Imagine you’re approaching this stretch of road at about 40kph—actually quite easy to do, as you’ve just come off a steeper downhill section, so it’s not unusual for anyone to be coasting along at a fair clip here. Notice any particular hazards at this point?

Could you spot the hazard here at 40kph?

Let’s go in a bit closer:

If you hit this, where will you land?

Yep, that’s a base of one of those flexi-poles that I didn’t much like when they were installed last year. A number of these poles have been bent and a couple have snapped off, leaving the near-invisible base as a collision hazard for cyclists. And if a cyclist gets tipped off after crashing with that, where are they going to land…?

That this has been broken for weeks (and possibly months) without repair reflects poorly on the City of Melbourne’s willingness and/or ability to maintain dedicated cycling facilities. Not good when these lanes carry 17% of total vehicles in the morning peak on Albert St.

Upgrated

In fairness, it’s not all downside. Both of you might remember this dangerous drain cover:

An unforgiving grate

Astonishingly, that wheel-jamming hazard was simply left there unmodified as part of the initial installation. Well, over a year later, it’s had an upgrade:

A grate upgraded

That’s an improvement, but really that should have been fixed in the first place.

Any good at all?

Having sworn off Albert St in favour of Victoria St, I have found myself back there a bit more often, in spite of my ongoing concerns including:

• increased likelihood of clashes with entering traffic on the eastbound/downhill lane,
• turning lane conflicts—being dumped into a turning lane is still dangerous by design,
• the increased difficulty in merging into the main traffic flow to make a right-hand turn, and
• those damn poles are still a collision hazard (even when they aren’t broken).

I’ve also noticed a tendency for cars to stop in (and block) the bike lane during clearway times, something that drivers wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before the bike lanes were there.

But if I’m back on Albert St, does that mean I’m a convert? No way: I remain a committed bike lane agnostic. Maybe Albert St is better with curbside lanes than without, but for me it is just the least worst option on that part of my commute route.

Melbournism calls for Melbourne’s best cycling paths

What do they ride at Microsoft?

Apple’s campus bikes are classically minimal—a plain silver mixte, to be precise.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but if you think about it, this simple, classic bike seems like exactly the thing Apple would pick to get its employees around the campus. I wonder what Microsoft uses? Probably electric golf carts. Or even (shudder) Segways.

[thanks flipsockgrrl]

Once was car city

Detroit Bike City [Thanks tom]

Not quite bike city

Melbourne gains ‘bike city’ status. Oh, really?

Actually is bike city

NYTimes.com on The Dutch Way – Bicycles and Fresh Bread.

Number crunch

Mez Dispenser on checking the numbers on bike trips in Toronto—how did the city get it so wrong?

Design

• Plastic bike looks like a toy, but rides like the future [Thanks tom]
• Brian Cloyd’s Recumbent Trike impresses NASA [Thanks tom]
• Apparently Toyota is working on the bicycle of the future that shifts gears via brain waves. OK, cool idea and good on them, but I can’t see myself replacing reliable cable and levers any time in the foreseeable future.

Recognition

Dave Moulton on distinctive bike designs.

Retro

• In the Doone Valley by Frank Patterson [twitterer]
• Bicycles. Sears, Roebuck & Co. Advertising Booklet, 1914.
• The trend today is to BSA [twitterer]

You go girl

Bicycle Thief, Interrupted:

Some idiot has the brass balls to steal a bike in broad daylight. But Kristen Bell and her co-workers saw what was happening and sprung into action, taking revenge for theft victims everywhere.

[Thanks tom]

Light up those hoops

Project Aura: Bicycle Safety Lighting System [Thanks tom]

“These jeans hate me”

Commute by Bike on Levi’s Nerd-Repellent Commuter Jeans:

I’m working on finding out if Levi’s makes an uncool version of these pants, and if they do, I’ll review them sometime in the future — and I’ll find out if “higher back rise” means, “covers your butt crack.”

Park it there

Apple shaped multi-story bike park in Alphen aan de Rijn [Thanks tom]

Counterintuitive

New road sign: Lane Closed to Ease Congestion [twitterer]

Best advice ever

Keep calm and ride on.

Another way a bike is better

Simple way to cool down your car after it’s been baking in the sun.

Too much Tour de France is barely enough

• Dave Moulton calls it A Perfect Result.
• The Conversation on the science of the Tour de France time trial.
• I’ve really come to look forward to the Boston Globe’s two-part folio of shots from the Tour de France: Part 1 and Part 2.
  (Incidentally, if anyone ever tries to suggest that every single one of these riders isn’t an incredibly hard man, just point them this photo of Laurens ten Dam.)
• road.cc reminded me of the wonderful TdF film Vive le tour! Sure, you’ve probably seen it before but go and watch it again.
• And I just need to keep a bookmark of Senor Coconut – Tour de France for future reference.

Sadly, we need to keep it in perspective

Amy Gillett Foundation on a stark reminder of the dangers cyclists face on our roads:

As the nation celebrates Cadel Evans’ famous Tour De France victory, it is also a time to highlight the issues of safety for cyclists on our roads as we mourn the death of another cyclist on Beach Road in Melbourne last Friday.

Work it out

Triathleteurope on effective hour-long bike workouts:

Not everyone has the time to put in five-hour rides every week. Fortunately, there are a few hour-long sessions that you can do that are invaluable for developing your bike fitness.

Energy supply

Interesting article on Why do we get exhausted?

Futile

KarlOnSea on the futility of culture change through exhortation:

Supposedly, all we have to do to make the roads attractive to the 98% of the population who don’t ride bikes on a regular basis, is to change the behaviour of these drivers. Yeah. Like that’s going to happen by just asking drivers nicely to pay a lot more attention, and curb any aggressive tendencies they may have.

Apropos: Bike crashes in Queensland: cyclists most likely to be at fault. [twitterer]

And when cycling infrastructure is everywhere, you get installations like this. [twitterer]

Accessorise, dahling!

@noteon: “Finally, somebody makes an affordable saddle scrotum”.

Handlebar clearance

Heidi Swift suggests Don’t look down. Mmmmmokay!

The debate the just keeps on giving

Cycle helmets: safety essential or health risk?

Cycle helmets should not be made compulsory, according to medical experts. The surprise finding from a poll of readers of the British Medical Journal suggests there is no simple answer to improving cycling safety.

Back to the drawing board

Human Powered Cycles reports on a prototype utility bike:

Not long after we built the first prototype furniture removalist bike, we tried moving some wood. Well actually it was a few hundred kilograms of wood.

Ah. Oops.

Cook now

TravellingTwo offers a free bicycle touring cookbook (from 1979):

There are hints on proportions (note that the book was aimed at groups of cyclists, so all recipes serve 10 people!), nutrition and how to carry tricky things, like sticky jars of honey.

Girls in the biz

Oregon Business reports from Interbike on why women lag in bike riding and business. [twitterer]

Jens says

The Jens Voigt Soundboard: ’nuff said!

The Pillars of French Cycling

Interesting film on the French bike industry, in two parts: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

This little fella is better than a bike lock—he nearly took my arm off when we went to pat him!

Plane vs bike

Bicycles beat commercial airliner—was there ever any doubt?

Get a fix

Bike Fixtation

Bicycles are incredible tools for transportation and recreation. And of course, they’re a blast to ride. But sometimes you get a flat tire, forget to bring a snack (beware of the bonk!), or need to make a minor adjustment. That’s where Bike Fixtation comes in.

Bike Fixtation offers self-service kiosks on an extended-hours basis for bicyclists in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. You can buy a tube or patch kit, pump up your tires for free, and make simple adjustments using supplied tools.

[Thanks tom]

Urban planning and design

Can bicycle networks create socially sustainable cities?

Can bicycle infrastructure increase the rate of cycling enough to reduce obesity and the costs of health care? Will people develop a new sense of place in their cities, discovering areas they never knew, and spend money in local businesses in the process? And will bicycle infrastructure encourage a new audience to use a bicycle (a vehicle which, despite its affordability, is still mostly used by those with a higher income, and avoided by ethnic minorities)?

[twitterer]

More on the same sort of thing:

• How to Plan Good Cities for Bicycling [twitterer]
• This pretense of neutrality[twitterer]
• Mia Birk’s TED Talk on pedaling towards a healthier planet [twitterer]

DIY

• Bike seat cover tutorial
• Bicycle Hoist or “How to get the wife’s bike out of my way”

Getting a woody

Custom hand-built bike [twitterer]

Advice

• Cyclist’s guide to safe driving, recommended by @exframebuilder “One of the best pieces I’ve read on the subject”.
• The Ten Golden Rules To Becoming A Better Cyclist

Moths

Should You Flash Motorists? The Moth Effect and The Bicycle:

Should the rear light blink or remain steady?

The debate arises from something dubbed the “moth effect.” Studies considering when emergency vehicles should and should not utilize flashing lights at a crash scene have sometimes demonstrated this effect. Like a moth to a flickering flame, a human being behind the wheel will be attracted to a light blinking in the darkness. The implication is that blinking lights on vehicles, and on the back of bicycles, may be more dangerous than steady lights.

My rule: flash and static, front and back.

(And as an aside, I’m astonished that any jurisdiction would allow any vehicle on the road at night without it’s own lighting. See my previous thoughts and observations on rear visibility)

Touring

• She packs it and she leaves it: disposible biking wardrobe.
• Biking adventure takes Israeli around the world
• Life is a wheel: the story of the bike
• Bikamper Tent: “fits nicely on your bike and protects both you and the bike from the outdoor elements.” [Thanks tom]

Getting it backwards

Our backwards approach to road safety

Similarly, when a plane crashes, they don’t decide to hand out parachutes to all passengers on similar planes just in case people need to jump if something goes wrong mid-flight. They get to the source of the problem and prevent it from happening (by implementing a change to the mechanics or inspection processes for airplanes).

[twitterer]

Meanwhile @CycleAdagio wonders if the author of this Letter to Australian Cyclist thinks that “removing the Dutch & Danes from the gene pool would be a good thing”.

Bike share

@CycleAdagio also on a related topic:

What disappoints me so much about the current plight of the Melbourne & Brisbane bike share schemes is the resigned shrugging of the shoulders from our so-called state cycling advocates…

Video

• dirt spineology: white knuckle viewing [twitterer]
• Victoria’s Secret [SIGH]
• Alas, it’s yet another cute video of a dog on a bicycle
• Angry bike guy [twitterer]
• Vanoise Express by Bike—but why? [twitterer]
• Mountain bike skills holiday in Spain
• Unicyclists in Edinburgh or “Nutters R Us”
• No tom, I don’t care how good he is I ain’t doing that: Cirque Eloize Bicyclist

Tour de France insights: crashes

Brooks blog on why are there so many crashes in this year’s Tour?

Absence of Hoxton Basket on Front of Most of the Bikes- The Hoxton conveys a subliminal message to those around it. “Hey. Slow down. Don’t overtake me. Give me some space here. Thank you!” We’re already discussing plans with several teams for 2012.

Tour de France insights: amateur racers

Recommended read of the week is winning with style and honour:

At the amateur level, however, in the racing that you and I partake in on the weekend or during the week, there are no monetary or professional factors at play…Cycling is both beautiful and brutal and we have an obligation to emphasize the former. As such, the burden of fair play and riding like a gentleman is much higher. As such, we would be wise not to follow many of the examples of our professional heroes. We would do well to adopt their style and sang-froid, but not their refrain of ruthless riding.

[via gusk]

Reminded me of Elizabeth Coxhead’s quote:

A sport is advanced by the handful of people who do it brilliantly, but it is kept sweet and sane by the great numbers of the mediocre, who do it for fun.

Tour de France insights: science

The science of elite cycling: Tour de France stages 1 to 11 and stages 12 to 21.

Tour de France insights: food

Masterchef meets TdF: feeding riders on the Tour de France. [twitterer]

Or if you want it graphically, how much does a Tour de France cyclist eat in a day?

Or straight from @andy_schleck: our cook put together what each rider in our team eats a day during a day in the TDF .

To your health

OregonLive.com: Cars versus bikes: why medics are choosing to pedal:

There’s pretty good evidence that switching from car to bicycle transport produces a net health benefit for the individual – and society.

[twitterer]

Gadgets

• With the Mopha Tool Roll you can carry your bike tools just like how professional chefs keep their knives in a roll-up then lay them out when it’s time to go to town on a whole pig. [Thanks tom]
• Cycling apps for the Android
• Cycle EXIF has found “how to transport the pushies on the back of my moto”.

Hub-bub

• Aerospace Hub for bicycles aims to give bearings a break [Thanks tom]
• The NuVinci Shifting Experience: no gears!?

Commute

Your bike commute stories—the good, the bad, and the opossum:

My best commute: Portland, Ore. Surprise snowstorm at 3 p.m. Worst traffic snarl I have ever seen. I left work at 5:30. That night, it took people up to eight hours to get home. Buses were caught off guard without chains and were stuck behind abandoned automobiles.

It took me one hour.

[twitterer]

Warning! Concept bikes ahead!

• Audi Electric Bike Concept takes brand’s eco campaign one step ahead [Thanks tom]
• Vanhulsteijn Cyclone Bicycle Defies Gravity [Thanks tom]
• 4H – A four person unicycle for individual and collective experience [Thanks tom]

The best job in the world?

Calling all cyclists – Growler delivery riders wanted in St Kilda—what work could be more satisfying?

[twitterer]

SplinterBike.co.uk: “No bolts or screws, just wood and glues! Splinter Bike a 100% Wooden Bicycle Land Speed Record… attempt!” [thanks woowoowoo]

Commuting in ten

10 lessons learnt from cycle commuting for a year.

Look ma, no rider!

Scientists unlock the secrets of bike stability, make riders optional [Thanks tom]

A clever gadget but Dave Moulton remains unimpressed.

Remote controlled bike

Child cruelty or creative parenting?

Get it off your back

VelEau hydration system mounts on the bike instead of the rider [Thanks tom]

Soundtrack with cadence

cycle.jog.fm asks “I cycle at [insert cadence here] rotations per minute” and offers “the best workout songs and playlists for your cycling pace”.

The strongest survive

The Sperm Bike in Copenhagen [Thanks tom]

Protect your goodies

“Chain Condom is a bicycle chain cover that attaches in less than a minute and protects your car’s interior and bike’s drive train.”

Run the numbers

Grist has some “interesting demographic data” on the demographics of cycling in the USA.

Nagging doubts

The Age reports new findings on helmet safety:

An analysis by Norwegian researchers of existing studies has suggested previous scrutiny was biased towards helmets and relied too heavily on research into 1980s ”stack-hat” style hard-shell helmets. They argued that today’s ”soft-shell” helmets were less effective at reducing brain injuries.

And come to that, when considering and studying the utility of the bicycle helmet, it might be helpful to define what is a bicyclist?

Meanwhile in Britain, cyclists are getting tired of being tut-tutted for not wearing an ‘undignified plastic hat’.

Thoughts on your wheels

Kathleen Wilker urges you to love the ride you’re with

So to everyone who’s in the market for a fabulous spring bike, I wish you well in your search for the perfect bike and hope you have all kinds of great rides with your shiny new wheels.  And to everyone who is cruising along on clunkers that they own or that they’ve borrowed, may you love the ride you’re with!  Because a set of wheels is a set of wheels.

Envy

Wall Street Journal on alpine cycling without (much) pain:

Like Italy’s Dolomites and the French Alps synonymous with the Tour de France, the Swiss mountains become a sporty Eden each summer for cyclists who want to test their stamina, or just soak up the rugged countryside and rich mix of German, French and Italian culture.

Going down

Jeff Tiedeken’s Gravity Bike Gets Up to 60MPH [Thanks tom]

Separate lives

Clover Moore wants more bike lanes in Sydney to encourage the cycling.

While we’re on the subject, a study published in Injury Prevention finds that the injury risk of bicycling on physically separated bicycle-exclusive paths along roads is less than bicycling in the roads themselves. [twitterer]

That is, unless the lanes are painted by the City of Yarra: Spills prompt bike-lane safety fears.

The cure for doorings?

The rotary drop door for cars could be a cure for doorings, but I just don’t see it catching on.

Storage

• Display your bike on the wall as if it were a precious trophy
• Dero Track Rack

Parking

Elly Blue discusses the economic case for on-street bike parking, noting that “the solutions might seem difficult and costly … until you break them down and put them in perspective.”

Most notably, “business owners are among the first to catch on that well designed, visible bike parking, built in accordance with best practices, makes it easy and attractive for customers to ride to a business”.

Rejoice

Sarah Wilson: “I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel!” [twitterer]

SUV

Panasonic to launch power-assisted bikes with 2 child seats [via Engadget, thanks tom]

Monkey Business

CNNMoney.com reports on Carlos Perez of Bike Monkey Magazine:

Creating a company centered around cycling, however, was the last thing Perez had on his mind when he staged his first race in 2006. “I’m one of those people who has a knack for organizing things, and I just put together this mountain bike race as a fundraiser while I was still at Medtronic,” he recalls. The event was so successful that friends began urging him to start a race event company. At first Perez was skeptical. Making money at something he loved so much seemed counterintuitive, he explains. But when his second race in 2007 drew twice as many participants as his first, Perez decided to take the plunge. He resigned from Medtronic and started Bike Monkey. When asked how he came up with the name, Perez says, “I don’t know. The two words together just made me smile.”

Patchy

Gizmodo reckons these bike inner tubes wince when punctured, and then self-seal. Cool. [twitterer]

Road safety

• @amsterdamized says “Dutch program tries to change driving behavior of notorious offenders, doesn’t seem to work”.
• The Age reports that “The number of people being seriously injured on Australia’s roads is on the rise, according to new research that takes some of the shine off much-heralded reductions in road fatalities…And one of the most worrying trends was a big increase in the number of middle-aged men being injured on motorcycles and bicycles.” [twitterer]
• New York Times: “A nationally representative sample of more than 800 crashes involving teenage drivers shows that almost two-thirds were due not to reckless behavior like speeding or joyriding but to three novice driving mistakes: failing to scan the road, misjudging driving conditions and becoming distracted.”

On the same topics, the WHO notes that mobile phone use is part of a growing problem of driver distraction:

Distracted driving is a serious and growing threat to road safety. With more and more people owning mobile phones, and the rapid introduction of new “in-vehicle” communication systems, this problem is likely to escalate globally in the coming years…It is now evident that if you are using a mobile phone while driving you are approximately four times more likely to be involved in a crash than a driver who is not using a phone. This risk appears to be similar for both hand-held and hands-free phones, because it is the cognitive distraction that is an issue, not only the physical distraction associated with holding the phone. Text messaging appears to have an even more severe impact on driving behaviour and crash risk.

[twitterer]

Bikeumentary

Pedal Driven:

In the pristine forests above Leavenworth, Washington, there exists a world of hidden trailheads and clandestine trails. Here a sect of outdoor enthusiasts, extreme mountain bikers called freeriders, have gone underground. They are the skate punks of the forest, unwelcome and under pressure to leave. The locations of their trails are carefully guarded secrets and the riders who ride them keep constant vigil, on the lookout for US Forest Service rangers.

[Thanks tom]

'Bici...che altro?'

Economics of bike parking

A post on changing car parking to bike parking in Melbourne:

It may initially seem logical to conclude that if car users spend more, then public space should be dominated by car parking to attract more ‘high spenders’ to make the retail precinct successful and vibrant. However, the relative space efficiency of each mode needs to be considered…Each square metre of space allocated to cars reaps just $6 per hour in expenditure, whereas each square metre of space allocated to bikes reaps five times as much ($31 per hour).

[twitterer]

Credit where it’s due

People for Bikes on Making bicycling contagious

We think that bicycling doesn’t get enough credit as a partial solution to the obesity epidemic. So much of the discussion on weight gain and loss centers around what and how much we eat, yet, obviously, a lack of physical activity is a also major cause of obesity. Biycling [sic] is a fantastic way to stay active for many reasons.

Plan

The Victorian Greens have a Bicycle Action Plan [thanks Nik Dow]

Quick (release) thinking

The perfect last-minute gift for this Molteni Campagnolo Girl. twitterer

Bike becomes trike

“Triblean” retrofit kit makes tricycles for grown-ups [Thanks tom]

Mistakes

Joe Friel offer his Top 10 Mistakes of Athletes:

• #8-#10
• #4-#7
• #1-#3

Ride, kid, ride

Further to my recent proud parent announcement that the Co-Pilot is travelling under pedal power, Keith Snyder brings a far more eloquent post on the topic of kids and bikes.

Never again! Maybe…

After crashing her bike and breaking her collarbone, Gina Kolata’s first reaction was a vow to never ride again.

Data analysis

“The first analysis of data from shared bicycle networks in Europe, reveals some surprising urban cycling patterns” including that cyclists pedal faster on Wednesdays.

The death of the fixie

Why the fixie trend should die now.

And here’s another reason. :-) [thanks woowoowoo]

Sperm deformity

According to this report from Reuters, “men who bike at least five hours a week have fewer and less active sperm than men who didn’t exercise, a study said”.

Ew-www.

But wait there’s more, Lauren Wise at Boston University “also noted that it was possible that the men included in the study may not be representative of the general population, since they were all attending a fertility clinic and therefore more likely to have problems with their sperm”. Ah, I think I see a confounding variable in their study.

The legal system

Advice for cyclists considering a civil trial.

Minimal compliance

Cyclists find ways around safety helmet law [twitterer]

Dancing the pedals

Try that, hipsters. [twitterer]

Weight weenies

British Medical Journal study finds:

A lighter bicycle did not lead to a detectable difference in commuting time. Cyclists may find it more cost effective to reduce their own weight rather than to purchase a lighter bicycle.

You coulda knocked me over with a feather-weight brake lever…

[twitterer]

Privilege and rights

@crunchysteve:

To drive requires a licence – in law, a privilege. To ride a bicycle (just like walking) requires no licence – this makes it a right.

Walk and increase social capital

Science Daily reports:

On the whole, the more walkable neighborhoods scored higher on every measure of social capital than the less walkable neighborhoods…individuals in more walkable neighborhoods tended to have higher levels of trust and community involvement…Residents in the more walkable neighborhoods also reported being in good health and happy more often than those in the less walkable neighborhoods.

[twitterer]

Smart girls ride bikes

Girls get a brain boost when they bike to school. [twitterer]

Regulate? Oh yeah?

Why regulating cyclists is unnecessary and harmful: “Why don’t cyclists have compulsory licencing, training and insurance? Because it would be utterly pointless”. [twitterer]

Well, it could be worse

Perspective [thanks flipsockgrrl]

Nothing new under the sun

Bike polo in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Sept 1898 and 6 May 1899:

Bicycle polo is now all the rage at the English music halls, where the game is played fast and furious on the stage by efficiently trained cyclists.

Oh, how I wish that I too were “efficiently trained”!

Sing, sing, sing

The Age on slow cycling: “Secondary school teacher Sue Tyrie believes if she cannot sing while she cycles to and from work, she is riding too fast.” [twitterer]

Pointless distinctions

Are you a *Real* Cyclist?

Shots

• Cycling in London: Past, Present and beyond
• 9W Magazine: a journal of cycling photography
• Amsterdam Bicycles (pretty sure I’ve posted this before, but hey…)

Putting the “Mountain” into Mountain Biking

Colin Stewart – All Mountain riding like you’ve never seen it!.