My second tank in 75 Days!

My second tank in 75 Days!
Originally uploaded by brendan61

As I predicted, now that I am back from Las Vegas we are now fully engaged in Autumn. On the flight back I started getting some classic cold symptoms and sure enough I was down for the weekend. Not wanting to make my condition worse I decided to drive to work on Monday and Tuesday. For those of you scoring at home that's 4 times now since July 13th when I started on the year without cars. On Tuesday morning I had one of those little aha! moments as I filled up for only the second time since July 13th! Last year during the same period I had filled my 13 gallon tank about 16 times. I think I saved just a little under $600! Not bad. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Why did I have to fill it even that much?" As I mentioned when I started the project, I use the car for some chores and getting to places where, because of distance and time restraints, riding is not practical. Still, I think the impact is pretty dramatic. Could you imagine if one out of ten people were to do this? Energy security would be within our grasp! It's not that hard folks, let's give it a try.

Vegas Wrap Up-The Trouble With Carbon

Now, before you go and get the wrong idea, let me say unequivocally that I love what I do for a living. I believe in bicycles, and I believe in people on bicycles. I have worked in the bike industry for 15 years and I honestly have difficulty seeing myself working in any other. So when I say that I have some ideas about what is wrong with the bike industry in the USA with regard to why more people don't embrace the bicycle as a transportation alternative, or embrace the bicycle at all, you can trust that I have some idea of what I am talking about. To wit--The $18,000 Serotta Meivici AE pictured above with Ford paint make up, to me, is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And there in lies the problem. The industry is largely run by people who are so focused on performance bikes and how cool they think they are  that they seem to have no ability to relate to the world at large and what, from a bicycle and transportation standpoint,  might appeal to that world. The industry treats non-enthusiast cyclists as "outsiders". If you stand back and look at the whole picture, you see non-cycling people looked down upon by cycling enthusiasts, and the cycling enthusiasts are looked down upon by the "super-enthusiasts" that are ubiquitous in the industry. We tend to love our products more than we love our customers. Imagine if the auto industry was run entirely by Formula One engineers and you might have a comparison. In the auto industry companies are focused on making products that are usable by the general public. Yes, auto racing is a component of the auto industry, but it is not the driving force behind it. (Sorry for the unintentional pun.) The bike makers are all tripping over each other to try and create these racing bikes for an ever shrinking customer base while all the other categories seem to take a back seat. The bicycle commentator Bike Snob NYC has coined a term that I think crystallizes the issue. He calls it the "carbonification" of cycling. In usual fashion, the industry has collectively decided that if carbon fiber is good for one application it must be good for every application, cost be damned. The marketing of products that range from impractical to ridiculous for most people seems to be the strategy.  Okay, if you are an industry wonk I know what your thinking. "There's lots of bikes and products out there for all kinds of riders!" Yeah, that's true, but let's be honest, when you step back and look at the big picture it's pretty obvious we are in love with our products and we jealously try to push away regular people who are not pure enough to be part of the club. There are some efforts afoot to try and get away from this but love is love and it will not be denied!

On the other hand, I am led to optimism whenever I see Gary Fisher at the bike show. For those of you who do not know who Gary is, he is considered one of the founding fathers of the mountain bike boom back in the early 80's and is the spiritual force behind the bicycle brand that wears his name.

Says Gary Fisher "Anyone who rides a bike is a friend of mine". As you can see in this photo, Gary is a unique individual but he embraces every type of bicycle and cyclist in kind.

Everything considered I suppose that, although the yearly ritual of the bike show can be tiresome and  I really don't enjoy Las Vegas, I do still enjoy participating and seeing friends to share war stories and lament on the fact that business is never as good as we would like but we are optimistic it will get better. And while the products that I got to see this year are not that different than last year, or the year before, there is always something that captures my eye and stokes the passionate fire of my enthusiasm for that elegant melding of mind, body, and machine that we call "Bicycle".

Interbike Day 4 Parts 1& Deux

I had to break this up into two parts because of the length. Some interesting new product stuff, Scott bikes, Time and Look Pedals. Plus, Ernesto Colnago and a quick shot of former Cycle Craft employee Andy Ewas.

Vegas 2009 Day 3

Here's Day Three in all it's glory. Surprisingly, the show seemed pretty busy even though everyone here is saying that 2009 was a very challenging year. I guess hope springs eternal. Although, maybe common sense does not. The thing that struck me was the ridiculous number of carbon fiber road racing bikes. If you strip the paint and decals off of them you would be hard pressed to differentiate one from the other. Too many of these things and not enough of the kind that ordinary folks would really care to ride. Anyway, here it is!

Vegas 2009 Day 2

Vegas Day 2-Dirt Demo from Brendan on Vimeo.

Day 2 Dirt Demo. Enjoy!

Las Vegas Day One

Just got to Las Vegas. It's as hot and crappy as I remember! I am attempting to keep a bit of a video diary so here for your viewing pleasure:

This video stars Andy B, CEO of Cycle Craft, Inc

Mt Lakes Pano

Mt Lakes Pano
Originally uploaded by brendan61
Nice view of Mountain Lakes. Trees are turning!
Click it to see bigger

Signs of Autumn

This caught my eye on the way in to work today.

Just a little further back and you now see that this is modern sculpture on the lawn of someone's business. I'm not sure why it's the there but I guess someone thought it was cool and so do I.

Here's the view from the road with the Fargo thrown in for fun!

The crispy sunshine and painfully blue sky are, in my opinion, the best ingredients for making any photo look great. The deep coolness of the sky also reminds me that autumn officially starts in a few days. Another sign that autumn is upon us  is the annual Inter-bike show in Las Vegas which starts on Monday. Las Vegas is the ultimate town for shallow illusions and drunken stupidity where the  Las Vegas strip is an assault on the senses. Loud music comes from every door and the uncountable number of lights make night-time impossible.  I hate Las Vegas. But I do love the bike show! There really is an enormous amount of non-sensical crap at the show but shiny paint and cool gadgets never fail to capture my imagination. Each year I come across at least one thing "I gotta have". (See Salsa Fargo above). I do get to ride for one day at the outdoor demo that's held in Bootleg Canyon where manufacturers let all of us industry wonks try out the cool new equipment. The only part that I don't like is that it happens in the desert. Everything is dry and brown and there is no shade anywhere. By the end of the day I think I know what it must feel like to be a sun dried tomato. Quite honestly I am not sure how anyone lives there! The rest of the week is spent trolling the miles of aisles looking at all the good, the bad , and the ugly that the bike industry has to offer up for the coming season.

After spending the week in Las Vegas with the 95 to 100 degree temperatures the return back to the east coast always punctuates the onset of fall. Just in that one week the temperature will drop another 5 degrees and the trees will start to put on their annual show. It's a small consolation for having to endure the cruel winter that follows but I look forward to it every year.

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 03 - Helmet Promotion Campaigns

Part 3 in the series. The author raises some very interesting questions!

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 03 - Helmet Promotion Campaigns

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 02 - Constructing Fear of Cycling

Part 2 in the "Fear of Cycling" series.

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 02 - Constructing Fear of Cycling

Mmmm....New Pavement

There's almost nothing better than new pavement. Smooth, clean--a joy to behold. Here's the view of the the freshly paved Route 46 as seen from my bike seat. Very nice. Pictured below is the view behind me just before I got to the newly paved section. The nice pavement makes dodging the cars worth it!

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 01 - Essay in five parts by Sociologist Dave Horton

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 01 - Essay in five parts by Sociologist Dave Horton

This is an interesting read from the Copenhagenize blog. Worth a read if you are feeling a little frightened of riding your bike!

2 Down 10 To Go!

I am two months into the year without cars. The project, which started back on July 13th, is headed into winter but on a day like today it's hard to imagine the foul weather to come. To date  I have had to use my car 3 or 4 times to get to work and a couple of times at home to accomplish chores but I have used my bike more often than not. So what does it all mean? I have no idea! Why am I doing it? The answer seems to keep changing on me. At a basic level I just love riding my bike so I'm doing it because it's fun. But there are other things going on here that I don't even fully understand. In the past two months a lot of things have happened. Lot's of folks passed away--Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, and today, Jody Powel from the Carter administration and Patrick Swayze among others. The whole health care storm has been dominating the cable news shows and the political climate is  making civility  a quaint notion from the past. 

Closer to home, in an occurrence that seems to be happening with more frequency, one of our customers recently suffered a traumatic brain injury and broken back as the result of being struck by a landscaping truck while riding her bike in Pennsylvania. The driver did not stop. It is one of those things that makes me scared to ride my bike but it also energizes my passion to change our culture. How sad is it that we live in a society where one person will carelessly hurt another person and then run away to avoid being held accountable for their actions. It seems like a growing trend. In the country at large it seems that civility, compassion and just plain good manners are no longer valued. What's happened to us? Childish, ill-mannered behavior is not just tolerated, it's encouraged. When public leaders and celebrities misbehave they offer insincere apologies but suffer no real consequences and sometimes even benefit from their indiscretion. "I was overcome by passion", "I was drunk", "I was mad because I disagreed with the official". You can run someone over with a truck and destroy a life. Just say "oops, my bad" and you're off the hook. 

When it comes to the safety of cyclists and pedestrians on the road, folks to seem to not have any idea that there is a problem. Distracted drivers on the phone and texting drift around the road totally unaware of the peril they are creating. When you point it out to them they don't really seem to care. At my favorite breakfast place, a 19 year old kid that works there was joking about losing his license for the third time. The third time! He's only 19 for crying out loud! One of his co-workers, a young lady, was making fun of him but admitted that she texts while she drives all the time. People seem to feel that driving is a right and not a privilege and they are permitted to abuse that right any way they want. Don't get me wrong, I am not unaware of the trouble that cyclists create for themselves with their own bad behavior. I will have a post on that subject very soon. So I guess one of the reasons that I am doing this is to try in some way to get people to change the way they think just a little bit. Would it kill you to be a little more careful?