MetaFilter posts tagged with bicycling

NOLA Cycle Project

liketitanic — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:10:31 -0800

One effect of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was to render existing bike maps of the city obsolete and incomplete. The NOLA Cycle Bike Map Project is a grassroots effort to create a comprehensive, freely-available bicycle map for New Orleans (like those that already exist for Chicago, Portland, and other cities). Because the project is driven by DIY maps produced by individuals and by volunteer social events organized around mapping different locations that can then be added to the project's database, it's been described as "Wiki-style involvement in the real world." (Here's some video of the project.) The project began as an undergraduate capstone project for planning student Lauren Sullivan at the University of Cincinnati. Sullivan moved to New Orleans as part of Cincinnati's innovative co-op education program, and, once there, found the city difficult to bike in without a good map--"We do have a lot of fast roads, a lot of dangerous roads and roads with a lot of potholes," she told the Times-Picayune when the project began in 2008. "But then we also have a lot of good hidden neighborhood roads." She modeled the project on Youthline America's Mapping America project, in which high school students are sent out to map their neighborhood resources. By June of this year, most of Orleans Parish, including the 9th Ward, was mapped; data is now being entered into ArcGIS while Sullivan and volunteers design and release prototypes. A mini-grant from the Crescent City Farmers' Market's Crescent Fund has defrayed some costs. This initiative, along with the 2009 Louisiana DOTD Statewide Pedestrian and Cyclist Master Plan and the efforts of homegrown bike co-ops and advocacy organizations, are all gradually making New Orleans a friendlier place to bike.

Dawson to Nome Winter Bicycle Trek - 1900

ecorrocio — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:20:35 -0800

Winter 1900. You are in Dawson, Alaska. The Klondike Gold Rush is fading. Suddenly... news from Nome - Gold Strike! (on the beach of all things) You are snowed-in at Dawson, and recovering from tetanus. You have to get to Nome before the thousands of other gold seekers. What to do? How about hopping on your bike and riding the 1200 miles across snow and river ice!!! "Max Hirschberg followed a "two inch trail" with his bicycle much of the way to Nome. It was a rough trip. The journey took him about two-and-a-half months, during which time he suffered from snowblindness, exhaustion and exposure. Crossing the Shaktoolik River he nearly drowned. He was in the water for almost two hours, and during that time he lost his watch and his poke with $1,500 in gold dust. He saved his bicycle, however. Just east of Nome on the ice of Norton Sound his bicycle chain broke. A strong wind was blowing and he made a sail with his coat that he rigged on the bike. Hirschberg then sailed across the ice the rest of the way into Nome." In Max's own words. Another article.

Vintage Cycling Board Games

OmieWise — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:35:34 -0800

A huge collection of vintage cycling board games. The main site also has resources for rolling your own cycling game.

The high cost of riding around in brightly-colored underwear

ardgedee — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:25:36 -0800

Why is (Radio) Shack -- a company that only markets to North Americans -- spending $20 million sponsoring Lance Armstrong and his team as he spends a year racing bicycles mostly in Europe? "Somewhere, someone has a Venn diagram showing the crossover between electronics geeks and cyclists. I’m sure those two sets have a lot of crossover." There are only twenty available slots for UCI ProTour teams, the creme de la creme of bike racing -- eighteen were filled in the 2009, leaving two openings and only room for more if an existing team decides against renewing, is disqualified or disbands. (Radio) Shack's signing Armstrong is certain to ensure that publicity reaches beyond the fairly narrow market of American pro cycling enthusiasts, but whether that connotes positive publicity for the sponsor, or remains focused around Armstrong, is yet to be seen -- certainly the oligarchs of Kazakhistan didn't find their profiles improved among the American public while they supported Armstrong's previous team, Team Astana. Also interesting to note are the debuts of Team Sky (as in the Murdoch-owned Sky Satellite TV) and Skil-Shimano (as in chain saws and fishing reels), which put in a surprisingly high profile performance as a wildcard team in this year's Tour de France.

Bike Parking

aniola — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:58:58 -0800

On bicycle parking.

Bikes as art as bikes as art as etc

ardgedee — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:01:29 -0800

The bike racing world has a tradition of attention-getting designs, but some spectators at this year's Tours of California or France might have done double-takes at some of the art on Lance Armstrong's rides. As it turns out, Trek and Nike have commissioned custom designs promoting Livestrong, and as I write this Lance is cycling into Paris on a bike covered with butterfly wings, courtesy of Damien Hirst. Along with the Hirst piece, TdF fans have been able to see Armstrong riding art by Shepard Fairey, Yoshitomo Nara, and Mark Newson. If you happen to be in Paris, you can attend the Stages (warning: Autoplay Flash video/audio) exhibition, which opened on the 17th and features some of the bikes and commissioned art by Ed Ruscha, Raymond Pettibon, Andreas Gursky, and more. After the show's over, the bikes will be auctioned off with proceeds benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Portable bike lane projector.

erikvan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:35:01 -0800

Lightlane builds lasers that shoot out from your bike onto the road, displaying a bike lane wherever you ride. Written about here and here.

The Amazing Flying Scotsman

ardgedee — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:05:09 -0800

The hour record is one of the greatest challenges in bicycling, with seemingly the simplest rules: Ride as fast as you can for exactly sixty minutes, zero seconds. If you go farther than anybody else, you hold the record. In 1993, Graeme Obree held that record for one day. Fifteen years later, at the age of 44, Graeme Obree will fly again. Obree's bizarre-looking homemade bikes and aerodynamic postures were highly controversial, as they didn't look like traditional track bikes. His 1993 ride kicked off a records war between himself, professional racers Chris Boardman, Tony Rominger and Miguel Indurain. The record shattered eight times in three years, a four-way battle ending with the cycling governing body eventually striking their accomplishments from the official Hour Record. With their attempts retroactively filed under a lesser "Human Effort" category without constraints on bicycle design and rider posture, the competition fizzled out. Following his first hour record, Obree had a very brief, desultory professional cycling that was cut short before his first race (fired in part because he refused to dope). He has spent most of his life in Scotland, away from the European hubs of racing activity and setting national time trial records on his home turf. His autobiography, The Flying Scotsman, was published in 2003 and later turned into a feature film.

Sometimes bad cops do get punished

caddis — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:01:57 -0800

Police Officer Seen on Tape Shoving a Bicyclist Is Indicted - Update to the widely viewed video of a NYC police officer shoving a critical mass rider off of his bicycle, reported on MeFi here.

Pavement to the people!

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 06:42:08 -0800

Hooray for New York City! They just had their first (of three) car-free days along a long stretch of Manhattan roadway: it's the Summer Streets program. How refreshing! This blog entry from Livable Streets might be of some interest to any of you New Yorkers who'd like to help with this in some way.

Raise one for the red lantern

ardgedee — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:32:09 -0800

As the Tour de France concludes, let's spend a moment commemorating the derrière garde of world-class cycling, those bad enough to come in last but never bad enough to fail, les Lanternes Rouge. If Wim Vansevenant can retain his tenacious hold on 145th place in Sunday's stage he will be the worst cyclist to complete the Tour de France for three consecutive years and set a Tour record. You can, indeed, win by losing. Vansevenant is currently 3 hours, 54 minutes and 51 seconds behind the leader but only 53 seconds behind the 144th placed rider, Bernhard Eisel. While Carlos Sastre and Cadel Evans fight tooth-and-nail for the yellow jersey on the final promenade through the Champs-Élysées fans will be eagerly rooting for Evan's teammate Vansevenant to strike a third blow for the good enough. Those fascinated by the slow end of the train can get their daily fill of news at the Tour de France Lanterne Rouge blog whose author gently reminds those who would mock anybody for finishing last in a 21 day long bike ride of 3,559 kilometers (2,211 mi): "You couldn't hang on his wheel for thirty seconds."

Anybody remember the Huret Jubilee?

Rafaelloello — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:54:05 -0800

Beautiful anaglyphs of 70's derailleurs show the art and engineering at the forefront 3 decades back. BYO3DG

'I think there is a good future for this type of system...'

ardgedee — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:01:44 -0800

A new generation of bike rental is here, where you pick up the bike where you start your ride and drop it off at the destination. Vélib' and Vélo'V are the high-profile, wildly successful products of the JCDecaux ad firm in the cities of Paris and Grand Lyon. Velib' provides 10,000 bikes for cheap hourly rental beginning this past summer. In exchange for fully underwriting the €90 million of expenses, JCDecaux wins exclusive rights to all the city's billboards. JCDecaux' rival Clear Channel beat them out of the gate by a couple months, opening Bicing in Barcelona to similar success, although at a smaller scale. These are far from the first bike shares. JCDecaux has older programs in Austria and Spain and Clear Channel started theirs in Stockholm and Oslo - but this may be the newest and biggest version of an idea that dates back decades. The successful operations require not only a well-designed urban program but also the massive cash outlay that only freewheeling multinationals can provide, for better or worse. The U.S. might not be completely left behind: San Francisco may sign with Clear Channel and Chicago's rumored to be talking with JCDecaux.

"Addicted to speed, I mean"

ardgedee — Sun, 27 May 2007 05:47:13 -0800

Bjarne Riis, current coach of premier cycling squad Team CSC, used drugs to win the Tour in 1996. His protege, Ivan Basso, was suspended from Team CSC before last year's Tour for suspicion of doping. Team Discovery hired Basso to fill Lance Armstrong's seat as captain, but Basso quit shortly before he had a chance to win his second consecutive Giro d'Italia, and is out for the season, if not permanently. The conclusion of Floyd Landis's appeals to reinstate his 2006 Tour victory will wait until some time after this year's Tour de France. Jan Ullrich capped a good but unsatisfying career by retiring early and under a cloud. Several of Ullrich's former Deutch Telekom/T-Mobile teammates, including Erik Zabel, admitted to doping, and the team masseur claims to have personally administered EPO to Ullrich. Ullrich, Basso, numerous other leading riders, and the majority of some team rosters continue to be under suspicion as the Operación Puerto EPO lab investigation grinds onward. It might be the best time ever to market a competition road bike called the Addict. (previously, previously, oh-so-very previously, )

Rest is difficult.

OmieWise — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:39:53 -0800

The 10th day? A day of rest. Thank goodness for Caroline Yang's TdF photos. Ever wondered why McEwan rides so hard to stay in Green? What Ukrainian joy looks like? When you can wear socks with sandals? She's also got some decent shots of speed skating (oh, and real blood sports, like weddings).

"Doping Scandal Rocks Tour"

dizzycow — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 06:48:27 -0800

Big news in the cycling world. Favorites Basso, Ullrich out of the Tour de France. Should make for an interesting July.

Witty Title

nTeleKy — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:56:01 -0800

Critical Mass in Milwaukee ran into some "problems" with police on the July 29th ride: “I unfortunately chose to lock my bike with a friend and go see what was happening with the group who had been stopped at the yellow light. I ran down the street just in time to see police tackle a man on a bike who had a baby carriage attached to end of his bike. After he was pulled to the ground another officer violently pushed over his baby carriage with the baby inside,” More coverage and some photos.

Bike Theif

splatta — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:28:48 -0800

How easy is it to steal a bike in NYC? (qt mov) New York City is home to nearly 112,000 bicycle riders, unfortunately it is also home to some of the worst bike thieves in the country. A bicycle is stolen in NYC every 68 minutes. The Neistat Brothers decided to find out just how easy it really is.

HardSeatForHardAsses

srboisvert — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 08:08:16 -0800

Stone Cold Saddles for hard ass cyclists.

Lance doesn't have to deal with peds, is all I'm saying.

n9 — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:35:33 -0800

Drag Race Ride through the streets of Manhattan with some of the fastest urban bicyclists in existence as they race in the wintertime. Thrilling and unbelievable. The mpg is from a head mounted camera worn by one of the racers. More here. Also don't miss the cameraman riding on top of a Jersey barrier here. And here I was thinking that Times Square to Park Slope in 25 minutes was pretty quick. Thanks to nervous.net.

A Riders Digest

normy — Fri, 17 Jan 2003 07:39:47 -0800

I should have expected a country that largely dismisses cycling as a viable mode of transportation would fail to understand the subtlety of riding skills that ultimately led to their plonking a man on the moon.
You don't need to be a cyclist to enjoy the intelligent and generous breadth of content at BikeReader - A Rider's Digest.

riffola — Fri, 12 Apr 2002 00:06:49 -0800

This is your mission should you choose to accept it. You start at Victoria Peak with bicycles and ride all the way down to the Victoria Harbour without using the pedals, and see how far you can go. The rules are: No pedalling allowed. Keep your feet off the ground. Ride with safety. It's not a time trial. The winner is the one who rides the most distance. Sounds fairly straightforward, but here's the hitch... you'll be competing against Jackie Chan. A two part mpeg video from a Japanese TV variety show called Tetsuwan Dash.