TheWashCycle

Tom Palermo family fund benefit auction

Tom Palermo was killed by a drunk and texting hit-and-run driver in Baltimore last Christmas. In early September, the driver pleaded guilty to automobile manslaughter and other charges.

Tom worked and met his wife at REI in College Park. He started his framebuilding work at Proteus, and they still have some Palermo-built frames hanging on the walls.

This September, Proteus is auctioning an original Proteus build that was the personal bike of Proteus founding owner Larry Dean. The bike was donated by Larry’s brother John, who was also on Roland Ave. that day and witnessed the aftermath of the crash.

The bike is a custom steel frame built at Proteus with 50th anniversary Campagnolo components. Proceeds will go to the educational trust fund that was set up for Tom Palermo’s children.

Donations can also be sent to the trust fund care of Molloy Investment Group, One South St., 30th Floor, Baltimore, Md. 21202 or via the fund’s donation page.

More information can be found here. 

The bike is on display at Proteus this month, and you are welcome to drop by and check out the fit.

Auction started on September 9th and ends on October 4th.

Phoenix bikes needs bikes

The folks at Phoenix Bikes posted this on facebook:

"We're running low on bike donations and spring is just around the corner! If you're doing some spring cleaning and need to unload some quality used bikes, components, or accessories please consider making a tax deductible donation to Phoenix Bikes. These donations are the lifeblood of our organization that we use for teaching materials, Earn-A-Bikes, and refurbished sale bikes. Thank you!!"

Phoenix Bikes is a nonprofit bike shop in Arlington, VA, that provides local youth with bike repair and retails operations skills while providing the community with affordable, refurbished bikes and repair services. You can read more about them here:

http://www.phoenixbikes.org/about-us/

Gearin’ Up Bicycles to bring Community Used Bicycle Shop to DC

Gearin' Up Bicycles is launching an indiegogo campaign to raise money to build a nonprofit, community used bicycle shop in DC. 

Gearin’ Up Bicycles will offer job training and education opportunities to youth and young adults from under-served communities at its location at 1200 Bladensburg Road NE.

Over the past 2 years, Gearin’ Up Bicycles has been teaching basic bicycle skills and safety onsite with partnering organizations. Gearin’ Up is very excited to expand programming by moving into their own space. Executive Director Katie Lupo noted “there is a need in Washington D.C. for both a used bicycle shop and additional opportunities for youth from under-served communities. Gearin’ Up Bicycles is excited to address both of these needs at our new location."

They're trying to raise $10,000, and have a little over a month to do so. 

We have an awesome space and a multitude of bikes, but we need YOUR help setting up our shop!  To get our space ready, we need $10,000 for capital and overhead costs associated with getting our space ready for our Earn-A-Bike and Workforce Development programs. Your donation will allow us to establish successful programs and get the funding mechanisms in place which will sustain us in the future. We have great perks in exchange for your contribution including koozies, pint glasses and T-shirts- all featuring the Gearin' Up logo. At higher-donation levels you can even receive a CUSTOM Gearin' Up bike!!

Click here to donate. I already got one of the pint glasses.

Get a cheap bike for a good cause

Right now the Breezer is being sold for $250. You're practically stealing it at that price*.

*Don't steal bikes.

Tuesday Morning Commute - So much to say

Good morning. Too busy to read this. But if you want to summarize it for others, the comments are open. 

• According to DDOT, there will be no hooks or racks on DC streetcars, but cyclists will be able to bring their bikes onboard. Unfortunately their policy will mirror WMATA’s for bikes on the Metrorail, which will probably mean a rush hour ban.
• DC wants to narrow roads and add a bike trail. VA and MD, less so. 
• InTowner wonders about the Council's desire to ban smoking near trails (sorry smoking bicyclists). Also asks "Having voted to penalize operators of motor vehicles for failing to yield to cyclists, why was there no provision for penalizing cyclists for failing to yield to pedestrians both on sidewalks and in crosswalks in the streets?" The answer is a bit of what they say later - this isn't a very big problem - but also that they have the law wrong. Both failures to yield are already illegal and carry penalties. DC is increasing the fine for hitting a cyclist with a car and adding points. Maybe the fine for cyclists hitting pedestrians needs to be increased, but we don't give points on a driver's license for non-driving activity.
• "A boy riding a bicycle was hit by a car and critically injured Sunday evening in the Bowie area of Prince George’s County....Preliminary investigation indicated that the driver was unaware of the boy who was trying to cross the street,"
• "The Madison Manor Bike Club will host the second annual “Phoenix Rising” celebration in support of Phoenix Bikes on Saturday, July 20 from 6 to 11 p.m. at the Dominion Hills Pool clubhouse, 6000 Wilson Blvd."
• "A fan on her way to a Dave Matthews concert pulled over to help a stranded bicyclist, who turned out to be none other than the singer himself."
• "A few years ago, What Would You Do?, an ABC-TV hidden-camera show, set up a situation where two actors posed as bike thieves in a public park, using bolt cutters and hack saws to cut a bike chain. The results were instructive. Over the course of an hour, a hundred people passed the white “thief” by with barely a glance. The black one had hardly gotten to work before a crowd of whites gathered around him, interrogating him, lecturing him, calling 911, even shooting cell phone video." [OT: Listening to Zimmerman's brother yesterday morning fret that someone might take the law into their own hands and behave like a vigilante - without a hint of irony - was a bit surreal]

Tuesday Afternoon Commute - My bicycle and I were best friends.

Do you think Sunday night at the Oscars will be the last time William Shatner plays Captain Kirk? If so, it's an odd performance for the character to go out on. Like ending Star Wars with the Christmas Special.

• Sustainable DC = Agenda 21. Someone should open a bar on 21st street called Agenda 21. 
• Phoenix Bikes will hold its annual bike show and fundraiser on Thursday, March 21 from 7 to 9 p.m. at 251 18th St. South.
• Bikeshare can do this better. 
• New DC bike maps are in. 
• The Fairfax County Bike Trail has finally reopened. 
• The Boston Globe blames anti-cyclist bias for the failure to indict a driver of vehicular homicide in a hit-and-run case in Massachusetts. It puts this month's Cooper case into some context for why a plea deal might seem appealing to prosecutors.
• Again with the old chestnut about "the time I rode my bike into East Berlin."

Thursday Afternoon Commute - Quack

Good afternoon. I don't know if they re-timed the lights, but I caught the green bike light this morning coming off of 15th onto Penn and didn't get a red until 6th. People used to complain about the stop and go nature of Penn, but I didn't have that problem today.

• Don't count on seeing any Arlington area trails plowed this winter.
• WABA and MoBike recently created a list of recommended bike infrastructure improvements for Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Bethesda and Friendship Heights. "Among the suggestions are to finish two incomplete trails in Silver Spring: Metropolitan Branch Trail and Silver Spring Green Trail." You can see a longer list of recommendations at the link.
• MORE becomes a chapter club of the International Mountain Biking Association
• The Federal Highway Administration has issued recommendations for “non-motorized” groups in its Traffic Monitoring Guide which could give guidance on counting cyclists. One nice thing about having CaBi, is that we can use it's data to get a good idea of how many cyclists are out there. Here's the best way to do that
  • When doing counts, just try to determine the ratio of CaBi cyclists to non-CaBi cyclists, the actual number doesn't even really matter.
  • Then use that ratio to determine the total number of cyclists every day. So, for example, if 1 out of every 10 cyclists is on a CaBi, and on Dec 2 there were 2000 CaBi trips then we can extrapolate that there were 20,000 total bike trips.
  • One flaw with this is that the ratio determined above is the ratio of cyclists on the road (based on time) not the ratio of actual trips. If CaBi trips are shorter than other bike trips then it would overcount total trips. But you could account for that two with some survey data.
• Give to streetsblog and streetsfilm and you could win a free bike. 
• What Gabe Klein is up to now.
• Sonoma County pursues an anti-bicycle assault law similar to the one working its way through DC's Council.

Photo of the duckling bike rack on 18th, across from the World Bank, by WillH.

Wednesday Morning Commute - BMUFL

Good morning. Not much for me to report, but soon I'll be able to start biking again, which I'm excited about.

• The hit and run in Bethesda might not have involved a hit. "There may or may not have been actual contact between the biker and the van," he said. After the accident, the cyclist said the van made a sudden lane change and hit her, Didone said, but preliminary investigations of the damage did not show any signs of the van hitting the bicycle.
• The BAC comes up with some ideas about automated enforcement. 
• Where BMUFL signs are being installed in Montgomery County. I saw some on MD-212 Riggs Road earlier today. 
• There was another possible hit and run involving a cyclist yesterday, this time in Arlington near Westover.
• Livestrong donations are strong
• I'm blogging for the Green Lanes Project about DC bicycle facilities and you can see my first post here.

The Bicycling Comedian Benefit for Phoenix Bikes

Tom Snyders, “The Bicycling Comedian,” has spent the past 25 years pedaling his fully-loaded touring bicycle to all his stand-up comedy performances. He’s cycled more than 162,000 miles, to and throughout, all 50 states (Hawaii was not easy), and in 34 countries on six continents. This summer and fall on his never ending Smile America bicycle tour he is offering to do benefit shows for worthy bicycle-related advocacy and nonprofit groups along his route. “I took one look at the Phoenix Bikes website and told Executive Director Henry Dunbar that I really respected the impact they have been making on local Arlington Youths, and that his organization was exactly the kind of thing I would be proud to help support,” Snyders says.

Snyders will perform Wednesday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse, 2903 Columbia Pike in Arlington. Tickets are $15, available online at phoenixbikes.org. Please come. Bring Friends. Buy lots of food and drink.

 

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - His eyes are up here

Good afternoon

• Metro has started testing the new Bike & Ride facility at College Park.

The facility can hold more than 100 bikes and requires riders to use an access card to enter the room on the first level of the College Park Metro parking garage. 

During the month-long testing period, a group of people will try out the new system and provide comments and suggestions.

Use of the facility will cost between 2 to 5 cents per hour, says Metro, and there is a one-time $5 charge for "new customer ID verification."

• Bike Maryland is looking for donations of unused children's bikes for use in their Bike Rodeos.
• Oh brother. As a HS senior, Darrin Straus hit and killed a 16 year old cyclist with his car, an event he recently wrote an award-winning book about. I heard him interviewed on NPR last year and genuinely felt sorry for the guy. But this line is just an over-the-top attempt at absolution. "Sixteen-year-old Celine Zilke suddenly swerved her bicycle in front of his car in what may have been a deliberate act. 'She was using me as the instrument of her death,' Strauss said." And then there is this: "The problem with too many memoirs is that you can feel the author trying to forgive himself in every paragraph.” You mean like trying to say the girl committed suicide?
• New NPS pedicab regulations could be approved this summer.  
• “One look at what he did for those bike shorts and every woman in town would be voting for him.” Women are such pigs.