Wednesday Morning Commute - Locally grown bicycles

Did anyone go to the Montgomery Count bikesharing meeting last night? For craziness they should go with Capital Bikeshare on the west side and B-Cycle on the east.

• A local bike builder wants to expand his company - District Bamboo Bikes - making bikes out of locally-grown bamboo. And, he's looking for small investors through Kickstarter. $750 gets you one of the first 10 bikes/conversation pieces. 
• The Brightwoodian gets the background on the Takoma apartment building that wanted to add CaBi but was turned down. [For the record, I totally understand why they turned it down, and as I suspected, the answer was more "not yet" than "no thanks." Despite yesterday's headline, I didn't actually think Takoma cyclists should get angry about it]. "Bruce Levin, one of the developers of the Spring Place building, confirms that DDOT is concerned about Spring Place's lack of visibility, at least at this time: "The location is less than ideal as compared to more visible locations at or around the (Metro) station. This could certainly change at a later date. The next and most important step will be to work with DDOT to complete the design of the trail between Spring Place and Cedar, secure funding and complete this section."" Eventually this will be very near the Met Branch Trail.
• A man uses the Secret CaBi station and lives to tell the tale. Is he a hero? Not really, but it's cool anyway. "so I wheeled the bike over to the sidewalk, lifted it onto the curb and waited at the other side of the access point while a woman was talking to one of the attendants about some meeting that she had. The guard saw me standing there and suggested that she step out so I could wheel the bike past. I did. And then I was on the outside of the perimeter, just another schlub on a CaBi."
• More CaBi news! There are now two new stations in DC - 7th & R St NW, and 18th and Penn NW; and here's a tool for plotting trips between stations on Google maps.
• WABA's women's bicycle forum - Dec 12th.
• IMBA is asking cyclists to sign a petition to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Comments

[JP]

I saw a funny looking bike at the start of the Poolesville Road Race last year. When I asked the guy about it, to my amazement, he said that it really was bamboo. I’m not sure what his results were, but it must be a solid bike to show up to a start line with it.

[Michael H.]

A couple of established companies already sell bamboo bikes. I'd like to get a bamboo bike eventually, though not as my primary bike.