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'.
Half of all trips made by car in the U.S. are less than 2 miles. My modest proposal is for you to just consider using a humble bicycle every once in a while instead of getting into your car. You may find you like it. Improve your health, save some money, make the world a better place--Go By Bike!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Street Clothes
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.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Clown Costume
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.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Fargo and Beyond!
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
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
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.
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