TheWashCycle

Boxing a Bike

My first piece of advice is not to do it 3 hours before you need to leave for your flight, especially if it's a Sunday and an Easter Sunday at that. [What do you mean Capitol Hill Bikes doesn't open until noon? What do you mean Frager's is closed? Frager's should not be able to be closed. That's like the firestation being closed]. I almost didn't get the handlebars off.

I followed City Bikes instructions which were pretty good.

But from there SWA was pretty easy, even if they did charge me $50 for the oversized box, and it was the last piece of luggage of the plane. Skycap's are the way to go. The Yaris, btw, can carry you AND either another person or a bike in a box, but not both.

So far so good.

Update: Bicycling magazine has some info on traveling with a bike, including best and worst airlines.

Bike Items That Have Little to Nothing to do With DC (10/25/09)

A couple of articles in the NY Times Complaint Box were about bike lanes. Robert Sawyer finds them as an affront to the real New York.

The bike lane — like the streets the mayor and his friends have turned into faux piazzas and yes, even the celebrated High Line — is an insult to those of us whose notion of New York City still includes dark corners and hard surfaces.

And Leah Daskalakis Casner wants non-cyclists to stay out of the West Street bike path (pictured), which I believe has a parallel pedestrian path. Via GGW.

These aren't even really bike articles. Bike champion Rep. Earl Blumenauer was profiled by the NY Times (including a long video interview) as a member of the frustrated left. And he started the Livable Communities Task Force "to improve community livability and Americans’ quality of life."

GGW (via DC Downshift) has more links to stories about the Google Trike. 

Google will drive a Street View trike around no-car areas like parks, university campuses, and even zoos to capture images from those areas. Nominate your favorite locations and Google will run a public poll to pick some.

The NY Times also has a story about business travelers who bike while on assignment (I spent much of a recent summer in Phoenix and kept a bike I bought out there in the hotel). This article actually has something to do with the DC area.

But Eric V. Swanson, program manager for the World Bank, said he had trouble in Europe because the machines at the kiosks could not read his American credit card. “I became frustrated on several occasions,” he said. He was in Paris during the transit strike two years ago and “there were bikes in stands all over the city, and I couldn’t do it.” He ended up walking the three miles to his meeting and back.

A bar in Oak Cliff has an innovative bike parking system.

Streetsfilm on NYC bike lanes.

Next entry here

East Coast Greenway News Sept 2009

• The City of Boston has a great weekend planned for biking in Beantown! September 26-27 will feature the largest weekend cycling event on the east coast. The "Boston Cycling Celebration" will have pro and amateur racing (including top teams like Colavita and Team Type 1, and legendary racer Tina Pic's last pro race) and a post-race concert on Saturday, followed by the "Hub on Wheels" citywide ride and festival on Sunday. Click here for more information.
  • It's your chance to ride along the Charles River with no cars getting in your way, explore the greenways and the shoreline, the neighborhoods and the communities we call home. Last year Mayor Thomas M. Menino joined 4,000 cyclists on a picture perfect Sunday for this ride. With new, improved, and fully-supported 10, 30, or 50 mile routes available, anyone can participate!
• The second East Coast Greenway kiosk in Maryland was installed just south of Monkton on the Torrey C. Brown Rail Trail on July 25th.
• A new segment of ECG Historical Coastal Route has been constructed by the Virginia Department of Transportation.  This paved multi-use off-road trail parallels State Route 5 and is part of an ongoing effort to link over 50 miles of trail between Richmond VA and Jamestown Settlement.  The newly completed segment runs seven miles east of Charles City and passes historic plantations and other historic and natural attractions.

12 hour day, chasing a hard deadline post.

Copenhagen's "best city for bicycling" goal

Phoenix cyclists take advantage of bike center

Spainiards View Riding a Bike, Like Riding a Donkey

This is from an NPR story about Spain's ability to produce world class cyclists but not world class cycling cities.

According to the European Union, the average Spaniard bikes just 12 miles a year compared to between 500 and 600 miles for the average Dutchman or Dane. Even the car-loving Germans can manage almost 200 miles a year.

But paradoxically, Spain has the perfect climate for biking. It's a favorite training ground for the world's competitive cyclists, including Lance Armstrong who lived here for several years. You'd be hard pressed to find another country where the people who cycle as a sport are so obsessive about it. Every weekend, the roads outside Madrid are crowded with cyclists clad in their flashy skin-tight suits.

Pressed on why there's very little casual cycling in Spain, 51-year-old Francisco Iyune says you have to be crazy to get on a bike in most Spanish cities.

Look at our culture, he says as he points to the cars and motorcycles racing by. Everyone's in a rush. We cyclists are just in the way.

This is a country that jumped from poverty into headlong economic development in the late '80s and '90s. Spain's newly built infrastructure, combined with a passion for sport, is finally paying off in international medals. But many Spaniards look down on using a bicycle for transport the same way they would see riding a donkey.

It sound's similar to some other Tour de France-champion-producing country I know.

Photo by Dr. Jaus

Greensboro

Occasional WashCycle commenter Grendel (named after the Beowulf character or the dog on "Thirtysomething"?) has started his own blog Green Cycle - focused on Greensboro, NC

Greensboro, NC (the runner up for the Bicycling Hall of Fame--damn you Davis, CA).

Biked to the airport

For the first time, and finding my way to the parking was a pain. Especially since the Metro was closed so some of the doors I needed were unavailable.

Austin Rail with Trail

I've wrote a little about my trip to Austin already and put up some photos. It's become a much more bike friendly town then it was when I went to school there, but it still has a sprawl problem that encourages car reliance. [It was fun riding around places I used to ride (old apartments to school or to places I used to work) and seeing how much shorter it is than I remember. My old apartment to my old job: 15 minutes].

One project in the works is to build a trail along the soon to open MetroRail Commuter Line.

Capital Metro has begun planning for pedestrian and bicycle connections along the entire Austin to Leander rail corridor. Capital Metro has already committed over $7.2 million of its transit sales tax to trails development over the past six years.

Fully implemented, this system of connecting trails, on-street bikeway connections and pedestrian pathways encompasses approximately 30.9 miles of paved multiuse trails, 1.7 miles of improved, more walkable and fully accessible sidewalks, and 8.4 miles of improved and well marked on-street bikeways. At an estimated cost of $54.3 million (not including the value of any right-of-ways), the fully built out nonmotorized connections will make these MetroRail public transportation terminals truly intermodal.

The feasibility study makes it look as though work should've already started, but I can't find any evidence of that. It wouldn't all be done until 2019. The trains, however, will have bicycle racks conveniently located near the doors.

It would be nice if the Silver Line had included some planning for a parallel trail - which admittedly would run in the Dulles Toll Road ROW - or if Metro would use the outer Silver Line, the part that runs on it's own tracks, as an experimental, bikes-allowed-on-at-all-hours line. But I'm not holding my breath.

Manhattan on Wheels

I still have not ridden the Hudson River Greenway. In fact, I have not ridden a bicycle in New York City. This is an outrage. Must remember to sign up for the Five Boro Ride

I found out that the discount Vamoose bus line to New York not only picks up and discharges passengers in downtown Bethesda, 20 minutes from my home, but also takes bikes free. I began to see a way. The clinchers: the $50 round-trip fare and a midtown drop-off only 10 minutes from the Greenway.

"Keep it simple" was my motto. Get to Manhattan, bike to Battery Park. Turn around and bike north to the George Washington Bridge. Return to West 31st Street in time for the 5:30 p.m. bus. Go back to Bethesda.

Although it appears on maps as one long trail, the Greenway really is a series of connecting trails built at different times. It is most crowded in the downtown area; the number of bikers gradually lessens as you go north. But despite the many bikers, I'm able to maintain a 10- to 12-mph pace.

Bermuda Railway Trail

The Post wrote about this in Travel

I read about the possibility of renting a bicycle and riding the Bermuda Railway Trail, an 18-mile stretch of national park that, like the Washington area's Capital Crescent Trail, follows an abandoned rail bed. Away from the crowds and the busy roads, this was a chance, I thought, to discover the real Bermuda, which can get lost in all the pink sand even though it's only the size of Manhattan.

More here.

Photo from the Bermuda Department Of Tourism