Category: Other cycling
As a life-long roadie, I'm always amazed at how tired I am after riding my mountain bike on local trails.
For instance, my son and I headed down to the Towers of Power to ride the singletrack maze on the Puget Sound Energy transmission line right of way near Renton, Washington, a couple of weeks ago.
We must have bombed around for a good hour and were pretty wiped out when we stopped. I checked my odometer — 6.5 miles. On my road bike, I'd just be hitting my groove.
As the trails wind around beneath power transmission towers, this isn't the most scenic location to bike. It's at the top of Renton Hill, so there are some pretty good views …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/10/03/towers-of-power-biking-local-dirt-trails-september-ride-stats/
A notation on a desk calendar I saw this morning reminded me that one year ago I took a short ride on a gurney into an operating room to have my cancerous prostate removed.
Looking back, it also was a relatively short road back to bicycling, although at the time I worried whether I would ever be able to sit on a bike saddle again. As it turned out, I was able to ride the 2-day, 200 Seattle to Portland bike ride with my son less than 10 months later (here we are with our patches).
In the past year, I occasionally receive e-mails from men who are about to undergo prostate surgery or who have recently undergone the operation. Because they read this blog, they're interested in how the surgery will affect their bicycling. Here's how it affected my riding. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/09/27/how-i-returned-to-bicycling-after-prostate-surgery/
The fastest human on two wheels is:
Lance Armstrong — No. Alberto Contador — No. Sam Whittingham — Yes.
The Canadian bicyclist achieved a decade-long quest by pedaling his kevlar encased recumbent bicycle at more than one-tenth the speed of sound last week in the Nevada desert.
The achievement earned for him the $25,000 .deciMach Prize for human-powered speed.
Whittingham exceeded 82 mph in a run Sept. 18 at Battle Mountain, Nevada, on a stretch of flat highway popular with cyclists attempting the record …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/09/26/new-record-for-human-powered-vehicle-110-speed-of-sound/
When I read that the Smithsonian Institution will digitize its collection of 137 million artifacts, I surfed over there to see what the national museum currently has posted online in terms of bicycles.
The museum has photos of 45 bicycles online in its America on the Move Bicycle Collection and a couple of dozen other images of helmets, anti-car buttons and turn-of-the-century pro-bicycling pamplets.
The images in the collection run from a two-wheeled hobby horse manufactured in 1818 to a Schwinn Super Deluxe Sting-Ray made in 1965. There are standard bicycles, ordinary bicycles, bone shakers, and tandems. You'll recognize the names Schwinn, Columbia, Raleigh, and Pierce, among others ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/09/17/smithsonians-online-digital-display-of-classic-bicycles/
One night I was up late working when I heard a wonderful female vocalist on the radio. Jazz DJ Abe Beeson at KPLU-FM told a story about the singer that involved a bicycle.
The singer is Melody Gardot and the bicycle comes in at the beginning of the story, not the end.
Melody, then 19, was riding her bicycle in Philadelphia when she was hit by an SUV. She survived the collision, but suffered some serious injuries — including head trauma — that left her bedridden for a long time …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/09/03/melody-gardot-from-bicycle-accident-to-jazz-album/
Imagine the movie “Assault on Precinct 13” — naked. That's kind of what happened in Vancouver, BC, this weekend.
After police there arrested a man who participated in a naked bicycle ride with his 3-year-old son on Saturday, the group rode through downtown Vancouver to the police station to protest the arrest.
Unlike the movie, there was no violence. Naked bicyclists don't carry weapons. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/08/25/naked-cyclists-protest-at-vancouver-police-station/
The outdoor advertising group that operates the bicycle rental program in Paris says vandalism and the cost of spare parts is cutting into its margins.
The JC Decaux company's deal with Paris calls for it to provide and maintain 20,000 public bicycles in return for outdoor advertising space around France's capital.
The program is extremely successful, with 100,000-some rentals daily. However, Decaux spent about $32 million in the first half of the year to maintain the program because of vandalism and spare parts …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/08/01/paris-velib-program-more-costly-than-expected/
Sometimes fiction can explain reality more accurately than the facts.
Portland has had two notorious road rage incidents involving motorists and cyclists recently. It's a fact, but is that the Portland bike culture?
Of course not.
If you want to learn about the customs and lifestyles in Portland in which bicycles play a part, there's no better place to go than “The Bicyclist,” a web series which I think could best be described as an online comic soap opera. ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/18/what-is-the-portland-bike-culture-watch-this-soap-opera/
Screaming, yelling and an alert homeowner who is a photographer combined to give us this glimpse into an act of road rage in Portland between a cyclist and a motorist.
Yes, that's the cyclist on the hood of the car and hanging onto the windshield wipers for dear life.
According to reports, a bicyclist yelled at a passing motorist in a Ford Escort to slow down. The driver took offense at the suggestion and started chasing him …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/16/cyclist-rides-hood-of-car-in-portland-road-rage/
The ubiquitous “they” are always saying that summer is a great time to read books. I guess that's advice for people who vacation at the beach or need relaxation between weed-pulling efforts in the garden.
For a bicycling enthusiast who splits his time between watching the Tour de France, preparing for the next bike ride, riding, and keeping the family happy, summer seems like a more difficult season to find reading time.
Here are four bicycling books that I should make some time to read. They're suggestions from the Seattle Public Library in the Shelf Talk blog. Honestly, I've never heard of any of them, but they all sound worth pulling off the shelf …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/08/4-recommendations-for-the-summer-bicycle-reading-list/
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