CANCELLED: Bart King Memorial Tribute Bike Ride

As some of you may know, I recently suffered a dramatic bike crash. (Note: In this context, the word “dramatic” signifies a low-speed, high-dorkiness incident.) In the tragic aftermath, I hit rock-bottom when I accidentally smeared some Neosporin on the couch.

Hearing of this bad news, a friend charitably wrote to me:

Your carrying on despite your life-threatening injuries is an inspiration to all of us. A small group of your friends is establishing an international foundation and a tribute bike ride in order to prevent such a disaster from happening to anyone else. Just the thought of what we hope to accomplish brings tears to my eyes.

While I was touched by this outpouring of support, I’m afraid that I really must cancel the event. Please rest assured that I don’t do this out of any misguided sense of nobility or martyrdom.

Rather, I seem to have gotten better. (Go figure!)

Former Talking Head on Current Revolution

David Byrne reviewed Jeff Mapes' book Pedaling Revolution in the New York Times. Excerpts follow; one of the things I found interesting is the matter-of-fact way that Byrne wraps up with an assumption that "creatively ambitious" people will eventually end up on bicycles.

[Jeff Mapes] argues that cycling promotion can raise society’s level of general fitness, since people exercise more when it seems less like exercise and more like something mostly enjoyable that also performs a function, like getting to work. “Bike and walking advocates,” he writes, “have been rebranding their cause as ‘active transportation,’ which manages to come off as nonthreatening to your average couch-bound American while carrying a nice touch of gravitas as well.”

Mapes finds the experience of riding around Portland — North America’s most bike-friendly city (though I think Vancouver is close) — so enjoyable that he takes as a given that it’s a positive thing... But as he and I know, there’s a lot of opposition. The United States is as much a car culture as ever, even if the companies that helped make us that way are now in ruins. And governments and urban planners have all been in on the game...

“Pedaling Revolution” is not about mountain biking… it’s not about racing, Lance Armstrong, or what kind of spandex to buy. Nor is it about the various forms of extreme biking that have arisen lately: bike jousting on specially made high-horse bikes, BMX tricks or the arcane world of fixed-gear bikes, or fixies. For decades, Americans have too often seen cycling as a kind of macho extreme sport, which has actually done a lot to damage the cause of winning acceptance for biking as a legitimate form of transportation...

As Mapes points out, when more women begin riding, that will signal a big change in attitude, which will prompt further changes in the direction of safety and elegance. I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

...Greenways, safer bike lanes, pedestrian zones and bike parking places will make our cities not only more comfortable and enjoyable, but also, as Janette Sadik-Khan, the New York City transportation commissioner, said recently, more economically competitive as well, as more of them become places where people with ideas and creative ambitions want to both live and work.

Conferences Were Never More Fun

It's happened to all of us: Your conference meeting/bike ride attracts a third member, and suddenly your old tandem bicycle looks woefully inadequate. Dang! Another account lost.

But now, the Conference Bike is here. Imagine it: Seven riders working things out and pedaling for a common cause! Of course, some of the riders will be riding sideways or backwards, which is where a little something called "trust" comes into play. And what is a business meeting without trust? (I'm not really sure, to tell the truth. I've never been in a business meeting. But if I were, this is how I'd do it!)

I suppose you could also find out pretty easily who does and doesn't pull (or push) their weight around the office. Anyway, there are different Conference Bike models available; the top-of-the-line model is $12,750 for the bike that seats seven. (And seriously, I would LOVE to take one of these out for a ride. Ooh, and this gives me an excuse to use this graphic of a sculpture by Giancarlo Neri. This is not Photo-shopped; the chair and desk are just that big.)

The Many Uses of a Bicycle

Cadbury is raising funds to send 5000 bicycles to Africa. More pedal power to them. (You may want the short video to finish buffering before playing it.)

Blogging While Adulterated

Yep, I’m writing this in an adulterated state.

Actually, I write everything this way, but I didn’t realize it until this morning. That’s when I read about Portland bicyclist Michael "Bobby" Hammond, who was just cleared of criminal charges for nude cycling. (Hammond celebrates, above.) Hammond did this to support bike riding and to protest against little things like "cars, foreign oil, the Iraq war and air pollution.”

My favorite part of the story, which ran in the Oregonian:
"[Hammond] stripped off all his clothes and hopped on his vintage 1970s 10-speed — in an effort, he says, to make clear that nothing was powering his mode of transportation but his own unadulterated body."
I’ve long suspected that adulterated bicyclists —that is, the ones with clothes— might be using something to power their bikes. Whether it’s a small electric motor strapped beneath a pant leg or a petite internal combustion engine up their sleeve, there’s something fishy about the whole corrupt spectacle of bikers with clothes.

My fears are laid to rest each June, when the World Naked Bike Ride rolls around. Over 1,000 unadulterated Portland bikers took part in the last one, something that Judge Jerome LaBarre noted in Hammond’s case. The judge said that the symbolic protest of naked bike riding is a "well-established tradition" here in the Pacific Northwest.

Just not in the winter.

Scrapin’ By

East Oakland’s scraper bikes were the subject of a recent report by . For the uninitiated (that’s me!), scraper bikes are colorfully customized bicycles. "Scraper" was a term originally used for custom cars that had such beefy rims, they almost scraped the wheel well.

Making a scraper bike is low-tech. One way to scraper-ize is to insert food wrappers into a bike’s spokes. Then, spray-paint the frame a retina-scorching color. Done? Good. Now take your scraper bike and go scraping on the scraper bike. That means riding in such an uncool way, it becomes cool again. Don’t get it? Maybe this way-popular scraper video will help. (I’d rate it PG.)

Scraper biking is an offshoot of the Bay Area’s “hyphy” (HIGH-fee) movement, which (according to encourages irrational, amusingly eccentric, and goofy behavior. (Sound familiar? If not, read this blog more.)

MORE BIKE NEWS! California came in 7th in a ranking of all 50 states in the
Top 5
1. Washington
2. Wisconsin (!)
3. Arizona
4. Oregon (Portland had the highest ranking of any city)
5. Minnesota
Above: photo of Portland-style scraper bike.

Scraping the bottom
46. North Dakota
47. Mississippi
48. Alabama
49. Georgia
50. West Virginia