Go By Bike!

The Denville Flood 2011

2011-03-11T21:54:00.000-05:00

Winter Ride

2011-01-15T15:08:00.002-05:00

photo
Originally uploaded by brendan61

So this is not the greatest winter bike but through an unsual series of circumstances I got to ride it into town today for coffee and a bike committee meeting at town hall. I have not been commuting much since the summer time hence no posts but I figured I would throw this up. It was about 18 degrees when I headed out from home this morning. That's about as cold I can really see myself riding in. The bike committee meeting was good and we are off to a great start for making Denville a great place to ride a bike in 2011. I can't wait for some better weather!

This is the new logo for our little advocacy group.

I saw these bikes at Interbike

2010-10-15T22:40:00.000-04:00

I thought they were nice in a subtle,elegant sort of way
http://nyti.ms/8ZGcbC

Going by Bike In Montreal

2010-09-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

Bold Fashion Statement

It's been another long while since my last post as life gobbles up big chunks of time. July 13th marked the anniversary of "Life Without a Car" and while I still don't own a car, I have not been riding more than once or twice a week. The store has been very busy and there was that whole wedding thing going on. Cathy and I tied the knot in a nice little ceremony outside on what I believe has to have been the nicest day of the year. (Last Saturday). We just got back from our honeymoon in Montreal, Canada. We picked Montreal for it's European charm without the whole international flight hassle. Plus, we heard that it is a "bicycle friendly" city. I don't know if friendly is the word I would choose but there seems to be an acceptance from the motorized traffic that bicycles are a part of the system and it all worked pretty well. Separated bike lanes on major roads and marked lanes as well as sharrows on others keep the bike traffic moving nicely. The interesting part was that motor traffic moved smoothly as well.

Bixi Montreal from Brendan on Vimeo.
One of the cool things about Montreal is the "Bixi" bike sharing system. All around the city you can find Bixi stations with bikes available for you to hop on and go. It's cheap and easy to get around and it's fun! While we were in Montreal the weather was uncharacteristically hot and it got a little uncomfortable riding to and fro but all in all the "Bixi" is a great way to get around.

Masion Des Cyclists

On Friday we took a Bixi ride from our downtown hotel to the "Maison Des Cyclists" across the street from the "Parc De Le Fontaine". The Maison houses the administrative offices of Velo Quebec Association, the main cycling advocacy organization for the province. The Maison also has a terrific cafe that makes great coffee, a book and map store and a travel agency that specializes in bike trips.

At the Maison we spent some time with Marc Jolicoeur, the Director of Research for Velo Quebec. Marc graciously took time out of his day to give a couple of un-announced advocates from New Jersey the low down on the cycling movement in Montreal which now boasts over 360 kilometers of separated and/or marked bike routes. It's amazing to me that the city has made the commitment to active transportation that includes bicycles even though the harsh Canadian winter makes riding very impractical from November through April. However, as Marc pointed out, it didn't happen overnight. They have been working on this since 1985! So why is it so hard hard to get people on board with the active transport concept here in New Jersey? The demand exists, the benefits are obvious, and the return on investment is large-- I just don't understand the resistance.

On another day we went on a three hour tour (insert Gilligan's Island joke of choice) around the Montreal. We were led through the city on bikes by a very knowledgeable guide who brought us to many of the city's historical highlights and along some quieter back lanes to show us how regular Montrealers live. We rode on rented hybrid bikes and had to wear the oh so fashionable blaze orange vests but the ride was a lot of fun-Definitely a departure from our regular ride experience.

Learning about the canal

Without a doubt, Montreal is a fun place to visit. Great food, generally nice people, lots of history, plenty of shopping (bring money!), the Olympic Park, Botanical Gardens, museums and a very happening nightlife scene, all make for a memorable trip.

Now it's back to work for a busy fall season getting the store ready for 2011 and enjoying the crispy autumn riding weather, a welcome relief from our record hot summer. Yes, life is good when you "Go By Bike".
Click here to see the whole album!

One Year In!

2010-07-15T07:54:00.000-04:00

It's been a year since I started "My Year Without Cars". It's a bit of a misnomer though because it's not like I just made all the cars disappear. No, cars are a fact of life--to be tolerated and dealt with like noisy children or hemorrhoids.

I started out to see if I could change my lifestyle to become independent of the automobile/oil slave culture that seems to dominate everything. So how did I do, you ask? Well to be quite honest I am somewhat disappointed with myself because I couldn't cut the strings entirely. That's the part of my personality that never accepts any results--good enough never is. My own assessment is that I could have done much more. But then again, as some people have pointed out to me, I did a lot.

Here are some stats:

167 recorded trips

2,630 miles

127,479 feet of vertical climbing

Average speed 15.7 MPH

167,072 calories

I actually had more mileage but for various reasons they were not recorded so I will go with the record.

Believe it or not at least 90% of the mileage was "car trip replacement". So what does that mean in terms of impact? Well, rounding the numbers a bit, I saved about 110 gallons of gas. Multiply that by the amount of carbon in a gallon of gas (6 pounds for those of you scoring at home) for a total of 660 pounds, multiplied by about 3.7 when you combine it with the oxygen in the air and I saved about 2090 pounds of carbon dioxide. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot but imagine that we could reduce the number of car miles driven in the US by 10%. Let's do the math--200 million cars driving an average of 12,500 miles per year. That's 2.5 trillion miles times 660 pounds of carbon dioxide. I don't care who you are, that's a lot of CO2 right there! (Picture Larry the Cable Guy reading that last bit for effect.) Anyway, you get the picture, if we could reduce that by 10% we would make a significant difference. A little change individually can add up to big numbers together.

So what else happened this past year? Well,

I'm in better shape than I have been in a really long time.

I finally did sell my car and gave myself a $6000 "raise" in the process.

I joined the New Jersey Bicycle Coalition as a board member and mounted the first ever New Jersey Bike Summit bringing together advocates from around the state.

New Jersey received a Bronze rating as a bicycle friendly state from the League of American Bicyclists and moved up to eighth from 10th place on the ranking list.

I raised $1500 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and completed another ride in Austin, TX.

I inspired several people to shake the bonds of oil slavery and use their bikes for transportation.

I convinced ten other people to ride their bikes to the supermarket with me and buy a turkey and then deliver said turkey by bike to a Foodbank Thanksgiving food drive.

I experienced the changing of the seasons in a way that car bound people never will.

I rode a mountain bike with my best friend to the top of the Tourne at sunset and asked her to marry me. She said "yes"!

All in all it's been a pretty good year. So now what? In the spirit of continuous improvement (because good enough never is), I will continue my quest to cast off the oily chains of petroleum addiction, to wit:

I will double my transportation miles.

I will continue working to make New Jersey a better place for cyclists (watch out Portland, Jersey is in the house!).

This year we will get a "yes" vote on a 3 foot passing law protecting vulnerable users including cyclists, pedestrians, emergency workers, etc.

I will convince at least 30 people to join the Coalition.

So there it is. One year since I started. Maybe I should change my theme to "A Life Without Cars".
See the year in pictures here:

The year in pictures

Bike Commuting and The Suspension Of The Desire For Comfort

2010-05-13T10:56:00.002-04:00

Bike To Work Week Rain Day from Brendan on Vimeo.

Watch the video above before continuing on. It's only a couple of minutes.

Can you picture yourself riding in these conditions? When I ride on these kinds of days I always get to thinking and this ride was no different. While cruising along with the trucks whizzing past me and the chilly drizzle coating me in gossamer dew like the automatic watering system in the A&P produce section, as the water dripped from my helmet I had another one of those "Aha!" moments. I realized that part of the reason I have these brainstorms while riding in less than ideal circumstances is that my brain is shutting off the part that demands physical comfort and focusing on the internal stuff. It's just a defense mechanism, pure and simple! I think this is the thing that allows us to do stuff like climb Mount Everest, or pick up decaying road kill, or change stinky diapers.

When we need to, we have the ability to push through unpleasant circumstances in order to get something we want. When we do it enough, the circumstances simply become circumstances and no longer push us out of our comfort zone. We can get used to anything.

When it comes to getting people change their behavior, i.e.-not using their cars for trips under 2 miles-, it just won't happen until the painful circumstance of paying $5 for a gallon of gas overcomes the potential discomfort of using their own power for transportation. We can build bike lanes and parking, put up share the road signs, spend money on public awareness campaigns, etc. --None of those things will have a broad impact until people can overcome the perception that they are going to be uncomfortable. The biggest hurdle that we face in preventing us from ruining our planet is that, as a nation, we are soft. We have lost touch with our ability to "tough it out" and our selfishness is preventing us from thinking globally.

When I ride past the lines of mini-vans, and SUVs and sports cars filled with overweight, donut eating, stressed-out oil slaves, with their telephones pressed to their heads as they carelessly weave about totally separated from the world, I want to shout out to them "wake up and seize your power, it's not too late!"

But unfortunately they are too comfortable to hear me and, sadly, will never realize the gifts they possess.

The Power of Choice and Commitment

2010-04-15T08:51:00.001-04:00

Can an alcoholic really quit drinking if the house is full of booze? Is it possible for an overweight person to lose weight if the cupboard is filled with Twinkies, chips, and soda? Maybe, but the odds are against success. And so, like the junkie who must quit heroin or die, I sold my car to drive no more. When I started the year without cars last July, I figured that I could park my car and just resist the temptation to use it except when absolutely necessary. But when the weather turned rough and the winter darkness took over both the sky and my mood, I couldn't resist the comfort of heat and separation from the elements. I used my bicycle very little from December through March. Yes, I was very busy with planning the New Jersey Bikes Summit and I needed to travel a lot, but the reality is I chose driving my car because it was easier. I can’t really say that I was forced to drive--I chose to. But now I am choosing to not drive and getting rid of my car is the best way for me to be able to stick to my choice. It feels good to be able to make this harder choice. Unlike my friend Javier, who rides to work everyday in every type of weather, I have a choice. Lot’s of people who say, “well, that’s good for you, but I have no choice” don’t realize that they do have a choice but won’t own up to it. If you choose to drive in a car, that’s fine. I guess my point is that people make up all kinds of rationalizations and excuses for their behavior without accepting responsibility for their choices.

Us humans have an amazing capacity for willful ignorance. I don’t think most people would say they don’t care about their health, or the environment, or the safety of their neighbors, but if you looked around how could you conclude that they did care? We continue to eat poorly, smoke, drink, waste resources, drive like idiots, poison our air and water, treat our neighbors with contempt and just generally make bad choices as though we were forced to do these things. We can get caught up in listening and reacting to one “expert” or another on just about any topic but at the end of the day I think most of us can judge good from bad, healthy from harmful, right action from wrong. But here we are, willfully ignoring that many of our choices will lead to results we know that we don't want. We know it ahead of time and we do it anyway and then act surprised when it happens. People dying in accidents involving drunk driving are a great example. You have a couple of drinks, you know your impaired, you get in your car and drive home anyway. Whoops, you killed someone on the way. Then you hire a lawyer to try and get you out of it because you don’t want to suffer the consequences of your choice.

My choice to ride my bike on the street presents a real possibility of injury or death as a result of my choice. The person who chooses to send a text message while driving might veer into the shoulder where I am riding and run me over. We will both have to accept the results of our choices.

beau coup bottles

2010-04-15T08:30:00.001-04:00

beau coup bottles
Originally uploaded by brendan61

One of the signs that bicycles are a priority at our house.

Winter is Over!

2010-04-07T10:36:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been over a month since I've posted! Early spring is always a very busy time of year for a bike store and this year has been particularly so. The weather turned nice a few weeks earlier than usual and as a result the floodgates have opened and the deluge folks looking to get back on their bikes has been overwhelming. Here below is a short film from the "great flood of 2010" that happened a few weeks ago. Some people are still recovering from flooding. Riding a bike in rain has been interesting, to say the least!

The Great Flood of 2010 from Brendan on Vimeo.

New Jersey Bike Summit!

2010-02-28T11:04:00.002-05:00

The first ever New Jersey Bicycle Summit is over and we are on our way to a better New Jersey. 130 advocates from around the state joined together with national advocates, state legislators and the Department of Transportation to energize the Bicycle Friendly Movement and set an agenda for the future.

Included below are my opening remarks:

As the United States of America travels headlong into the future, our nation faces monumental challenges unprecedented in human history. We are on the tipping point between saving and irreparably ruining the atmosphere on which our very lives depend. Americans face a crisis of health from debilitating illnesses due to lack of exercise and poor dietary choices. Our children are becoming lethargic, obese- diabetics who are incapable of walking a mile to school and we are spending ourselves into oblivion trying to fight these problems through a corrupt insurance system that provides obscene profits to a select few while denying care to many in need. Meanwhile, our national security is increasingly threatened by an insatiable appetite for energy produced in foreign lands filled with people who have no interest in our continued success. As people buy more and more cars to get to jobs, and shopping, and recreation that all become farther and farther apart, our roads become jammed with traffic and our air becomes poison. Our quality of life, that was supposed to get better as technology eased our burdens, has become increasingly stressful and unsatisfying.

Just recently people seem to be waking up and realizing that we must address these problems before it is too late. We’re all “going green”. Prizes are offered for technological breakthroughs and billions are spent trying to figure out how to perpetuate the misguided car culture by replacing gas powered cars with electric cars that don’t really address the underlying problem of time and space. But what if there was a simpler solution? What if people had the freedom to go where they wanted at a reasonably fast speed and not use a single drop of gas or watt of electricity? What if four people could travel in the space now used by only one? What if this solution made people healthier by reducing their weight and improving the efficiency of their circulatory system? What if this solution was cheap to buy and easy to maintain? Wouldn’t that be marvelous? The best part is that this solution already exists and has been with us since the nineteenth century! This solution for freedom in personal transportation is the humble bicycle.

Our challenge is not in coming up with this solution but in helping people to recognize and embrace this obvious truth. All of the arguments that are offered to exclude bicycles as a part of a larger solution in overcoming problems in health, energy, and transportation, are all easily overcome in light of the successes in places like Copenhagen Denmark, Davis California, Portland Oregon, and Louisville Kentucky. In all of these examples it is shown that quality of life improves for cyclists and non-cyclists alike. Reduced traffic congestion and pollution, better health and lower healthcare costs, energy saved—who could possibly argue against these benefits? And yet here we are, faced with the challenge of carrying this message and proving to the people of New Jersey that these things are worth having. It is up to us to bring this truth to our neighbors and elected officials that an equitable transportation infrastructure benefits everyone. People have asked me why we need the bike coalition. There are already many people engaged in this work. The West Windsor Bike/Ped Association, Bike/Walk Montclair, Hoboken Sweet Streets, JORBA, and Walk/bike New Jersey, just to name a few. But I say, that if we are going to make real changes, we must unify our efforts and speak with one voice in doing our part for the well being of future generations. So let today be the day that we look back to as the turning point in creating a better New Jersey, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. Let today be the day that we join together in proclaiming “The future is coming and it will be powered by people!”

Happiness Rides A Bicycle

2010-02-25T15:18:00.000-05:00

Life is short, there’s no denying it. And what is the purpose for any individual in living life? This is a question that has been pondered and debated since there has been language. Once you get to the point where just getting food is no longer the main activity on your daily agenda, you start to wonder just what is the point. I suppose that religion, and books, and plays, and songs, and TV shows, and movies, and paintings, and every other form of expression and communication that examines the nature of being,

exist because of this question. So what of it? Well, I am no robe wearing monk who spends a lot of time meditating on this but I will have to agree with the Dalai Lama on this one who counsels that happiness is the point of life. We exist to experience happiness. That is a simple and elegant answer, no? So how do you get to experience happiness? Well, that’s where it gets tricky again. For each individual the definition of happiness might be different. The Lama (big hitter the Lama) says that you will experience happiness by being selfless and doing things for others. We end our own suffering by letting go of the desire for the impermanent things of the physical world.

I’m not saying that’s how it is because I still find the thought of riding a really nice bicycle to be very appealing and makes me happy just thinking about it! People do seem to be able to tell you whether or not they feel happy though, and it appears to be a pretty good indicator of how excited you are about being alive. So if the point is to be happy what does it take to make it happen? I’m not completely sure but I think I do have some clues. First, I think it’s important to find out where there are lots of happy people. Now, at this point you might be tempted to just ask them why they are happy but you wouldn’t get the same answer from any two people. Similar yes, but the answer for each person is likely to be different. No, at this point it’s better to just examine the circumstances in which these happy people live and you will have your “Aha!” moment. Fortunately all of this research has been done for us! You can read about it here. Do you know where the happiest people in the world live? The answer is Denmark. The United States did not even make the top ten. However, if you want to know where the happiest people in the United States are, you can read about it here. The short answer is Boulder, Colorado.

So, if the happiest place in the world is Denmark, what are the circumstances that the Danes live with? Socialized medicine and education, where everybody gets free education and healthcare, about 2% unemployment, and one of the highest GDP per capita of any industrialized nation. Yet, the average Dane only works about 37 hours per week! To top it off, the Danish culture embraces the idea of livable cities and communities that focus on people instead of cars. As a result, about 40% of the population uses a bicycle for transportation every day.

So what does Boulder have in common with Denmark? Well, it’s not free healthcare. We know that for sure! There is public education but once you’re out of high school it ain’t free any more. So what’s the commonality? Boulder is focused on creating communities for people that include bike lanes and livable public spaces! Folks in Boulder place a strong emphasis on a healthy lifestyle that balances work and the rest of life. (Just like Denmark!) Happy people have figured out that working a lot makes you wealthy but it does not make you happy. Happy people have also figured out that if you are overweight and lethargic you probably are not able to really enjoy life the way you would like.

So the answer we are all looking for has been circling around us all along.

The answer is bicycles. Or, I should say, the idea of bicycles and what they represent. It’s not necessarily the bicycles themselves that are making people happy (although I am sure it happens a lot) because in Denmark, even the people who don’t ride a bicycle are happier because they too enjoy the underlying benefits of livable communities that emphasize the importance of people over machines. Less pollution, healthier people, a tolerable pace of life that leaves time to enjoy the simple things—I submit that these are the things that make for happiness and they arrive on the seat of a bicycle.

Snowpocalypse!

2010-02-11T11:45:00.000-05:00

Snowpocalypse from Brendan on Vimeo.

As promised here is a snowy video. In the scheme of things this is really not such a big deal but since we have not had much snowfall for the past few years it seems like one. It is much worse down in Washington DC but still, the folks from places like Buffalo, NY and the high country in Colorado laugh at us because we act like such a bunch of babies. Snowpocalypse indeed. One of the funny things (or maybe not so funny, depending on your point of view) are the jackasses at Fox News (?) like Shawn Hannity using this snow fall as a way of saying "see? this proves there's no climate change!" Aye, aye, aye--is it normal for people to behave in such a willfully ignorant way? Anyway, enjoy the moment of Zen.

Snow Day

2010-02-10T13:19:00.001-05:00

Okay, so not what you would expect for an entry titled "Snow Day". I can assure you it is snowing and by the looks of it we are going to get walloped pretty good. This is a picture of my exercise ball sitting next to a window. The light was nice and I couldn't resist shooting it. At least it's getting used for something! I continue to go through the winter only getting on my bike (outside) about once a week. I am using the indoor trainer some to try and retain a little fitness but my winter flab is still gaining a hold. On the bright side, I may finally get a chance to use my snowshoes that I got 4 years ago and have used only once. Not for lack of interest but more for lack of a snowfall over a few inches. I think I will head outside and shoot some pix and vids. God, I am looking forward to spring.

Whatever happened to.....

2010-01-22T12:44:00.002-05:00

Those commercials where they tell you not to "cross in the middle of the street", and "Cross at the green, not in between"? They used to play these with those jingles that to this day stick in my head. Anyone who grew up in the 60's and 70's knows what I'm talking about. Simple, effective commercials that kept kids from running into the road. Apparently this guy did not get the message. See? I'm not just against bad driving, I'm against bad walking and riding as well.

Good Driver TV! from Brendan on Vimeo.

The video is short and it's tough to see what's going on but basically it's a guy trying to run across route 53 but he just ran right into traffic. The alert motorist avoided running him over even though the guy did the "confused squirrel" dance in the middle of the road. "I'm going! No, I'm staying! No, I'm going again." The pedestrian was not even really that far from the crosswalk, and I am certain that he started his journey at that corner but from some reason decided darting out into traffic was a better choice.

It's amazing how often we just get an impulse in our heads and "boom", there we are, running into the road. I'm certain you have had those moments. Your driving down the road absent-mindedly and, whoops!, "holy crap that's my exit!" You're in the left lane doing seventy and you are 500 feet from the exit. Wheeee! The "jersey sweep" across 3 lanes, into the exit safety zone and off the highway you go leaving startled, angry drivers in your wake. Wouldn't it be smarter to just miss the exit, turn around and comeback? No one ever seems to think about whether or not being 1 or 2 minutes late is worth risking the lives of all the people who have had to react to an impulse. Do we, as humans, have some sort of filter that prevents us from thinking about all the horrible things that happen to us if we are rolling our cars down the road at high speed, end over end, broken glass and twisted metal shredding our delicate skin while bones shatter and brains are damaged beyond repair? It's a curious thing. Scary as hell, but curious.

What the heck is the big hurry?

2010-01-21T18:30:00.001-05:00

Bad Driver TV Episode V from Brendan on Vimeo.

It's Thursday again, the day after our indoor training night with the Bulldogs and I was all pumped up to ride outside again. It was a beautiful morning, a little on the chilly side, but I was dressed just right and the riding was very pleasant. I only witnessed one poor driving incident, chronicled in the video above. It got me to thinking, as usual, about all of the nutty stuff I see people in cars, and on bikes, doing out on the road and how one stupid act by one person can lead to a crappy day for lots of other folks. How many times have you been late for work because of a traffic jam caused by inattentive drivers colliding and bring all traffic around them to a halt? The deeper I get into the bike advocacy world, the more it seems an impossible task to get people to think and behave differently when it comes to how they drive. I have to look into the statistics but my gut tells me that there are probably more and more accidents on the road as people become more and more distracted by their electronic doodads and our lives become more and more rushed as we try to squeeze the demands of the modern world into the same 24 hours we have always had. The demands seem greater but the time allowed to meet them remains the same. The technology that is supposed to reduce our burdens and worry seem only to be creating more stress and anxiety in the world. Tempers are short and the quality of "quality time" seems to be getting lower. Really, all I want is to be able to go on a nice ride and not be constantly worried that some bonehead is going to run me over. Is that too much?

Ouch

2010-01-18T08:41:00.001-05:00

So, it's come to this. Indoor training. Our sponsored team, the Bulldogs, are leading a trainer night at the Parsippany location of Cycle Craft and I am reluctantly participating even though I would rather do almost anything other than riding an indoor trainer. It's probably the A.D.D. thing but I have a really hard time keeping my attention on riding nowhere for more than a few minutes. The group thing definitely helps because there is plenty of socializing in between the bouts of heavy breathing and sweating. After not having ridden for about a month I was hurting by the end of the session. You would be amazed at how challenging a ride to nowhere can be! Emboldened by my trainer session, I got back on my commuter tank on Thursday and managed the 8 mile "short" route to work on Thursday. I gotta be honest, it was not a very inspiring ride. It's Monday morning and I am thinking I should ride in again today. The air is cool, but not too bad, and the road is wet but I am compelled. I do it for myself but I also do it to make a point. Does it make a difference to anyone else? To me? Can tiny things make a difference? I feel like I am whispering in a windstorm.

Winter Blues

2010-01-12T08:44:00.000-05:00

The year without cars has ground to a halt. I have not ridden a bike since the second week of December. So here comes the littany of excuses. It seems like this winter is going to be one of the first "real" winters we have had in a long time. It has been pretty darn cold and there has been snow on the ground since before Christmas. Plus, in addition to my "day job" at the bike shop I have been putting in a lot of hours working on the New Jersey Bike Summit for the NJBC. Now, after a month of not riding, I am putting on weight and getting back on the bike will be a struggle. Having a car just makes it too easy to choose comfort over conviction. Getting to work in the morning would not be so bad but having to come home at 9:00 PM in the dark and cold is turning out to be a pretty formidable barrier. In addition to the obvious comfort issues, I always have it in the back of my mind how vulnerable I am out on the roadway and somehow, winter just seems to make me think about it more. That said, if we had bike lanes and traffic control devices that protect cyclists, I would be a lot more inclined to make the trips by bike, even in the dead of winter. I would probably feel more secure if there were some number of other people out there on bikes as well. Think Copenhagen and the bike highways that lead from the countryside into the city.

The NJ Bike Summit is coming along and I think we will hit our goal for attendence. I am realizing just how daunting a task it is to make one street bicycle friendly, let alone a whole state! This is gong to be a long haul but I still believe there is no reason why New Jersey can't be like Colorado, or California, or Louisville Kentucky, or Montreal, or Denmark, or Bogota Colombia, and on and on. Hmmm... I feel like going out for a ride!

Cross Roads

2009-12-27T12:49:00.001-05:00

Cross Roads
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Here's a fun sign I passed on the road today. What a great statement on the way things are. The "Stop" sign as authority figure commanding a simple traffic rule. The righteous animal advocate hijacking the command and the other side expressing their opinion by telling the "hippie" to "shut up!". Beautiful.

The Death Of Self Reliance

2009-12-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

You know what is becoming really disturbing to me? People. Yeah, yeah I know, but let me explain. I don't know when it happened exactly or how, but I suspect it all started with Henry Ford and his damned mass produced automobile. Since that time people have been giving up their own power little by little and somehow or other we have become a nation of fat diabetics who are scared of everything. Our children are being turned into little sumo wrestlers who can't walk a mile to school. Gym class? How many kids are opting out because physical exercise hurts their self esteem? Kids have to be driven to soccer practice because everyone is scared their kid will get snatched off the street. No one is allowed to lose a game so every kid gets a trophy. So what the heck are we teaching them? I'm on this rant because a friend was telling me about trying to get a Safe Roots To School program going in her town. The school wants nothing to do with it. More and more towns are actually prohibiting kids from riding to school! The problem? The streets are unsafe!! Cycling is unsafe!! Walking is unsafe!! For crying out loud, it's the cars that are unsafe! Eating fatty fried food is unsafe. Sitting on your ass for 12 hours a day is unsafe. Burning 600 gallons of gasoline a year is unsafe. Stressing out in traffic while spending an hour making a trip of 10 miles is unsafe.

I think we are now finding ourselves in a crisis over the loss of our own self reliance. People have lost the ability to do things on their own. Ride a bicycle 6 miles to work? Are you out of your mind? There are all sorts of excuses--"I have to dress for business", "I don't want to be all sweaty", "It's dangerous", "It's too cold", "it's to hot", and on and on. The truth is that most people are just plain scared and don't think they can do it. They can't rely on themselves and have given over their freedom to the auto and oil industries. They have come to think that they have no choice but to gas up and spend 26 days of the year trapped in their cars. (average 12 hours a week x 52 weeks= 624 hours, or, 26 days!). Not to mention the percentage of income people are forking over every year to sit by themselves in their own little gas burning coffin. And now our children will have it worse. I have seen people drive their kids to the end of the driveway to sit in the car and wait for the school bus to then take a ride of less than 2 miles to be dropped off right at the front door. When are these kids going to learn how to take care of themselves? How? We are raising a generation of spoiled little pansies and when they grow up and are confronted with a national crisis I fear they will not be up to the challenge. These days there are lots of folks who are all up in arms about "family values" but I think our real problem is with personal values. Personal responsibility, self reliance, respect for self and others--These are the pillars upon which society rests. The crumbling of these pillars will mark the end of our freedom. I'm just sayin'.

Freedom Rider

2009-12-15T19:53:00.001-05:00

We had our first planning committee meeting for the NJ Bicycle Summit coming up in February 2010. Apparently there is some pent up demand for this as registrations are coming in quickly! It is a lot of work to get something like this put together but I think that the Summit will be a great success. Here is a picture Jim Vance from Hoboken Sweet Streets. He was the only person at the meeting who actually took the train and used his bike to get to the meeting. Cool.

I am now convinced I can live without my car. The past week has been a challenge with my back problem and my chiropractor recommended that I lay of the bike for a few days so I did but I am anxious to be riding again. I am definitely more cranky when I don't get to ride! It is also occurring to me that I need to get back to the yoga and core routines to keep my aging body happy. Jim is inspirational because he is obviously ecstatic to not own a car and gets where he needs to be pretty effectively. His bike is pretty cool too. A truly free man moves under his own power!

Winter Commeth

2009-12-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

Winter is upon us now and, as I feared I would, I am riding less and driving more. I have been growing increasingly busy with the bike summit and my back has been a little cranky the past week but the reality is that as long as I own a car, it is too easy rely on it. Dare I draw a comparison to drug addiction? It's tough to quit drinking if you always have a liquor cabinet full of booze. The weather was pretty nice last week and I did manage a ride on a new Trek Madone for a test ride last Thursday when the temperature was 63 degrees but since then the weather has been getting worse. It snowed a little bit on Saturday and then again on Tuesday night. I finally got myself over the anxiety about riding in the slop and took a little ride into town. Here's the video. The ride was actually pretty nice and once again proved to me that the right clothing makes all the difference!

Denville Snowy day from Brendan on Vimeo.

The Psychology of Climate Change Denial

2009-12-10T08:34:00.002-05:00

The Psychology of Climate Change Denial

Posted using ShareThis
This is an interesting article about how people will deny what is obvious.

Turkey Bike

2009-11-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

Every year as the holidays approach I think about how much I don't enjoy them. In a country where we have so much wealth and obsession with the material things we sometimes tend to forget the fact that people are still suffering from lack of basic things. Food, clothing, healthcare; it seems to me that we could do a better job. Anyway, I have decided to stop thinking negatively about this stuff and just try to contribute in small, simple ways. So this year I thought I would bring my turkey to the Community Food Bank. Then I thought, I'll ride my bike to bring my turkey to the Community Food Bank. And then I figured, why not challenge some other folks to do the same thing? Voila! Turkey Bike! I sent an email out on Wednesday and on Saturday 9 people showed up to do one simple, good, thing for someone else. So what? Well, it's a small thing, but 9 families will have a better holiday because of the actions of 9 total strangers. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Turkey Bike! from Brendan on Vimeo.

4 Months!!

2009-11-19T08:55:00.000-05:00

Time is flying! It's now over 4 months since I started my year without cars. I will confess that, recently, I have been using my car more than I would like. Since I started in July I have joined the board of directors for the New Jersey Bike Coalition and I have to drive to meetings all over the place that are just too far to ride in the amount of time that I have to get there. Such is the problem of our car-centric society which has been designed to enslave us to the auto and oil industries.(See my last post for more on the enslavement!) Currently I am the chairman of the committee for mounting a New Jersey Bike Summit which will be happening on February 27th, 2010. More info on the summit at http://njbike.org . One of the things that has grown from my project is "Bad Driver TV". I am now making a video record of all my cycling and capturing all the examples of bad driving I encounter. Yeah, we need better infrastructure that accommodates comprehensive inter-modal transportation but what we need first is for people in cars, pedestrians, and cyclists to just stop being stupid and selfish. Anyway, presented for your viewing pleasure, episodes 3 and 4 from "Bad Driver TV". As always, if you're a cyclist, keep the rubber side down. If your a driver, thanks in advance for giving us a break!

Bad Driver TV Episode 3 from Brendan on Vimeo.

Stop Signs Are For Stopping! from Brendan on Vimeo.

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: The Social Ideology of the Motorcar

2009-11-10T11:02:00.001-05:00

America has been enslaved by the very machines that falsely promised to make us all equal and set us free.
Automobiles are the greatest scam ever perpetrated on such a grand scale. Read the article at the link below and you will come to understand that a truly free society moves under it's own power!

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: The Social Ideology of the Motorcar

Roosters at a liquor store?

2009-11-05T20:48:00.000-05:00

The year without cars is going by quickly! It's been 115 days and I am riding a lot. Maybe not compared to some but for me it's a lot. The weather is turning colder now and if I ride home from work it's in the dark. The rides in the morning have become routine and although I wear my helmet camera I have not been accosted too badly so I am just enjoying the crispy air and quiet time. Occasionally I do run across some strange things and I do see a lot of dead things in the road. Would it be weird to start photographing road kill? Anyway, on Monday, I took the short ride to the store on route 46 when I came upon this weirdness. I thought I was hallucinating but the video would not lie and so it is presented here to make testament to my witnessing two roosters clucking around the parking lot of a liquor store at the side of the highway. Now, mind you, this is not exactly farm country so seeing roosters running around a parking lot is pretty unexpected. Just a note here-These were some pretty fine looking roosters. Anyway, I came to learn a little later on that the deli next door to the liquor store apparently keeps a chicken coop behind their building. I guess they are making their own eggs for fresh and tasty egg sandwiches. Enjoy!

Roosters At The Liquor Store from Brendan on Vimeo.

Back From Austin!

2009-10-29T09:18:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the Livestrong Challenge in Austin, Texas benefitting the Lance Armstrong Foundation. This amazing event had over 3700 riders and 900 volunteers joining together to raise money supporting cancer education and outreach, research, and more. My buddy Steve J and I travelled out to participate in our third ride as members of the Pharma Flier bike club based out of Sanofi Aventis and sponsored by Cycle Craft. Below are videos and photos from the event. The event day video is the one to watch if you're limited for time. Right near the 11 minute mark on the video is one of the most amazing things you will ever see. No more excuses!

Day 1

Livestrong Challenge Austin 2009 Day 1 from Brendan on Vimeo.
Day 2

Livestrong Challenge Day 2 from Brendan on Vimeo.
Day 3-The Event

Livestrong Challenge 2009 from Brendan on Vimeo.

Slide Show

Denville Gets Serious About Bad Driving

2009-10-10T21:44:00.000-04:00

I saw this sign coming into town today. I jumped out of my car to capture it. People texting and talking on their cell phones drive erratically and are a danger to everyone around them. I don't care how good you think you are, driving distracted is a bad idea. It's good to see at least one town getting serious about it.

Bad Driver TV Episode 2

2009-10-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a short one. I wish you could see the face of this knuckle head. He looked right at me, knew he should wait, and pulled out anyway. The old "F.U." Although I was not really in danger of hitting this guy, or vice versa, because I was paying attention, the situation could have been much worse had I been another second up the road. This guy's selfish behavior is infuriating. It is bad enough when people do stupid things because they don't know any better (see episode one), but when someone does something they know is wrong but just don't care, it is very frustrating!

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 05 - Making Cycling Strange

2009-10-06T16:47:00.003-04:00

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 05 - Making Cycling Strange

5th and final part of the series. Many of the points brought buy the author are illustrated in the video below. This video was shot this past Sunday morning and illustrates a virtually daily occurrence for me. After the heated exchange we start to recognize that part of the problem is that drivers by and large have no idea what their responsibilities are and how to properly negotiate traffic when slow moving vehicles are present. The first comment from the belligerent driver is "you don't even belong on the road". After we point out that he is wrong his defense becomes "I had to stop for the person crossing in the sidewalk. Again we point out that the way he handled it is still wrong. His wife finally admits she has no idea what the law is regarding making a right turn when a bicycle, or roller-blader or skate boarder for that matter, are next to them. At the end of the video I have included the exact excerpt from the NJDMV driver manual relating to cars and bikes. I realize that one of the problems is that the state of New Jersey lumps bikes together with skateboards and rollerblades. It seems that bicycles are not getting serious recognition as legitimate transportation in our current inter-modal plan.

If this reality is not to your liking get involved! Join the New Jersey Bike Coalition and make a difference.
http://www.njbike.org/

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 04 - New Cycling Spaces

2009-10-03T07:27:00.002-04:00

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Fear of Cycling 04 - New Cycling Spaces

Fourth in the series on the "Fear of Cycling". So, is cycling inherently "unsafe" or have we just been led down this path of fear like so many other things we have been conditioned to fear? Tell me what you think!
Here is a clip shot with my new helmet camera. I am riding on route 46 and I have moved left as to stay out of the exit lane. A car passes very close to me and gives me a nice little honk. No slowing, no moving to the left a little bit. But on the other hand, there was space between us. So while the pass is a little un-nerving, I don't feel like I was in any danger. Cathy feels differently!

My second tank in 75 Days!

2009-09-30T10:18:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-25T16:43:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-25T14:40:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-24T09:18:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-23T11:46:00.002-04:00

Vegas Day 2-Dirt Demo from Brendan on Vimeo.

Day 2 Dirt Demo. Enjoy!

Las Vegas Day One

2009-09-22T08:25:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-18T20:35:00.002-04:00

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

Signs of Autumn

2009-09-18T15:31:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-18T08:28:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-16T17:09:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-15T20:01:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-15T19:35:00.002-04:00

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!

2009-09-15T09:12:00.019-04:00

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?

A Day Off From The Grind

2009-08-31T21:11:00.009-04:00

Rejoice! The Sun! After a month of craptastic Sundays we finally got a nice one thanks to tropical dud, Dan.

After cruising up the hill from breakfast, we decided to celebrate the day by taking a drive up to West Milford to take a ride on Clinton Road. The road is closed to traffic because of a washed out bridge about half way between route 23 at the start and Warwick Tpk 9 miles away so we figured it would be worth using the car to get here.

Riding on the car free road was fantastic and I felt like we were on an Alpine tour. The area we were riding through is part of the Newark watershed and is filled with lakes and streams. Cathy posed in front of the stream that overflowed last year and washed out the bridge we were standing on.

When we got to the end of the road, a short ride on Warwick Turnpike brought us to our lunch stop where we ran into our neighbor, Kelly, and one of her riding buddies, Linda. Here the ladies share a laugh over lunch. It was a nice diversion and added to the holiday feel of the day. After lunch we pressed on and circumnavigated Upper Greenwood lake before making the return trip back across Clinton Rd to Route 23. All in all a terrific day!

After 6 weeks of almost constant work, bad news on the TV every night, politicians who can't get out their own way to just do the right thing for their constituents, and on and on... a nice bike ride is just what the doctor ordered!

Progress!

2009-08-21T08:23:00.002-04:00

Mayor Hussa and Sgt. Donnelly
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Who You Are Looking At: Denville Mayor Ted Hussa and Sgt. Brian Donnelly of the Denville PD

What You Are Looking At: The start of the first Denville Town Bike Ride.

Why it is Significant: It is a mile post in our effort to make Denville a cycling friendly community.

Three years ago while Cathy and I were on a ride through Fayson Lakes a jerk in a car almost ran me down in an intersection and then tried to push me with his car because he was angry. In my years of riding I had become use to this kind of stuff and although I was pretty angry I would have just let it go and moved on. Cathy was not so willing to leave it at that and decided that we would have to do something. Three years later with two Washington bike Summits under our belts and a lot of talking with people and hard lobbying for our bicycle friendly agenda we are finally making some progress.

Last night we participated in Denville's family bike night. After the kid's safety rodeo we all went on the inaugural bike ride. The Mayor, who credits Cathy with getting him fired up for this work, has gotten the DOT to help improve roads and put up "Share the Road" and "Bike Route" signage around town. The Police are working harder on traffic enforcement and recently we got the town hooked up with some bike racks for parking down town. I know it may not seem like much but it takes a lot of cooperation to make this stuff happen. I think we are now ready to officially apply to the League of American Bicyclists to get our "Bike Friendly Community" designation. Very cool stuff!

Check out the photos by clicking on the picture above.

35 Days

2009-08-19T09:04:00.002-04:00

IMG_0301
Originally uploaded by brendan61

It is the morning of day 36 in the year without cars and I realized that I missed the one month mile stone. I am now more than 1/12th of the way along. It has been a busy month at the store and these days pretty much all I do is work. It's a good thing I love my job!

In the picture above is Cathy patiently waiting while I snapped a shot of a huge traffic jam on Route 80 around 6:30PM. Knowing that traffic on all the roads in town would be a disaster we decided to ride our breakfast bikes into town to go to the hardware store for a new toilet handle. It's amazing how adding a bike ride into the mix turns a mundane chore into a fun adventure. From our vantage point on the bridge we could look down on all the unhappy drivers trapped in their cars. One guy in his car actually flipped us the bird as he slowly passed under us. A passing truck with two gentlemen inside motioned for Cathy to lift her shirt when she gave the universal sign for "blow your horn" by holding her closed fist in the air and giving two short pumps. She obliged them by reaching over and lifting my shirt instead. The guys in the truck cracked up and blew the horn. Good fun.

Before we got to this part of the ride, while riding in town, we almost got run over by a women who failed to stop for a stop sign. We were in the perpendicular lane getting ready to turn left and her poor driving forced us to swing wide barely missing getting hit. She pulled around in the direction we were going and parked her car so we decided we would have a chat with her. When I asked her why she did what she did she said that sun glare prevented her from seeing us. Huh? I said "so what you are saying is that you blew the stop sign and accelerated into the intersection because sun glare prevented you from seeing?" The woman started becoming belligerent at this point and when I asked her how she would feel if someone offered this excuse for running over one of her children she screamed "well no one got hit, did they?". This time, I thought to myself.

One thing I have learned since beginning my project is that people are much worse drivers than I realized. It's kind of shocking actually to see people being so careless in the operation of a powerful machine that has so much destructive capability. From this new perspective I wonder how it is that more people are not being killed or maimed by careless driving.

And finally, in my first month without cars I saved about $80 in gas (I used my bike for about 500 miles worth of transportation) and I lost 7 pounds.

Trek World!

2009-08-14T08:09:00.003-04:00

Momona pano
Originally uploaded by brendan61

I love the panorama capability of my G10 and photoshop. Here is a three shot view from the Hilton Hotel in Madison, WI, overlooking Lake Momona and the Momona terrace convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I am here for a couple of days at "Trek World" the annual dealer show put on by Trek to showcase their new products and get us pumped up for the next season. It is tough to get pumped up for the next year because we are still pretty caught up in this year! But I won't lie and say that I am not looking forward to leaving 2009 behind us.

Trek is a great company and they make, arguably, some of the best products in the bike industry. But what I really love about Trek is the amount of resources they spend on bicycle advocacy. This year we were lucky to attend a fundraiser/thank you party for Congressman Jim Oberstar from Minnesota who is considered the father of the modern bicycle advocacy movement. Congressman Oberstar was the first elected official who had the vision to understand that bicycles could be an important mode of transportation in our country. He understood early on that bicycles are an efficient, environmentally sound, and healthy way for folks to get from point A to point B. Since the early 90's Congressman Oberstar, along with Earl Blumenauer from Oregon, has been a key supporter of legislation that has funded cycling and pedestrian transportation enhancements as part of our national transportation plan.

These events never fail to inspire me to keep trying to move the bicycle agenda forward. I will have to increase my efforts back at home and push to make Denville the first bicycle friendly community in New Jersey. John Burke, the president of Trek Bicycle and also a rabid dog advocate, displayed a map of the many League of American Bicyclist designated towns and cities that applied for and earned ratings. The number increase from 2003 to 2009 was dramatic but what stood out to me on the map was the big blank spot between Delaware and Rhode Island that had no stars. Pretty embarrassing for New Jersey. Anyway, at the Bike Summit in Washington for the past few years, we have been talking about a summit for New Jersey. I think it's time to make it happen. If you live in New Jersey, count on hearing from me in the coming weeks to get your help. In the meantime, if you have a bike, ride it. If you don't have a bike, get one. And then ride it!

Peace!

Jeff Lenosky Going By Bike

2009-07-31T15:48:00.002-04:00

_DSC0227
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Another busy week with lots of riding and even more work. This past Saturday was our "Parking Lot A Palooza" event at the Long Valley store featuring a stunt riding demonstration by Pro rider, Jeff Lenosky. The picture here is Jeff's wheel as it was passing a few inches over me as he jumped over ten human beings lying on the ground all in a row. This guy is amazing! I've know Jeff for 15 years and seen various versions of his show and it never fails to amaze me.

In other cycling news the Tour De France is over and Lance Armstrong, another pretty famous "go-er by bike" came in third. Pretty amazing feat. On the other hand, the winner of the tour, Alberto Contador, is just a jerk. Say what you want about Lance Armstrong but at least he knows that team work is what wins the race and even if you don't like one of your teammates you should still present a professional attitude. Lance displayed professionalism and class. Contador? Mmmm...not so much. Next year's TDF is shaping up to be a great show!

And now the bad news. I had to drive my car this morning. A confluence of circumstances including a very impressive display of extremely heavy rain forced me behind the wheel. I felt like a drunk falling off the wagon. But driving, yeah, I can quit anytime I want. However, It is my only time behind the wheel since July 13th.

Including recreational and transportation riding I am getting in about 100 miles a week now and I expect the mileage will increase. Since January I have gone from about 190 lbs to 178 lbs as of this morning without really trying. I did cut out the half a dozen peanut butter cookies after dinner every night though. Speaking of weight loss, I was watching the news the other day and the big story was about how obesity related medical care was accounting for over 9% of our health care expenditures. Really? Is it news that eating mountains of crap and sitting on your ass isn't good for your health? Shocking. You would think that politicians would be trying to get more people to ride bikes instead of wrangling with the healthcare system overhaul.

I'll throw it out there again. For the individual, going by bike will make you healthier, happier (yes, the chemical cocktail made by your body during exercise makes you happier) and you will save money. For the Nation, more people on bikes means lower healthcare costs, lower dependence on foreign energy and increased quality of life. For the planet, more people on bikes means a more sustainable environment. It's pretty simple actually.

Day 11-Culture Shock

2009-07-23T12:45:00.005-04:00

I was watching “Morning Joe” on MSNBC this morning like I do almost every day. I don’t care much for Joe Scarborough but as far as conservatives go he’s not so bad. I watch the show because they have good guests and the tone of the show is a good balance to the uber-liberal shows on at night. Naturally, today, they were discussing healthcare and the CIA program for assassinating Al Queada operatives. Meanwhile the crawler at the bottom of the screen throws a bunch of other headlines at you so you can get more information in less time. Hooray for technology! As the show was going to commercial they had a live picture on the screen of the current space shuttle mission while simultaneously running a crawler blurb about Walter Cronkite’s memorial service.

Suddenly, I had one of those moments where you feel like you are instantly spun to the other side of the room. It’s like you are standing there watching a scene in front of you and then Bam! You are now standing on the opposite side of the room and everything looks different even though you are looking at the same thing.

I grew up with Walter Cronkite on the TV. My parents watched Cronkite, without fail, every single night of the week. That was when news was news. The three things that stand out for me from the mid sixties through the seventies were the nightly reports about Viet Nam, the Apollo space program, and Watergate. In a large sense, I think these things, along with my Father’s commentary about them along way, have formed much of my own point of view about the world. Now, if you’re thinking that I am going to break my promise about this blog being non-political, you can rest assured that I am not.

The point is about how far we have come since John Kennedy first challenged America to achieve something great just for the sake of doing it. Here we are on the 40^th anniversary of meeting that first challenge. Walter Cronkite, the newsman through who's eyes we watched those momentous events unfold, is dead, and now we routinely send people into space and send crystal clear images back to our morning news programs as a matter of routine. Most of us barely give it a second thought. So where do we go now? As a society we seem to have forgotten how to dream big. Have we seen the passing of the greatest generation? Have we become so petty and selfish that we can no longer achieve great things for society? Historically it seems like all great societies crumble because people become complacent and lazy, forgetting how it is they got to where they are to begin with. What is the next great challenge that will fire our imaginations and fuel our ingenuity? Is it health care? Is it rebuilding our energy and transportation infrastructures? Who will lead us? For me, my year without cars is really all about rethinking what my actual requirements are for an interesting and satisfying life. What do I value and why? What can I contribute? These are questions that I think many of us struggle with at some point in our lives. But then again, it seems like many people never give it a thought and go through life grabbing at what ever they can without purpose.

So my quest will continue. Day 9 it poured rain all day long but I rode in to work and car pooled home. Day 10 was a nice ride in and then I headed over to the Tourne for our weekly mountain bike ride. Today I rode my mountain bike back to work. So that’s 11 days with one less car on the road. Beyond that I’m not sure what it means yet.

5,6,7,8!

2009-07-21T07:22:00.004-04:00

It's Tuesday, day 9 in the year without cars and rain is finally making an appearance this morning. Yesterday I had an early morning chore to run so I car pooled to work and home again but I have yet to get behind the wheel of a car. Here's my Honda Element sitting idle in the driveway and I am starting to really believe that owning this car is totally un-necessary. Over the weekend I did a 35 mile ride with my buddy Steve who was visiting from South Carolina and another 44 miles on Sunday with Cathy. I suppose having Monday as a rest day was not a bad thing but it did get me thinking about Javier, the guy that works at the store who does not own a car and rides his bike 7 days a week and averages about 40 miles per day. Javier looks like one big muscle and has about 6% body fat but I wonder what the physical impact is on his body. He never seems to be tired or unhappy about having to ride. When offered a ride back home if someone is passing by where he lives, unless the weather is particularly crappy, he generally refuses because he does not want miss out on riding! Maybe it's pride but he's pretty adamant about it. Anyway, I am seriously thinking about ditching my car permanently and adjusting my lifestyle accordingly. Anybody want a Honda?

Days 3 & 4

2009-07-17T07:55:00.005-04:00

Time flies when you are having fun! Wednesday (day 3) is our regular day for our after work MTB ride. Here comes one of those lifestyle choices I was talking about. I hitched a ride to the park to join the ride because there is no way I could make it to the park in time to meet with everyone else. The park is certainly with riding distance of work but if I want to ride with other people compromise is necessary. I did, however, ride back home from the park so I can safely say that I rode more bicycle miles than I rode in a car. On Thursday (day 4) I did my usual commute in by bike but caught a ride home in Cathy's car because she wanted to go mountain biking again. No problem. We got home and suited up for our ride over to the park. The ride to the park and back plus a bit of trail riding is about ten miles altogether and just what the doctor ordered for stress relief after a what has been a trying week.

There is a strange phenomena that occurs with all this riding and that is the more I ride, the more I want. Also, the flabby ring around my middle, which has been my constant companion when I am not riding, is rapidly disappearing! Just more evidence that what this country needs more than universal health care is a focus on universal health. A little bit of exercise and some sensible eating would sure go a long way towards reducing health care costs in this country. But I guess the simplest solutions are the hardest for many to embrace.

Day 2

2009-07-14T21:17:00.009-04:00

It would appear that the weather gods have decided to give us a break from the rain this month and the second day of my year without cars went off without a hitch. I managed to stay out of (and out from under) any motorized vehicle and rode to work and then home again. I gotta' tell ya, getting on to ride home after 11 hours at the store is a tough sell but the cooperative weather makes it easier and it turned out to be a great ride in spite of pushing 55 pounds of bike and gear up and down the hills to get back home. The Garmin says I climbed 1113 ft in the 12.5 mile ride. The photo at right is a shot of route 80 west bound at about 8:15 pm. Traffic is light but I am still glad I was not down there. (Plus, it's my proof that I did the ride!) Maybe the fine weather is just a coincidence or maybe it's providence giving me a chance to get used to riding all the time so that when the inevitable cold and rainy rides come, and they will come, I will be well adapted to the physical requirements of all the riding and the bad weather will not be an obstacle. To be totally honest, the thing I worry the most about is traffic. People in cars are just plain stupid, or crazy, or selfish, or all of the above and I figure the more time I spend on the road, the higher the probability that I will have unpleasant encounters with people putting on makeup, texting, eating, building ships in bottles, beating their children, and whatever else these lunatics are doing while in their cars but obviously not paying much attention to the safe operation of same. I'm not saying that every driver is bad but there are enough of them to really scare the crap out of me. That said, I am very cautious in traffic and ride as though I am invisible to everyone. When asked how it was that they came to run over a pedestrian or cyclist in the road, most people say "I never saw him". Generally they leave out the fact that the reason they "never saw him" was that they were rummaging around in the center console of their Hummer looking for that mix tape with their favorite flock of Seagulls song that they just had to hear right then and there. So my strategy is to assume that every person, in every car, will, in every situation, do the wrong thing and then plan my escapes to avoid getting tangled up in their incompetence. So far so good.

A Year Without Cars

2009-07-13T22:25:00.002-04:00

So, I had this idea. I have been wondering if I could really get by without a car. Here in New Jersey it seems almost impossible but, then again, one of the guys I work with rides his bike to and from work and everywhere else. He does not own a car. Of course, without a car, I could not have gone on the vacation I just came back from. I have come to the conclusion that it's all about making choices. So my idea is to try and go for one year without driving my car. I was considering trying to go for a year without getting into any car but unfortunately the fact that our culture is "car-centric" makes this somewhat impractical. I won't say it's impossible because, as I said before, lifestyle choices determine what is possible in regard to transportation. Things I can do on my bike include getting to and from work, shopping for a few days worth of groceries, heading into town for breakfast and coffee, and generally getting to anyplace that is within twenty miles of home. Things I can't do on my bike include getting to the airport, going to home depot and picking up building supplies, driving another person anywhere as a favor, going someplace more than 20 miles from home and other things like that. Weather is not really a factor unless it's extremely bad. But if the weather is that bad, I am probably not going to drive anyway.

My goal is to choose to bike whenever there is a choice. One of the obstacles that will make this hard sometimes is the huge number of hours I spend at work but I will choose to ride as much as I can. Today I rode into work but I hitched a ride home with Cathy. I started at 8:30 am and did not leave the store until about 9:40 pm and the thought of riding 45 minutes in the dark was very intimidating so I took the easy way out but I will do the round trip on Tuesday regardless of what time I am done working. Each day I will update my blog with my progress, or lack there of, presented for entertainment and benefit of anyone who would care to read it. Maybe we'll learn something, maybe we won't. One down, three hundred and sixty four to go!

Rain, aaaarrghhh!

2009-06-22T23:29:00.005-04:00

I imagine that the local suicide hotlines have been busier than usual this month. The rain just a keeps on comin'! I shot this picture on Monday morning with my new Canon G10 camera. This is the traffic on Route 80 Eastbound at about 8:30. Not too bad actually; at least it was moving! Notice the lovely shade of gray that has greeted us pretty much every morning since Memorial day. We had such a nice holiday that I guess now we are paying in spades. The rain did not start until I just got to work. Tuesday was the same. Steel gray sky, rain spitting down here and there and then showers all day. The sun started to come out in the afternoon and I figured I had a nice ride home ahead of me. I took the long way home and I met up with Cathy on the way. It's nice to have companionship on a commute. Sure enough, about 3 miles from home, even though there was a lot of sunshine peeking through the clouds, the rain started dribbling out of the sky once again. Then about a mile from home it was as though someone took a 50 gallon trash can full of water and dumped it on our heads. It rained haaaaaard! Cathy predicted a nice rainbow and sure enough, we were pleased to see it as we cruised up the final hill to home, the rain having stopped completely and brilliant sunshine welcomed us to the front porch. I would have taken a picture but I wisely stowed the camera deep in my water proof pannier bag and I, dripping water, did not want to risk destroying my new toy. No riding today (Wednesday) but still, our now constant companion rain, showered on and off during the late afternoon. Driving home tonight I started to ponder the dramatic sun tinged cloud formations swirling about and realized that we have had rain on 19 or 20 of the past 24 days. I can't remember ever having such a weird June and I have to wonder if the climate is changing irretrievably to this depressing pattern. I will ride more and drive less and hope that we are not too late.

Fixies Jump The Shark!

2009-06-16T07:49:00.005-04:00

It's official, single speed fixie culture has "jumped the shark". What started out as the subculture of bike messengers living on the fringe and became the iconic symbol of trustafarians and pretentious art school dropouts in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, has now been co-opted by middle aged bike geeks in suburban New Jersey. The now famous bike culture blogger "Bike Snob NYC" has been chronicling the downfall of hipster "street cred" for two years now but I think I can claim the title as the driver of the final nail. Yes, Cathy and I now have our own color matched, single speed, recycled frame, bicycles complete with deep V rims and colored chains. We think they're cool and that's how I know that no self respecting hipster should be caught dead on one. But you know what? I don't care! These bikes are fun to ride. We don't dress up in bike clothes and ride these bikes for miles and miles. We ride them from home into town about 2 miles to get a cup of coffee. These bikes are just perfect for that. I really don't want to have to put on my super hero bike costume and special shoes to make this short of a trip and I feel guilty as hell getting into my car to get there but I am, after all, too lazy to walk. Simple and fun is what these bikes are all about. Maybe if people thought they too would not have to wear a superhero bike costume in order to enjoy riding a bike, they might want to ride more. Hmmm...Maybe I'm on to something. The bike industry has been trying to make this happen for the past few years but it seems like the only company making headway in this area is Electra, a company that focuses a lot of energy on making their bikes fun. But there is something fun about making your own statement with a bike that you cobbled together yourself from reclaimed parts. My town bike is made from an old Schwinn World Sport I found in the garbage pile behind our Long Valley store. A little paint and a few parts and this bike lives to ride another day. I will be honest in saying that I don't love the ride quality of the bike but it's only for a couple of miles so how good does it have to be? Cathy's bike on the other hand

was put together from an old Frejus racing bike. The frame is made from Reynolds 531 Cromoly tubing crafted in Italy

at the Frejus Legano factory in the '70s. It is an amazingly nice ride and Cathy couldn't stop raving about how great it was and was actually comparing it to her custom Serotta!

The down side of these bikes is that carrying the grocery load is not terribly practical, kind of like going furniture shopping at Ikea in this Austin Healy. So after breakfast and coffee we rode home and I got my Fargo with the panniers and headed back down the hill to the supermarket. After another completely craptastic week of weather, Sunday's blue sky and fluffy clouds were a welcome respite and I am happy to say we made it through another day without getting into a car. Oh yeah, did I mention that my pedals glow in the dark?

Back From The Store

2009-06-10T07:50:00.004-04:00

Back From The Store
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Holy cow, what a week! I looked at my last entry date, last monday. Do you ever get the feeling that you must be blacking out for days at a time and you keep missing stuff? Time flies when you are overwhelmed. The picture above is Cathy and I on Sunday getting back from our breakfast and grocery ride. Sunday's weather was just about perfect and we enjoyed the day tremendously. Now it's Wednesday, June 10th already, and I don't feel like I am any closer to convincing anyone they should give up their cars every once in a while in favor of using a bike. I can understand why though. The weather during last week was soul crushing and this week is shaping up for more of the same. Still, I am committed to riding into work and last week I only rode in actual rain on one day and I actually enjoyed

the experience because I was clever enough to use rain gear. But weather can be pretty intimidating. Yesterday morning I drove in because of the copious amounts of lightning striking the ground. Had I been on my bike during those storms I would have to find shelter. Today I will ride a mountain bike to work instead of the Fargo and hook up with our Wednesday night mountain bike ride.

This past Sunday, instead of loading our bikes into the car, Cathy and I rode to the Tourne Park for some mountain biking, did our ride and then rode home. we didn't get into the car once all day! I set the bikes up to ride better on the street and then reset for trail riding. I think one of the lessons I am learning is that things we imagine to be more trouble than they are worth turn out to be completely the opposite. Getting over the inertia of laziness and just doing small, simple things, one at a time, add up to lots of things getting done in a seemingly effortless way. But the little tasks tend to keep piling up and so I must put my nose back to the grind stone and continue on. And remember, when it comes to using your bike more, or doing anything really, whether you think you can, or you think you cannot, you are usually right!

What A Difference A Day Makes

2009-06-01T22:52:00.005-04:00

This was the scene outside of the Smartworld Coffee shop on Sunday Morning. 4 bikes belonging to people who used their bike instead of their cars. (Okay, 2 of them are ours) We had a nice chat with a couple of guys who were riding their mountain bikes back from a ride at the Tourne Park a few miles away. You could ask for a nicer day but you wouldn't get it! After breakfast and coffee we headed over to the supermarket to pick up some things we needed at home. I will admit to being glad the A&P is only a little over a mile from home because groceries are heavy. After a couple of chores we loaded up the toy wagon and headed over to Deer Pond Park for some mountain biking. The park is a great place to spend the afternoon riding on buff single track without too, too much climbing. (Just enough to keep you honest).

The foliage is lush and the woods are peaceful. I only get one day a week off during the season so when the weather is this great, the rides are extra sweet! After the ride we hung out for a nice picnic lunch that Cathy cleverly thought to prepare so that we would be spared the usual ravenous post ride drive back home.

That's why after a day like that it is such a shock to get back to the commute on Monday. This morning was a bit on the chilly side for the first of June but the brilliant sunshine and deep blue sky made my morning ride to work refreshing like a dip in a cold stream on a hot summer day. But one realization marred the perfection of the day just a little bit. My ride started a little earlier than usual today so there was definitely more traffic than when I leave home after 9:00 AM. I realized that people must be more pissed off about their jobs than I knew. Aggression. That's the word I can come up with to describe the vibe out on the road. People just drive with aggression. Naked, ugly, aggression. Cutting each other off, speeding, tail-gating, flat out intimidation. It's kind of scary when you see it from a point of view outside of a car. As a society, I am not sure I like where we are headed. I know I sound crazy but I really believe we would all be better off if more people rode a bike sometimes.

Bike Lane Marker!

2009-05-30T22:33:00.001-04:00

Bike Lane Marker
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Seeing a bike lane marker in our neck of the woods is like seeing a rare species of warbler when you are out birding. Not that I would have any idea what that is like because even thinking about walking through the woods peering through binoculars looking for birds makes me depressed. But, to each his own. No offense to you bird watchers out there.
This marker was seen in the town of Madison, NJ while I was on a nice ride before work this morning. I completed a 42 mile ride at a sprightly pace of 18 mph but I had to stop to record this rarity.
While I was pedaling this morning I also rode into the middle of a charity ride for the local chapter of Habitat For Humanity. A lot of riders passed me in the opposite direction I was traveling in, some going fast, some going slow. It was actually a beautiful sight seeing all of those different types of riders. There were road bikes and hybrids, fit people and fat people, people dressed in flashy team kit and plenty in sweats and t-shirts.
When I ride my bike I wave and greet every cyclist I meet on the route. I am not one of those people that only acknowledges people on fancy bikes either. I don't care what you are on, or how you are riding it, if you are riding a bike you receive a " howdy!", or "'morning!". This morning was no different. I smiled and waved to all of the folks passing by. But the weirdest thing was happening. I noticed a lot of people were not even acknowledging my greeting. And it's not the people you would have expected. The obvious "non-enthusiasts" were all very friendly and seemed to be really enjoying the morning. The people showing the stone face were the guys on the fancy road bikes. Some of these guys were so grim looking that it made me wonder why they bother riding at all. So serious!! The other thing I noticed were that lots of the un-friendlies were riding Specialized brand bikes. Weird. It could be that there are just more people riding Specialized bikes but it seemed like the people on other brands of bikes were waving back more. I don't what it means, I just thought it was odd. Oh well, I will keep on waving.

Please, pass with care!

2009-05-27T20:12:00.005-04:00

After last weeks glorious weather I awoke this morning to overcast skies, light drizzle, and a temperature about 20 degrees cooler. Kind of yucky. I was determined to ride in to work anyway and donned my waterproof rain jacket and headed out. It turns out that the riding at a gentle pace and paying attention to all the cool stuff around me made the ride in as pleasant as always. Riding a lot always does the same thing to me. The more I get, the more I want. I am back at the point where I get cranky if I don't get to ride. I like the time I get to think about this and that and work out the pesky little challenges I will face during the day. My route in to work is mostly on highway 46 which is, for most of the trip, a six or eight lane divided highway. It's your typical suburban sprawl connector with lots of strip malls and such. But the shoulder on the east bound side is very wide and generally in good condition so using it for the ride in makes a lot of sense. Except, of course, for the dumb-asses in the cars. What is it about being in a car that causes pretty much everyone to make choices that are stupid and dangerous? Texting, holding your phone to your head in such away that makes it impossible to really look around while changing lanes, reaching down under your seat to find your donut; you know you've done it and so have I. This morning, an old guy in the left lane was signaling to move right. There is a driver in the right lane who, instead of being a good neighbor and allowing him over, speeds up to prevent the guy in the left from moving. Well, old guy is undeterred and also speeds up and darts into a space that is really too small for his car. Old guy continues his move into what we call a Jersey sweep (crossing three lanes without slowing down) and continues into a driveway entrance to a medical center accompanied by the squeal of brakes. Now mind you, this all happened about 10 feet in front of me and had I been just a little further up the road, I would have been under the wheels of old guy's car. I couldn't help myself. I followed old guy into the parking lot and pulled him over to express my thoughts. I know what you're thinking. You figure that I am going to start screaming at the guy but I can tell you that this strategy has never worked for me in the past. I just asked him if not missing turn and having to circle around and come back was worth accidentally killing a human being in the process. The guy was actually very apologetic and he said that he did see me but the guy next him caused him to act so dangerously. I asked him to please be more careful and moved on.

Last week a rider was hit and left for dead near this spot. It was 10:30 at night and I am guessing that the rider had no lights and probably was not wearing a helmet but some careless moron ran this guy over and drove away to leave him bleeding on the street. Come on people! Aren't we better than that? How did we become so selfish and numb? How can we solve any of the challenges that face us if we can't even show each other some basic respect?

So here is my tiny request. Slow down a little. Take a little more care. There is nothing waiting for you at work, or at home, or at the mall, that is worth killing another human being, or yourself for that matter. Hang up the phone, put on your makeup at home, pick your radio station before you put the car in drive. You know what to do. Please, please, please..do it. You may find yourself enjoying your life a little more when you slow down and appreciate the beauty that is all around.

Test Riding The Rize

2009-05-26T09:57:00.001-04:00

Test Riding The Rize
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Sunday was mountain bike day. Here, I am riding on the new Cannondale Rize One. The Rize is a 5 inch travel all mountain bike and weighs only 24.5 pounds by virtue of its carbon frame and tasty array of XTR components and Mavic Crossmax SLR wheels. This is a pretty dramatic change from the fully rigid single- speed bike I have been riding until now. It was a fantastic day for a ride and it was a blast riding this bike but as you can see in the picture, the rain we were promised never showed up and the Tourne was filled with people walking about. We only rode for an hour and then called it a day.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-26T09:41:00.003-04:00

Nice Bikes
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Nice weekend! After a couple of very busy weeks we got a much need break with 2 days off in a row for the holiday. That almost never happens in retail so it was like having a mini vacation. Although much of the region had heavy rain on Sunday, we were blessed with two near perfect days. My brother Rob drove up from Georgia on Sunday with his wife Didi to pick up his new bike, "Ugo". Rob names all of his bikes and his new ride is named Ugo because it is a DeRosa. Only bike geeks know that the founder of Derosa bikes is Ugo DeRosa. My brother is as goofy about bikes as I am! In the picture is Rob and Cathy enjoying a nice iced coffee after Ugo's maiden voyage.

Denville Earth Day 5 23 09

2009-05-23T12:53:00.001-04:00

Denville Earth Day 5 23 09
Originally uploaded by brendan61

It's Saturday and it was another beautiful morning for a ride. I was able to ride the Serotta today because I was not actually commuting, just going for a nice ride. 20 miles pretty fast and ready to start my day refreshed from the effort.
We continued our "Go By Bike" campaign by participating in Denville's "Earth Day" exposition at the town hall. In the picture with Cathy is Ted Hussa, the Mayor of Denville, with his commuter bike. The Mayor is a big supporter of cycling and recognizes the positive impact of being a "bike friendly" community. The Mayor invited us to share his display space so that we could help promote the idea. So far we have signed up a bunch of people in our "Go By Bike" contest and I actually spotted some riders with the flags on their bicycles last week during bike to work week. Very cool! We still have a long way to go but on days like today I believe that a cultural shift towards better transportation solutions could actually happen.
Thanks for reading and keep on riding!

The Ride Home

2009-05-21T21:42:00.001-04:00

The Ride Home
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Aaaahh! Back in bike clothes again. The ride home today was another beauty. Cathy rode her bike to work again today and stopped by the store on her way home to ride with me. The light was beautiful and the blowing flags were too good to pass up. Out came the camera and I rode back across the bridge for this photo op. This is the kind of stuff you miss when you are stuck in traffic in your car. I'm just sayin'.

Street Clothes

2009-05-21T10:53:00.010-04:00

Street Clothes
Originally uploaded by brendan61

As promised, it's Thursday and I rode in to work in regular shorts and a T-shirt. The 2 concessions I made to "bike" clothing were my shoes (my pedals are set up for SPD) and gloves, I hate riding with no gloves so I wore them. Sue me. So here's the set up. It is another fantastically beautiful day. I left the house at 9:00am with a temperature of 70 degrees F. Not too humid. The conditions were perfect. I rode at a leisurely 17mph. That sounds kind of like a lot but consider that the ride is mostly downhill (622ft elevation loss) and only 8.5 miles. I was comfortable while riding but when I stopped and got off my T-shirt was wet and, how do I put this, I was making my own gravy.The folks in Copenhagen apparently have weather more conducive to cotton than we do. I will be going back to "bike" clothing.

In other bike local bike news, we delivered 101 Police Bikes to 90 New Jersey Police Departments. The event, created by the Keith Neumann Foundation, was pretty spectacular. The Neumann Foundation was created 17 years ago to honor fallen police officer Keith Neumann. I have been working with Steve Toal, Keith's brother in law, for 15 years in supplying bikes to the foundation. This year, through an anonymous donation, the Foundation was able to purchase 101 bikes, which is equal to the number of bikes they donated over the past 15 years. The number 101 is significant because it was Keith Neumann's badge number. Police departments all over the state use bicycles as an effective tool for patrol and community policing. Good stuff.

Clown Costume

2009-05-19T14:35:00.003-04:00

BP at the store
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Here is a picture from this mornings commute. It was a stunning day and the ride was most enjoyable. But while I ride I tend to think about all sorts of stuff. I got to thinking about why more people don't want to do this. I mean, I feel so much better after my ride in the morning I have a hard time believing other folks don't want to experience this also. When I arrived at my destination and I got a look at myself in the windows as I rode past the store, I started to understand a little. Let's face it, I look pretty ridiculous in my Cycle Craft team kit and riding the Salsa Fargo with the blue and yellow panniers on the back along route 46. Now, me personally, I don't really care how ridiculous I look but I can understand that this might be one of barriers people create for themselves. Most are not very comfortable with the idea of seeming odd to the rest of world. In fact, most of the people I encounter on bikes out on the road actually are pretty weird! Am I turning into one of those nut jobs that people point at and wonder out loud if my parents dropped me on my head when I was a baby? Anyway, I still feel like I am pretty normal and my goofy appearance is part of my defense shield on the road. I also find that bike clothes are very comfortable to ride in.

Over in Copenhagen over 40% of the people use bikes as transportation. They don't use helmets and they ride in their regular clothes. Check out the link at the side of this blog to Copenhagenize.com to get the flavor. The fellow that writes the blog contends that there is no need for special clothing to ride a bike and people in the states would be more willing to use their bikes if they didn't have to wear a costume. Hmmm...maybe, maybe not.

So, as an experiment, I will do my ride on Thursday in my regular work clothes and forego my post ride shower. Oh yeah, that's another barrier people in the USA have created for themselves. A little bit of pre-work sweating is un-acceptable and most people assume that their is no way to overcome that problem so there's no sense in even considering it.

But no worries, I will do it and report back with my findings.

Until then, keep the rubber side down.

Fargo and Beyond!

2009-05-18T21:58:00.001-04:00

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Originally uploaded by brendan61

Now that Bike To Work Week is over, I can get back to biking to work. Pictured here is my new commuter bike, the Salsa Fargo. It's a 29er mountain bike/touring bike. It carries a big load and goes just about anywhere. I rode it for the second time this morning and I had a fantastic, leisurely ride to work. Truly a pleasure!

A New Direction

2009-05-18T13:50:00.003-04:00

IMG_0902
Originally uploaded by brendan61

For those of you who had been following "Brendan's Bike Blog" and noticed it has been missing from the Cycle Craft Home Page, let me explain a bit. My posts were becoming somewhat political in nature and I actually received one or two comments chastising me for connecting a commercial business with my personal political leanings. Although I find it somewhat disheartening that someone would actually threaten me because they did not share my point of view I realized that expressing political ideas was not helping me achieve my objective of getting more people to embrace cycling as a sensible alternative for personal transportation. However, regardless of your political leanings, I think it is safe to say that I support bike use.

So here, without bias, is a new blog dedicated to promoting bicycling, in all it's forms, as a smart, healthy, and fun lifestyle choice. My goal is to share my own personal experiences with you for entertainment, education, and perhaps some motivation. As always, thanks for reading and be safe out there!

P.S. Clicking on the pictures will bring you to my Flikr page.

Ready For Business

2009-05-18T11:03:00.001-04:00

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Originally uploaded by brendan61

So last week was bike to work week and I thought it would be kind of fun to give out coffee and bagels to people on their bikes. We set up every morning from 6:30am to 9:30am. We actually only gave out 3 servings of coffee to people on bikes but we did speak to lots of people who wondered what the heck we were doing out there. So in a sense we were successful in at least raising awareness a tiny bit.