Ted Talk on Bicycling

The transportation director in Portland explains how they got their act together. Worth your time to watch.

Tour de France Stage 9 crash

The car is a media car and it looks like they swerved to miss the tree on their left.

It looks really bad, but somehow the rider finished the stage. But oh wow! It's lucky that he didn't loose more flesh to that barbed wire.

A video of riding East up Pike over Capital Hill

From a fellow bicyclist's blog CityTank.org

The video below shows what its like to bike commute through Capitol Hill on a typical evening in Seattle. Traveling east on Pike Street, there is no bike lane or sharrow, but it is a popular route nonetheless—I’ve ridden it more than a 20 times

My guess is that to a sizable chunk of the populace, riding through the city in a scenario such as the video shows is not an appealing prospect

I tend to ride behind the city down Western Ave but it's a similar pedestrian car dodge. I just have Waaaaay more lights.

Bike to Work day fantastic weather!

It was an outrageously beautiful day! And it looks like there were about 20,000 riders riding to work.

http://blog.cascade.org/2011/05/lets-do-the-numbers-ghcc/ Official Cascade Bike to work day blog

I even rode with two people who had no idea that it was going to be "bike to work day" and they had ridden in because it as really the first warm day of the year. Goes to show what some nice weather will do for folks.

Bicycle hit by car

A friend of mine took this video with his new helmet cam. I've been thinking about getting one, mostly to show folks what a beautiful commute I have. But it would also be good in the case of an accident proving who was where instead of "he said.. she said"

Bike & Car Accident, Mercer Street & East Lake Seattle WA

Anyway at first glance you may wonder who was in the right, but if watch carefully, you'll see that the walk sign switches to all clear for the cyclist. You may also notice that the cyclist is wearing earbuds. That's not legal either, and IMO, dumb. I'm hoping I would have been watching to the right and not cut in front of a moving car. And I would have been going slow through those cars in the cross walk as I would have expected them to try and move forward to get out of the crosswalk. Not that any of them should have been there in the first place.

Still miraculous that no one was hurt seriously.

My Ride into work... photos

This is the road leaving my neighborhood.

This is Mark, I only know him because we pass each other nearly every day. So one day I turned around and chased him down to say "hi."

I ride a bit of busy road next to the freeway. It's a long slog back up this hill, but going to work, I can nearly keep up with traffic. Only downside is that at the bottom of the hill is a light, and you almost never ever make this light.

This little bit of bike trail runs between two freeways, I-405 & I-90. It's noisy with traffic but visually quiet.

This is the bike trail on the I-90 bridge. It's very pretty but in the rain traffic kicks up a lot of spray. Going home, into the spray can be nasty. Today however it's great.

At the Western end of the bridge looking North along the Seattle shoreline. Sure is pretty. Makes me want to not go to work, and instead just hook a right and ride along the shore.

Here is a road on the top of Capital Hill. They named it "Capital Hill" in a vain attempt to get the state Capital. The name stuck but the capital is in Olympia. As you can see it's a quiet neighborhood street.

This hill I have to climb to get up and over the top of Capital hill. Climbing these cobblestones makes me thing of the Paris-Roube race, but of course I have only one block of this. It does shake my bike up pretty good though.

Coming back down the hill through Capital Hill there are all these funky stores. Just a random one that I saw on the way in today.

On the way home, I take a different route and go through/behind downtown. This is first Ave. I ride about 3 blocks of this stuff. No bike lanes but cars are pretty considerate of the riders.

This is behind Pike Place Market. It's a beautiful view park full of nere-do-wells. So I rarely hangout here. But as you can see it's popular, just not with the working folk.

Looking SouthWest on Lake Washington. You can just see some bits of Mt. Rainer poking out behind the clouds. Maybe on Friday it will be out in it's full glory.

Going home, this is looking North East on Lake Washington from the bridge tunnel. You can see the boats out sailing. Today I wish that was me.

A photo of me in my bike gear. My wife says that it's not a very good photo but its the only one I have of me while out riding. So it will have to do. Notice, lots of lights and the dorky but highly visible vest.

Still a great day to commute via bicycle.

Best bicycle Multi Tool: Leatherman Crunch

Many times while out riding you will be faced with a busted bicycle. And then it's time to look through your tool bag and see if you happen to have something along that will fix your problem.

Pliers! That's often the ticket, Broken shift cable? Tie one end to the frame, and use the pliers to put some tension on the cable and put the dereailer in the position you want. And what kind of pliers will you be wanting? Why locking pliers... which is why the Leatherman Crunch is my tool of choice.

Bent chain? Use the pliers to give it that 1/2 twist to straighten it out long enough to ride home. Comes with a philips screwdriver, standard screwdriver, file/metal saw, tiny screw driver bottle cap opener and of course a serrated blade for trimming those cable ties off.

Can't tell you the number of repairs I've used this tool for, but as I've always said, "how far are you willing to walk?" "Oh, well what tools would you need to ride the rest of the way to the bus stop/home?" And if your answer includes a pair of pliers, well consider the Leatherman Crunch. Expensive, yep, but well worth it.

Or you can wait until I ride by and flag me down, and I'll lend you mine.