Just another day by bike
Moving into a new house soon so I’m always on the lookout on Freecycle for treasure; yesterday’s haul: foam mattress (the sleeper sofa kind, not the thousand dollar Swedish kind unfortunately). Foam made it nice and easy to haul in the ol’ trailer though 
Heading down Milvia, one of Berkeley’s bike boulevards
12.Mar.10 
Jerseys for the passive aggressive type
An entrepeneuring fellow is making some riding jerseys with clever slogans which may get you some respect from drivers….or more likely get additional scorn. Not something Id wear but I got a chuckle out of them at least. I would like a sign on the back of my bike with the “3ft <—-“ though!
http://www.sharethedamnroad.com/
SF bike injunction lifting…so where’s the EIR for cars?
As I’ve written about before, San Francisco has been embroiled the last three years in a tormenting struggle between the city’s desire to install bicycle infrastructure, and Rob Anderson’s personal crusade against it. Rob’s ammunition was the city’s own EIR (Environmental Impact Report) process that evaluates whether a project is detrimental to the environment. Yes, a court of law actually took a case that bicycle improvements cause detrimental harm to the environment and even worse, agreed.
FINALLY, three long years later, the injunction that prevented SF from building bicycle improvements has been partially lifted and expected to be fully listed early 2010.
At this point, amongst my sheer joy that bike lanes are being installed on SF streets again, I also can’t help but reflect on this whole debacle.
A letter to the editor by Rob Bregoff at SFGate reads:
I’m so glad that the bike injunction has been loosened to permit many much-needed new bicycle projects ("Decision leads to new bike lane," Dec. 1).
What I’d like to know is, why wasn’t there an environmental impact report when cars destroyed the safety of our urban public space. Why no mention of the tons of pollutants and degradation of our neighborhoods when the streets filled with motor vehicles? Was there any evaluation when transit lines were torn out to accommodate autos? How about the 40,000-plus Americans killed each year in car-related incidents?
Perhaps we should evaluate in a public document the real damages that auto-centric development has brought to our communities, our safety, our environment and our health. Just the idea that some judge seriously considered bike lanes an environmental threat is pure lunacy.
What I wonder is: if the courts will listen to an argument about whether bike improvements are a harm to the environment, why not cars? Where’s the EIR for cars and their infrastructure? I’ve never heard of any court ruled injunction over infrastructure for cars being expanded yet a case proving their environmental impact would be a slam dunk. Makes ya’ think don’t it.
Bike Video from Copenhagen 1937
Seems like not much has changed! (Check out the girls who just walk away with their bikes, no locks, I think that has changed)
Utility Bike Morphs Into Shopping Cart
Ingenious! Really well executed project converting a separable frame bike into a full on utility bike with front low riding basket. The icing on the cake is that the rear of the bike separates and the contraption turns into a handy shopping cart for all your grocery needs.
More pictures at the source link
Link: http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/contest/grocerygetter/DavidMahan.htm
New cargo bike on the scene: Madsen
Very likely I’m late to the party on this one one, but it’s new to me. A company called Madsen out of Salt Lake City has released a new cargo bike to enter the fray amongst the Surly Big Dummy, Xtracycle mods and bakfiets. The bike is going by the name “kg271”, a name obviously only a mother/engineer could love, and is specced out with a SRAM 8 speed drivetrain and front disc brake slapped on a custom hi-ten steel frame. MSRP $1099. Not stated but seems like a 26” wheel up front and a 20” out back, interesting. The frame takes a big ol’ tub (sold separately, $1299) that seems nicely utilitarian and even has seat belts for your kids (or very very tiny friends).
The basket/tub reminds me a lot of bakfiets but obviously other way around. But which configuration is superior? My gut tells me the bakfiets front loader as you can keep an eye on your load, especially if that load means your children. It also seems like the extra long chain suffers from poor tension, especially without a mid-way tensioner like some designs. But that’s my opinion, what do you think?
Link: Madsen Cycles
Pizza delivery by bike
It was always a thought, “why not deliver pizza by bike?”, but I guess finally someone got around to trying it out The Naperville, FL pizza joint is saying it’s just a “promotion” for Bike Month but with the $3 delivery charge they’re waiving for bike deliveries, seems like their customers would want to see the concept stick around! Intrepid bike pizza delivery guy has a Surly Big Dummy to do the job, a bike I love but admittedly the article seems to allude that to haul the enormous load of a pizza or two you need a $2000 XtraCycle equipped cargo bike, hmm.
Article: Pizza’s here – by bicycle delivery and found via CICLE
Great commercial, wow
Gotta say, pretty surprised such a great pro city-biking commercial could have been made. Beautiful functional city bike, people utilizing their bike for function and cargo, people having FUN on a bike, perfect. Thanks Kaiser for this pro bike spot 
I like this commercial so much I’m willing to glance over the sidewalk and wrong way riding
Schools move to eject cars from campuses
Bikes on California Ave, UC Davis, originally uploaded by amsthirty.
Here’s a USA Today article citing some examples of high schools and universities looking to deter students from bringing cars to campus through various changes and incentive programs. The crown jewel example is Ripon College’s precedent setting program where they’ve agreed to offer incoming freshmen a brand new Trek mountain bike in exchange for not bringing a car to campus; pretty sweet deal if you ask me. What I find interesting about this type of incentive program is that the school may actually save money by giving each student a $300 bike; get everyone to ditch their car and you won’t have to build new parking lots/structures. I know at my local university one single parking space comes at the cost of $11,000…ELEVEN THOUSAND!
Other programs listed to discourage car usage and/or encourage bicycle usage are on campus bicycle shops, loaner bikes (ie bike library), more bike racks on campus, pathways and more.
Check out the full article: Schools move to eject cars from campuses – USA Today
