blog.mignault.net

Assault with a deadly sticker

Via StreetsBlog, Running Out of Space to Park, and Places to Walk – New York Times:

Mr. Panopoulos recently guided four new members, including a blind physical therapist and a surgeon in training, through a district awash with illegally parked cars, explaining the group’s rules.

“We’re not subversive. We’re not confrontational. And we don’t want to cause damage to anyone’s property,” he said, slapping a sticker on the windshield of a Jeep squeezed across a sidewalk on a narrow passageway called Arahovis Street.

The driver was nowhere to be seen. But a few feet ahead on Arahovis Street, they spotted a red Peugeot backing over a strip of ribbed paving that helps blind people with canes navigate sidewalks. The middle-aged motorist, who had just emerged from the car, was aghast when a pair of Streetpanthers swooped down, pasting a donkey sticker on his windshield.

“That same stunt cost my fiancée a broken rib cage over the summer,” the blind Streetpanther, Stathis Zachariades, said to the driver, as a handful of bystanders cheered him on before asking the Streetpanthers for some of their stickers.

Of course there are those people who will claim, often quite hysterically, that slapping a sticker on the windshield amounts to “damage to property.” The story reminded me of the “I’m changing the climate – ask me how!” SUV stickers from changingtheclimate.com. The site seems to be gone, though. Maybe someone should start slapping stickers on cars parked in bike lanes in NYC – or is someone doing that already?

Technorati Tags: commuting, cycling, environment, parking

Cagers do the strangest things

Commuting via bike this morning through Mount Vernon and the Bronx, I was once again pondering the bizarre behavior of people in cars. A portion of my commute is along Bronx River Road, a very wide road that is 2 lanes on either side for a good deal of the time I’m on it. I stay “as far to the right as is practicable and safe,” as the law puts it; most of the time this puts me about 8-10 feet from the curb. It’s far enough to avoid being doored, but not smack dab in the center of the lane. I should also add that it’s not a particularly busy road; there are stretches of time where I have it mostly to myself, with regular bursts of 3-5 cars.

Given these conditions, I cannot for the life of me figure out this scenario:

A car appears far behind me in my mirror in the right lane. The driver accelerates, comes up behind me fast, beeps when he is about 20 feet behind me, and then swerves at the last minute into the left lane to pass me, missing me by what feels like about a foot. This is generally accompanied by more honking and an occasional imprecation out the window. From the time I saw them in my rear-view to the time they pass, the left lane was completely and totally empty. I do not understand this. At all. And it happened twice this morning.

Technorati Tags: bicycling, cycling, commuting, bike commuting

The Jobst Brandt Show

I’m as retrogrouch as the next guy, but I thought this (from BikeSnob NYC) was pretty funny:

The Jobst Brandt Show

The irrascible author of “The Bicycle Wheel” begrudgingly allows guests into his home and systematically berates them while extolling the virtues of non-anodized rims. His imperious browbeatings are interspersed with impossibly tall tales of his Alpine cycling exploits such as: the time he descended so quickly his brake pads burst into flames; the time he found himself without a spare tube, killed a bear, and fashioned one from its intestines; and the time he accidentally created the Loire river by dragging his frame pump behind him.

And I haven’t even read rec.bicycles in years.

Adventures with the Foreign Auntie

EastSouthWestNorth: A Foreign Lady in Beijing

From all over the biking blogs, a Western woman in Beijing blocks a car from driving into the bike lane and stands her ground. As someone said on some bike blog, the best example of corking ever.

Technorati Tags: cycling, bikes

New ‘bent

I recently got interested in recumbents. My wife happened upon a Cannondale Bent in mint condition at the local thrift shop. It was selling for 399, which is 1200 less than it’d cost new. So we bought it. I rode it a bit, and was amazed at how good it felt. Only thing was I discovered that it was the smaller size frame. So I sold it, and bought a used Burley Jett Creek off eBay. I’ve been taking short rides around the neighborhood to get used to it. But it’s really really comfortable, and I think I may be hooked. But hill climbing is going to take some work and some serious spinning. I am not nearly as souplesse as I should be.

Technorati Tags: cycling, ‘bents, recumbents

Training ride to work.

Gas Math: Subtract 2 Wheels – New York Times:
In sprawling cities like Los Angeles and Houston, the great distance between home and office makes bicycling almost impossible. In New York City cyclists who do not fear being flattened by taxis must be fortunate enough to work in a building that provides bicycle storage.
Well, not if they use one of those neato folding bikes you were all het up about a couple weeks ago.

The article makes commuting out to be much more difficult than it actually is. If you’ve got to put on all that junk the cyclists in the photos are wearing, of course you’re going to think twice about riding to work. The article talks about the “multigeared, comfy-seated” bikes “typically associated” with commuting and then what do they show? The usual racer types, dressed in lycra, riding “fitness” bikes with no room for carrying bags or fenders for when it rains. As long as we keep promoting that as cycling, nobody is going to start commuting to work. Also you have to love this:

And in a country that worships horsepower even the most ardent bicycle commuters face an uphill battle pursuing a mode of transportation traditionally associated with college professors or factory workers in Beijing.

You forgot “latte-sippers.”

Technorati Tags: carfree, cycling