is what you can see readily enough. I don't believe wearing a helmet was required, but still.

The ride continued southbound on the GW Parkway and was, I thought, supposed to continue to the Air Force Monument, but at the Arlington Bridge there was some sort of accident (involving a cyclist? not clear at the time, or now for that matter) that had many emergency vehicles and a medevac helicopter. About a quarter mile beyond that was a turn around again on the GW Parkway to circle back and return into DC. Having had enough of a BikeDC experience for one day, I moved over to the GW bike trail and rode the eight or so miles home.

I guess overall I had an enjoyable experience, but I can't say I feel much of an urge to do it again at the moment, either.

Bike to Work Day, 2011, Arlington VA

Inadvertantly part of a "new rider convoy" near National Airport on the GW Parkway bike path

Since I pretty much bike to work every day, I am never quite sure what to think of Bike to Work Day - at least this year the weather was mostly good (in the afternoon it clouded up and at least a few drops of rain fell some places). The number of riders for this "event" looked pretty impressive, but the fair weather aspect of this is fairly apparent when compared to earlier in the week when it had been rainy.


In the photograph the barbed wire is more noticable - normally I am looking forward I guess and don't even see it.


As riders get into the District, the group disperses

I tried to take some other group photos of "convoys" but my camera had focus issues. Oh well, maybe next year!

Book Review - "It's All About the Bike"

"It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels" by Robert Penn. Published April 26th 2011 by Bloomsbury USA, 208 pages.

Book description at Goodreads.com.


YouTube video giving author's description of his book

Here's my review on Goodreads ~

The author describes some of the history, particularly the early history, of the development of cycling along with an account of his selection of the bits and pieces that are eventually assembled to make his dream bike including visits to manufacturers, all in less than 200 pages. Since I have a coffee table book that describes the history of just derailleurs, in my view he summarizes, generalizes, and leaves some (OK, a lot of) stuff out. For me, knowing something about the subject, it was an interesting read - I enjoyed it. I have to wonder how a reader who was interested in bikes but didn't know that much about the subject would find his explanations of certain slightly technical subjects. It would have been great to have more and better illustrations.

I read the U.S. edition. The dust cover of the U.K. edition included a color photo of this bike he went to so much trouble to have built; it seems odd to have left that off the dust cover of the American version. The British English was not fixed for the U.S. edition - I thought that was a standard process. "Tyre" etc. Not a big deal but seems odd. U.S. distances are supplied in addition to kilometers etc.

Even having read his book, I still don't quite understand what this was the ideal bike for (given that he has six other bikes of various types). It almost seemed like he wanted a randoneering (touring) bike, anyway something for long-long rides, but the subject of randoneering (with its rather different views of many of the choices he made) doesn't come up.

At the end he points out that the bike cost him $5,500. (He translated that to a U.S. measure, anyway). There are plenty of off-the-shelf bikes that cost more than that, so I think he must have got some special pricing on some of it. (Which is fine.)

I have a few other thoughts since I wrote the above ~

* Coming from the U.K., he really has a very European focus in the components he finds interesting. This isn't really a problem per se, but it would have been nice if he could have said a little more about some of the other sources that are important today. Yes, Campagnolo of Italy has made and continues to make great components, but they are mighty pricey and most people are making other choices - Shimano and increasingly SRAM.

* I still don't really understand his "dream bike" except that it is a really sturdy road bike made of steel. He says he figures he'll still be riding it when he is 70 down to the pub, but I am doubtful he'll want to ride what is essentially a racing bike to the pub then. He says nothing about randoneering bikes that seem a lot more "dream bike" to me, but perhaps this movement hasn't caught on in the U.K. (I don't think this fellow reads Bicycle Quarterly, the mother-ship journal of rando cycling.)

* With all the choices in the universe, he has his custom bike painted orange and blue - really, orange and blue? The Denver Broncos. Oh well.

* I also didn't get his choice of carbon fiber Cinelli handlebars for his steel bike, particularly since as I read the book, he got Cinelli Ram bars that integrate the stem and the bars, but on his site the photo shows carbon fiber handlebars with a standard stem. The photos of Cinelli Ram bars that I have seen are quite exotic - so much so that they would grab much of the attention on any bike you had them. Anyway, I must have misunderstood something, but I would have chosen something more traditional for the handlebars.

* The book is mostly about his quest for a perfect road bike of his own profile, but he does meet Joe Breeze of mountain biking fame and describes a pretty amusing outing with him, riding down a famous old mountain track. A lot of his descriptions of discussions with the people he meets who create (or whose companies create) the parts of his bike are engaging; really, that stuff is better than some of his descriptions of early cycling history.

He has photos of the bike