Where and when are you most likely to find bicycle riders in Bellevue, Washington? It's the I-90 bike trail in the Enatai neighborhood.
According to the Pedestrian and Bicycle Count Report taken on Sept. 29, bicycle commuters come through there at the rate of 2 per minute between 4 and 6 p.m., and at about 1 per minute between 7 and 9 a.m.
If you commute between the Eastside and Seattle, that I-90 bridge trail is the only way across Lake Washington. The only alternatives are riding through Renton south of the lake or the Burke-Gilman Trail through Bothell north of the lake. [The photo shows bike commuters at that location on a bike-to-work day …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/12/where-to-find-bike-commuters-in-bellevue/
As the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen draws to a close, some journalists took advantage of a bike tour through the city on Thursday offered by the Cycling Embassy of Denmark.
The description by one reporter at the Telegraph makes the city sound like bicycling heaven:
“Despite the drizzle and cold, for someone who bikes in London it was sheer bliss. There are bike lanes everywhere, with enough room for two or three cyclists. Cycle routes are closed to traffic and there are shortcuts by lakesides and through pretty parks. There is no weaving through traffic, running over pedestrians or throwing hand signals because you simply don’t have to, there is room for everyone.”
Apparently bicycling in Denmark in the '70s was destined to go the way of the dodo bird ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/11/creating-bicycling-bliss-in-copenhagen/
Does this annoyance sound familiar to you?
You pedal your bicycle up to a traffic light and sit there waiting for it to change. If it uses a trigger mechanism installed in the blacktop, you could sit there a very long time — maybe forever if you're riding an aluminum or carbon bike.
Eventually you meekly roll over to the crosswalk and hit the pedestrian crossing button, or take matters into your own hands and just blow the traffic light when no cross-traffic is coming.
Bicyclists in Santa Clarita, California, might not get to play out that drama much longer on two roads. The city has requested $390,000 from the state Bicycle Transportation Account to install cameras mounted on traffic lights to detect bicyclists waiting at traffic signals …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/09/expanding-use-of-bicycle-video-detection-at-intersections/
One look at the Weather Channel temperature map at left confirms that much of the US is locked in frigid winter weather.
If you layer up, you're probably OK for bike commuting or riding your bike on an errand, but long-distance bike tourists are in for chilly riding during the day and colder camping at night.
There are lots of bike travelers on the road, however. You'll generally find them in the Southern Hemisphere where it's late spring.
In the left column I've listed a baker's dozen bike tour blogs under “On-the-road bike travelers.” Some are either approaching or south of the equater right now. What adventures are they having while the rest of us are slipping on our booties and tearing through our gear looking for balaclavas? ……
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/08/bike-travelers-take-to-the-southern-hemisphere/
Team RadioShack has issued a sneak peak of the prototype jersey the new US-based pro cycling team might be wearing next year.
Then Trek released a photo of the Madone that Team RadioShack will use in 2010. The graphic scheme will be available to the public in March.
I like the distinctive look of the jersey.
With the grey top and red through the torso, it should be easy to spot from helicopter camera views of the peloton. That's especially helpful if you're trying to find Lance Armstrong's team on a foreign language broadcast.
From the looks of the first day of training camp in Tucson on Monday, the team could use its own jersey. ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/08/fashion-statement-from-team-radioshack-and-the-new-madone/
It's always gratifying to learn that your hometown is making progress toward bicycle friendliness.
That's why I was happy to learn that Bellevue, Washington, has joined Seattle and Redmond by opening a bike station. It's housed inside Bellevue's Commute Connection at the Transit Center on Sixth Street.
That Commute Connection “store” is where commuters can learn about options to driving solo to work or errands. Staff is on-site from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily through the winter to assist in planning commute trips by bike, bus, and car- or van-pool.
The highlight for me is the secure indoor parking at the site for 27 bicycles ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/07/secure-bicycle-parking-at-bellevues-bike-station/
While researchers say that risk is a big issue that keeps women off bicycles on the road, a documentary comes to grips with another problem of perception — it's just not cool.
Says one of the subjects in a UK documentary about young women on bikes: “I thought it was just a little kid's thing.”
A study published in Scientific American in October noted that, in general, women are more averse to risk than men. In bicycling, that reluctance is overcome with good bike infrastructure, such as bike lanes, bike paths and a bike friendly atmosphere.
A project in Darlington, UK, finds there's more to it than that in Beauty and the Bike: Why do British girls stop cycling?”
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/06/changing-how-young-women-look-at-bicycling/
UPS is putting bicycles with trailers back on the road along the West Coast to save the cost of increasing its truck fleet during the holiday season.
While UPS experimented with going back to its roots in Washington and Oregon in recent years, now the world's largest package delivery business is expanding the use of bikes to 45 routes throughout Northern California.
The bike-trailer set-ups cost UPS about $700 each. Still, using human-powered delivery saves UPS about $45,000 to $50,000 in fuel and maintenance costs by eliminating the need to rent 20 to 25 trucks ….
Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/05/ups-using-bikes-for-deliveries-again-this-holiday/
When I wrote about Farmington, Missouri, opening a bike hostel in an old jail on the TransAmerica Trail this fall, I wondered how many hostels are primarily devoted to bicycle travelers.
I could name three off the top of my head from my TransAmerica trip 25 years ago — Cookie Lady's Bike House in Afton, Virginia; Elk Garden, Virginia, and Pippa Passes, Kentucky.
We also bunked in hostels in Ordway, Colorado; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Hutchinson, Kansas.
When I started searching for more recently, it didn't take long before I stumbled across several websites with extensive lists of free or low-cost bike hostels …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/04/bike-hostels-theyll-leave-the-light-on-for-you/
One of the bicycling world's most articulate travel authors passed away recently on what she said was going to be her last around-the-world bike tour.
Anne Mustoe of Great Britain died in a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 10. She was 76.
The former girl's school headmistress started her around-the-world bicycle travels when she was 54. She circled the globe twice — once in each direction — and wrote 7 books about her adventures.
She got the idea to travel by bike when she saw a man pedaling a bicycle across a desert in northern India. She was riding in a passing train at the time.
She left her job at the girl's school and was given a Condor bicycle as a going away present. She covered about 100,000 miles on that bike before she died. ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/12/03/bike-travel-author-anne-mustoe-dies-on-bike-tour-in-syria/
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