TheWashCycle

Monday Morning Ride

Happy Pi Day!

• At the Bike Summit, a meeting was held on U.S. Bike Route 1. "In VA the route through Ft. Belvoir has been closed since Woodlawn Rd was closed to through traffic after September 11 (map). A new road, Mulligan Road, is being built that will extend across Ft. Belvoir from Route 1 to Telegraph Rd that will be open to bike traffic with wide outside lanes and a shared use path. According to VDOT, construction of Mulligan Rd will be complete in 2012.
• Dr. Gridlock reminds drivers to keep a lookout for cyclists in the morning - which will now be darker. So make sure you're visible.

Wedndesday Morning Ride - Centenial State Fever

Oscar nominations for "Waiting for Superman," zero. For "Tron:Legacy", one.

• A Virginia delegate has introduced a bill which would criminalize all use of a phone while driving in Virginia, including hands-free devices. 
• New Belgium Brewing Company, the bike-loving brewery from Colorado that sponsors a bike ride and gives its employees a bike after one year, will "expand their distribution to D.C., Maryland and Virginia some time this fall."
• More advice on cold-weather riding. 
• A man biked to DC from Colorado for the state of the union address and to promote renewable energy.

 

Tour de Links - Wonder Drug

Maillot Jaune: Though the New Jersey Assembleywoman who suggested adding license plates to bicycles withdrew her bill, a New York City Councilman from Queens is planning to introduce a similar bill for the Big Apple. "I think it will improve safety for everybody if bicyclists get a registration sticker that they pay $3 for or whatever is for five or ten years. The people on bicycles brought this on themselves by behaving this way."

Maillot Vert: Two "digital hobos" bike across America on bikes made from trash.

Maillot a Pois Rouge: Floyd Landis has retired from pro cycling.he "spent five years trying to get back to a place that I can never really go back to, and it's causing more stress than is worth it." Alberto Contador will find out about his doping case by the end of next week. Meanwhile Armstrong is not worried about the latest claims about him as he completes his last race outside the US - and not everyone believes the claims that he had access to a wonder drug. "The taxpayer dollars that Armstrong's lawyers grumble are being wasted on the federal investigator's hunt of Armstrong will have been money well spent if he unmasks the Tour's biggest champion as a cheat" [Will it?]. And finally, a rising star in women's cycling was hit and killed by a truck in her native South Africa. "She won 19 individual and team cycling titles with Lees-McRae, becoming the first cyclist to win all four U.S. collegiate titles — road, track, mountain and cyclocross — in one season in 2008....After dropping her cycling computer, Swart looked over her shoulder to check if the road was clear and made a U-turn that put her in the path of the oncoming truck. She apparently looked over her left shoulder, as one would if cycling in the United States, instead of the right. In South Africa, vehicles drive on the left."

Maillot Blanc: "The goals of the City of Lights program are ambitious, but the group started small, in response to complaints that immigrant bicyclists were riding on sidewalks at night (which is legal in the city of Los Angeles) but without lights or reflectors (which is not). City of Lights began distributing lights at day labor centers and were soon inundated with questions about routes and the intricacies of bike repair."

Lanterne Rouge: Copenhagen considers making bike salmoning legal. "Not that it means much. Bicycles regularly follow these desire lines. The City is now tidying up and legitimising bicycle traffic in the opposite direction down one-way streets. This is, of course, the norm in many bicycle-friendly cities."

Coast to Coast—The Sears National Kids Cancer Ride

David Heaslip of Bracebridge has been selected as one of the 40 riders to ride across Canada in the 2010 Sears National Kids Cancer Ride. If you ask David why he wants to do it he’ll say “If not now….when?” David’s 68 now, and will be 69 during the ride. His other slogan is “…because I think I can!”.

David’s interest in fitness started back in 1998. An executive on Bay Street in Toronto, time in the office or flying around the country in the back of a 747 airplane had packed on the weight. There was no time for fitness at all.

One day a light bulb went off and he decided to join a downtown fitness club. He got up before dawn, headed to the gym and got on the treadmill. Twelve months later he had lost 54 pounds and 11 inches from around his waist. At this point he started strength training, and then dabbled at distance running. That didn’t prove to be too exciting.

He retired in 2000 and moved to his lakeside home in Muskoka. He joined the Muskoka Fitness Club in Bracebridge, and kept up his daily routine. A few months later he was invited by a couple of gym members to take the CanFitPro Personal Trainer certification. He did, and he loved it. He went back to Bracebridge and spoke at several service club luncheons about wellness as we age.

He then took the CanFitPro Wellness and Nutrition program to bolster his knowledge. At the same time, he completed the Million Metre Row on the indoor rowing machine. He was invited to join a social bike riding club, and caught the bug. He went on to take his indoor cycling certification at Georgian College, and introduced classes to Muskoka Fitness.

David believes that just because you are older that you shouldn’t stop being active and fit. He has no illusions about the effects that aging has on our bodies. He understands the naturally diminished system functions, the diminished lung capacities, and the lower heart capabilities, but believes that with aggressive training he will he able to hold his own during such a grueling ride.

The Sears National Kids Cancer Ride is believed to be the world’s largest fundraising event for childhood cancer.  Starting on Canada’s west coast in Vancouver on September 9^th, 2010 and finishing on Canada’s east coast in Halifax on September 23rd, the event is an epic journey.  As they travel from coast to coast along a well planned route, national cyclists will be joined by local community riders who will cycle for as little as 10 KM or more. They will stop at Sears locations for community support and refreshments, and visit with pediatric oncology centres along the way. A volunteer team will accompany the national team to ensure the safety of all riders, ensure optimum riding conditions, drive support vehicles, and tend to the needs of all the riders.

Each rider is responsible for raising $25,000 in pledges to help meet this year’s goal of $2 million.

If you would like to sponsor David, go to his webpage at www.snkcr.com/davidheaslip or visit the homepage at www.searsnationalkidscancerride.com. He can be reached at heaslip@B2B2C.ca

When he signed up, he was motivated to get behind a cause that had the potential to directly affect the lives of children living with cancer and their families. Each rider pays a $4,000 registration fee to cover their own costs, which means that 100% of the money raised goes directly towards the cause.

As they ride through the cities along the way, they’ll attend numerous community events, where they’ll hear stories of the many ways the money raised by the Sears National Kids Cancer Ride has helped children with cancer and their families.

If you would like to get involved in the fight against children’s cancer, and want to participate in his fundraising efforts, I know he’d welcome all the support that he can get!

Please check out his link at:
www.snkcr.com/davidheaslip

He can be reached at:
heaslip@b2b2c.ca

Bike Items that Have Little to Nothing to Do With DC - 1/24/10

Electric Bicycles are gaining momentum (tip Jeff)

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, Sanyo, the Japanese electronics maker and a major producer of car batteries, showed off a sleek, lightweight e-bike called the Eneloop Hybrid Bicycle.

The Eneloop, priced at $2,300, came to stores in the United States late last year. It operates like any normal bike and, save for the black lithium-ion battery strapped to the frame beneath the seat, looks exactly like one as well. But when you press a button on the left handlebar, a 250-watt motor gently kicks in, providing about twice the power as your own pedaling — and making you feel like Lance Armstrong on even the steepest slopes.

And here's more from the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times Blog.

Two guys cycled across country taking pictures with Mayors for a coffee table book.

The Slouch on bike racing

Q. The Tour de Georgia, billed as North America's premier cycling event, has been canceled two straight years. What does this say about the state of cycling? (Dan O'Neil; Carmel, Ind.)

A. I don't know what it says about the state of cycling, but it tells me the state of Georgia doesn't want to clog its roads with bicyclists and discarded bottles of water for a full week.

The Boston Police Department is using twitter to catch bike thieves.

Already know as the “tweeting police department” they have created a way for owners to report stolen bikes so that local security and followers can keep their eyes out for the missing two-wheelers.

A video on biking in Paris (via GGW). Does it help to know that the French don't respect bike lanes either? I didn't think so. Reminds me of this movie.

A couple of bike sharing entrepreneurs went from knowing nothing about the business to writing software for the market.

UCLA student cyclists are dissatisfied with the rate at which the bike plan is being implemented.

Bikes Belong (the bicycle retailers org) and New Belgium Brewing gave Adventure Cycling Association grants to support the organization’s work to establish an official United States Bicycle Route System (USBRS)

Turn sweat into charge for your cell phone.

With [Miniwiz's] wind charger, you can hook it up to the handle-bars of your bike... to capture the breeze, which then powers your cellphone's battery.

California passes a law just for Contrarian.

It now is legal in California to ride a bicycle without a seat. However, this doesn't mean you can rip the saddle off the post and throw it away. Seatless bikes must have been made that way. And, yes, there are such animals.

LAB has more statistics from the National Household Travel Survey

Half of all trips are three miles or less, but fewer than 2 percent of those trips are made by bicycle, while 72 percent of them are driven. Private vehicles like cars, pick-up trucks, and SUVs, account for 60 percent of trips of a mile or less.

Not a bike item, but about Contributory Negligence and the Last Clear Chance in Maryland. The case deals with two boys who were walking along light rail tracks and were hit and killed by a train. The state settled for $1.5M.

Among the allegations, he said, were that the train operator took his eyes off the track in the crucial seconds before the accident and had no satisfactory explanation for his actions. In addition, Miller said, the plaintiffs were prepared to show that MTA operators did not report the sighting of the boys on the tracks and that the agency had no procedure for notifying operators to take added precautions when trains were being operated on alternate tracks.

While Maryland law generally precludes plaintiffs whose negligence contributes to their injury from collecting damages, Miller said that doctrine was trumped by a provision in the law holding the party with the "last clear chance" to prevent an accident responsible. He said that in such cases, plaintiffs have to show the defendant had a period of time in which to avert the accident.

Some people have more free time than I do

A Takoma Park student spent a year biking from Vancouver to Guatemala and then back to Takoma Park.

Minck remembers the brutal final leg of the trip into Austin where they had the bad luck of biking straight into heavy winds on the last 22 miles into town.

"Even though it was flat as a table we were going maybe seven miles an hour," he said. "It was like climbing up a mountain."

In spite of such difficulties, long-range and even international bike journeys are becoming more and more common, or at least more widely known, according to Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

"It's sort of a result of an increase in biking in general, what we're seeing throughout the D.C. area is people are using bikes for a larger variety of things," he said. "Naturally, we're going to be seeing a few more people who are on the extreme."

And three Lutheran ministers from West Virginia spent 100 days riding cross country on a three person bicycle made of bamboo (sounds like the lead in to a joke, no?).

The goal of the ride is to encourage contributions to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's world hunger activities.

The tour, which began May 13 in Chicago and will end Aug. 20 in Minneapolis, will cover 13,000 miles and take them to 65 cities. The approximately 10-foot-long bamboo bicycle they are riding weighs 52 pounds and was custom made by Craig Calfee, a California bicycle designer.