For those that enjoy riding the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska Airlines announced today that they’re flying to Honolulu and Kauai. That’s great news, as is their introductory fares starting at $109.00.
May 2007 Archives
In the ongoing Bike Shop quest for the “best lube ever,” the legendary framebuilder Bill Davidson told me about Eezox Cycle Tune-Up yesterday. By way of the gun community, a truly obsessive corrosion review, and an observation that the Vashon Island hippies would love it, cause it’s not petroleum based. He’s thinking it’s an unknown, to-be-discovered miracle lube that, “is a unique synthetic high-tech formula that will prevent excessive wear and dirt pick-up because it goes on wet, and lubricates dry.”
Suz Weldon racing for Wines of Washington and sponsored by Team Bike Hugger takes 2nd in the time trial at Mt Hood.
Velonews reports on Mt Hood and includes a photo of Suz Weldon. Suz races for Wines of Washington and is sponsored by Team Bike Hugger. Photo Credit Kurt Jambretz/Action Images
“A person operating a bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a steady red traffic control light shall stop before entering the inter-section, and shall yield to all other traffic. Once the person has yielded, he may proceed through the steady red light with caution. Provided however, that a person after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way if required may cautiously make a right-hand turn.”
This is brilliant. There are plenty of bike folk who behave as though this is the law in Seattle (I noted a couple of blatant red-light-runners on my way in this morning). As much as I hate stopping and waiting, it’s the law where I live. In Idaho – they have it figured out: Treat all red-lights as “Yields”. No complete stop necessary, no waiting. Sure, if there’s traffic you wait, but how much quicker would your commute be if you never had to wait at an empty red light. Time to write my congressman – I’m 180lbs…that’s some seriously wasted momentum!
The concept of the modal travel bike is to have a bike that is thoughtfully designed and equipped so that it could be run as a regular road bike or quickly converted into a single-speed road bike with minimal fuss and fit into an airline-friendly case for travel.
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The Mt. Hood Cycling Classic 2007 starts tomorrow and Team Bike Hugger is already there getting ready, previewing the course, and strategizing. Follow their progress on our team blog, check the photos on Flickr, cheer them on, and wish them luck.
So I’ve just got one week left to get everything together for my big trip to Japan. My travel bike is fully decked out for touring now….except for the gearing.
This came in from our contact form
Yesterday I met some wonderful individuals who really made my day. I was out for a bike ride with my girlfriend and I ended up popping a tire at the north end of Mercer Island. I was about to call my husband to pick me up when members of the Bike Hugger team kindly stopped and helped me out. Not only did they patch and pump my tire for me, they took the time to teach me how to do it in case it happens again in the future. It was so nice of them to stop their ride to help me out! THANK YOU!
It was our pleasure.
I discovered this interesting bike while researching the Bike Hugger Modal — here’s the translation from Dutch to English.
It’s a randonneur with enclosed Rohloff drivetrain and S&S Couplings.
Pam recently tested the BlackBottoms Argento shorts. The Argento is a women-specific short with a reflective panel for maximum visibility. Pam wore the Argentos during her commute and thought the reflective design is a great concept, especially when working late and leaving after the sun has gone down.
She thought the 4-way stretch-pad was comfortable and the short-cut leg fit her thighs just right.
Her only criticism was the material used for the shorts. For lack of better words, it was slick and plasticky. I noticed the blend BlackBottoms sent us (86% nylon/14%s pandex) is different than the blend they’re selling now (79% nylon 21%spandex) and that may account for the shininess.
If you’re riding at night, on dim-lit streets, the Argentos are a good choice.
While the socks and jerseys are being made, we’ve got another order of shirts in and are well stocked. The Amazon inventory will update in a few days and they’re shipping now directly from us via PayPal.
Team Bike Hugger has got the shirts as well and selling them at races and their get togethers to raise money. Their next race is Mt Hood. Check the shirt action shot in this post.
As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up and down in front of her window. (James Joyce, Ulysess, Nausicaa, 16925)
Later this Fall, we’ll build up Bettie 2.0 and looking forward to it. This summer, in time for more travel, Mark V, Bill Davidson and bicycle experts at Elliott Bay Bicycles are working with us on the Bike Hugger Modal™, a travel bike.
Mark has traveled extensively on an S&S frame and is about to embark on a tour of Japan with one sweet set up. Bill has been building bikes for like a hundred years and I gave them some creative direction, the parameters I had in mind, and they’re going to design and build it.
Credit goes to Mark for conceptualizing a bike that’s at home in the city and out in the country on farm roads. The Modal is being built out a titanium with S&S couplings and the ability to quickly switch between gears and a single speed. More details, photos, videos, and of course travel to follow.
I imagine Lemond is somewhere saying, “how ya like me now!” Portrayed as the bitter old champion, not given his due props, and the dude has been out saying all along that there were two speeds in the peloton: that he lost and left because he couldn’t keep up with the dopers. And this week, Zabel, Bolts admit doping. Today, Riis is expected to admit it — Musueew busted, who else? Don’t forget Lance’s contemporaries as well.
All this reminds me of the el dope penis graffiti you can catch a glimpse of during the mountain Stages of the Tour on OLN.
The sport is farcical now and it seems that bitter old man Lemond was right. He should be saying how ya like me now!
Update
So late the other day a celebrity entertainer walked into my shop and bought a bicycle.
... Read more »Professional cycling is getting curiouser and curiouser. Then I found this video, and I laughed till I cried. This is from the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim program, Robot Chicken.
From the Goat (who puts their bro-deal on the line everyday), we’ve got Crumpler’s Beer for Bags Exchange and
- A Traffic Calming Sasquatch
- GravityKarma from the UK notices that we’re green and pedally (now that’s a tag line!)
- MSU Bike Project helps more people ride bikes on campus
- Seattle Tilth offers bike tours of P-Patches
Green and pedally!
Hi. Thanks for coming into my shop and taking part of the consumer experience. Your disposable income is the sole source of our meager profit margins that support the shop’s overhead and indirectly my income.
What’s that? You’d like to ask me a bunch of questions? Why sure, I’d love to take time away from the other tasks that would have had priority over your whimsical visit, after all, I am a living reference free of charge.
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In conjunction with Bike To Work Month, Cascade’s education arm has launched a new campaign to spread the word about “Giving Cyclists Three Feet of Space”. I’d seen a few posters and bumper stickers around town, but it was on my bike commute to last weekend’s CTS ride that I saw the first billboard on South Dearborne, a major cycling artery into downtown Seattle.
... Read more »Working in the tech industry, when not blogging here, I’ve been following Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program. It started at $100.00 has gone through various permutations and he’s set to release it at $170.00. At the same time as Negroponte is evangelizing the laptop, the bicycle industry in various nonprofits is giving bikes to Africa: helping farmers, rebuilding economies, and transportion for health workers.
For $100.00, you can adopt an AfricaBike or give that same amount to World Bicycle Relief or Project Rwanda.
While I see value in OLPC and the passion that brought it to market, I also think a bike is going to help a kid more than a laptop. It’s working locally at Bike Works.
What do you think?
Hey there’s a couple of Wines of Washington team members in Bike Hugger Shirts playing bike polo! From Fred Soo Photography.
Pushing helmet camera technology even further is Twenty20, a fellow Seattle-based company. As I noted last year, helmet cams have come a long way since the Late Night Monkey-Cam and I’ve been getting asked lately about how we shoot videos on the bike. I’m actually (and surprisingly) using a Casio Exilim that shoots 30 mins of MPEG4 at 640x480 (available on Amazon.com). For web videos it works really well and steadies the shots with a fast shutter speed.
One drawback to the Casio method is that I’m holding it in one hand and that can get sketch in traffic or with a heavy load on Bettie.
Listened to this great story about biking to work from NPR on Sunday.
“We’ve been adding bike lanes, we’ve been adding bike racks,” he said. As for a two-wheeled commute, he added: “You don’t get quite the same feeling in a car.”
Also noticed on Friday this TRAFFIC ALERT: The state Department of Transportation is reporting a three-car accident on northbound I-5 near the Kent-Des Moines Road. The accident is on the right shoulder of the road and the distraction is backing up traffic further then usual this morning.
No backups on the bike path.
A bike taxi, presumed from Thailand, outside a store in Pioneer Square in Seattle.
A frequent site in the South Lake Union district of Seattle. That’s condos being built on both sides of the road with cyclists doing their best to find a way through all the construction.
So I was working a typical Saturday at the shop, splitting my time between wrenching on bikes and handling walk-in retail traffic, when a couple walk in from the ephemeral Seattle sunshine. Upon speaking to them, I learned that they were in the process of moving here from Japan. At first I was slightly embarrassed since I had moments before been practicing Japanese profanity with the shop’s long-suffering Japanese bookkeeper, but either they hadn’t heard me or they politely ignored it. Of course, since I am going to Japan IN TWO WEEKS for a solo bike tour, I’m eager to talk to anyone from Japan. And then came the big surprise….
With incredible weather and over thirty commute stations providing free snacks and schwag, Seattleites had every reason to take full advantage of Bike To Work Day. Powered by Cascade and caffeinated by Starbucks, the annual event saw nearly four thousand more bikes than last year, coming in at over 19,000 cyclists.
... Read more »On Memorial Day at noon, bring your sport-utiity bikes, longtails, and cargo bikes and meet at the Pike Place Pig for a totally flat ride to Lincoln Park in West Seattle. See the flyer and check the video below.
Rock the Bike is building up a ectoplasmic Soul Cycle Chopper to ride to work …
I’ll interrupt our normal bike blogging for stunning testimony today from Greg Lemond at the Landis arbitration hearing. Lemond told the courtroom that Landis implicitly admitted to him that he doped, that Landis’ business manger intimidated him before his testimony (and was fired on the spot in the courtroom), and that he was sexually abused as a child.
News Reports
Blogs
- The Dark Side Of American Cycling Is On Display Now
- Lemond’s Bizarro Bomb
- Cycling: Landis (Kangaroo?) Trial in Full Swing
The Ride of Silence was ridden last night across the country, the world, made some news, blogs, and on Flickr. And note that use of a longtail …
Well, hey, tomorrow is Bike to Work Day! That came up fast and I missed the related cycling needn’t be life-threatening editorial in the Seattle PI with its now standard cyclists suck/motorist suck comment thread.
I’ll join Pam during her commute on Bettie and will see you out there at the commute stations.
SoundClips is an occasional series from All Things Considered that collects various sounds from their listeners. One of the clips features the calipers and chimes at a bike shop in Moab.
Listen to the Bettie Grind, Stokemonkey music, and the sounds a Sport-Utility Bike makes in another Bike Hugger Bettie video. Download just the audio in .mp3.
Ingy döt Net, a fellow Wines of Washington teammate, blogs his way back to the bike after a terrible car crash.
Along with another whopping order of Bike Hugger shirts, we’ve got socks on the way. They’ll ship next month and we’ll sell them right here direct from us and on Amazon.com. After that, jerseys are in in the works as well.
A messenger paused at a crosswalk in downtown Portland. From the Bike Hugger Photostream …
Earlier this week, it was Drive your Bike to work day, a snarky look at Bike Month with related photos, suggestions, and advice on reducing your “carbon footprint” by having other people plant trees for you.
Like any other company marketing high-end technology, Specialized uses product buzz words like a TV chef throwing spices into a dish to turn it up a notch. The S-Works Tarmac SL is built with FACT, 10r carbon, Az1 construction, compact race design, Zertz inserts, proprietary oversized integrated bottom bracket, and a bunch of other fast stuff. The results, “the secret sauce,” is a light, stiff, compliant frame.
... Read more »While riding with members of the Chinook Cycling club in the Tri Cities last weekend, up in the Horse Heavens Hill, we passed a “euro” (no helmet) cyclist going the other way and one of the Chinooks yelled out, “HELMET!!!” We all laughed at the instaneous response to the helmetless rider, and it also reminded me of seeing Pam slide into a curb headfirst, sitting with her in the hospital while she recovered from a concussion, and how a helmet saved her.
The guy that yelled had a serious Evel Knievel-style bollard accident last year. Cracked ribs, punctured lungs, his story about the accident reminded me of the intro to the Six Million Dollar Man. Dude’s got a right to yell at anybody about not wearing a helmet. If there’s anything that’ll cause me to blurt out a warning, besides seeing a cyclist riding on a busy, congested, blue-collar worker road instead of the more quieter road a block over or the other one with a bike lane, is no helmet.
Modern helmets are light, breezy, and stylish and there’s no reason whatsoever for not wearing them. A few years ago, the pro peloton lost one of it’s one in a freak accident at the start of the race and helmets were mandated. Check this story from the AP about a delivery truck that ran over a cyclist’s head, “leaving him only with a concussion and a mangled helmet,” and tell me how cool you are by not wearing a helmet.
Somedays I roll out of bed and I think to myself “Mark, you are a god*&%$ed genius!”
Once in a while I have a brilliant idea. Like my super compact track bike design.
... Read more »While lacking the latest carbon technology, using bonded round tubes and lugs, the Trek Madone is still a favorite race bike contender with it’s predictable, solid handling, reasonable weight, and refined ride. A criticism of Trek is that they rely on 15-yr old technology in their frames. That changed when they started incrementally updating the frames based on the systems approach Lance and company took to bike racing.
... Read more »The Group Health Bike Saturdays and Sundays began yesterday, kicking off another summer of traffic-free family rides along Lake Washington. Sponsored by Group Health and Cascade Bike Club, the program closes Lake Washington Boulevard to motorized traffic, south of Mt. Baker Beach and around Seward Park on select weekend days throughout the summer.
Our neighbor Tom, and fellow sport-utility biker, brought home a total garage sale score with his Xtracycle.
A dutch cargo bike in P-town delivering pizza. Tom got the photo I missed last time I was there.
For more on Bakfiets, check this blog, Clevercycles, and a related article from the WSJ.
I’ve been out riding and talking to lots of people recently about Bettie and thought it’d help those looking for a sport-utility bike to collect links to our posts, videos, and resources, into one place.
(that’s Todd Fahrner and Bryan Rhoads having fun)
Update
See the updated review on Bettie 2.0. and note that Bettie 1.0 has been retired.
... Read more »On Flickr and from The Juice Peddler is a photo set featuring Tonya Kay; a raw-food-athlete, superhero, dominatrix dance performer, trained aerial stuntwoman, who can use her bike to blend you up one kick-ass smoothie. Check Rock The Bike for more on blender bikes, sport-utility bikes, and the spirit of the bike.
A chain broke on Bettie earlier this week while taking my daughter to school. Luckily my cat-like reflexes prevented a crash and we coasted back home. I got the chain fixed with a SRAM power link. That’s a simple invention that works amazingly well — no chain tool required.
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Marcus couldn’t be happier than scoring a Kozmo messenger bag off of eBay. I’ve seen these treasured bags in Seattle and San Fran. I don’t know more about their history, other than they were used by Kozmo messengers and last forever. I also periodically miss Kozmo and their tragic dotbomb. It sure was nice being able to call someone up to deliver fight club, a bag of chips, a pint of ice cream, and show up on a scooter wearing that cool bag.
There’s a joke in the cycling community that bike shops should include marriage counseling with a bike purchase or even offer up some advice with a cup of joe. Maybe set up a marriage counselor network for all them relationships gone bad when the bike becomes a priority as shown in this photo.
I’d think long and hard about putting my bike on the couch — choose wisely with your bike priorities. Unless of course, I was single and the boys were coming over with a case of beer to admire my new sport utility bike.
I was running errands on Bettie yesterday, dropped off more Clip-n-Seals, then to REI for an order, and rolling through the Stadium District, I passed another Sport Utility Bike.
It was a moment.
He waived, I waived all excitedly, blinged the bell, both smiled, and went about our day on our bikes.
For more Sport Utility Bikes, check this related flickr search and the Xtracycle gallery. The photo is from murrayneill’s photostream.
Used Basso blood doping bags (empty and clean for re-use) have appeared on eBay. Check it before they get pulled or sell and the related el dope story from Cycling News
Erck in New Zealand …
Erck.org is a a blog about how James and Sara Welle, “got married, quit our jobs, and bicycled around the world.” Sounds good to me! Well, we’re already married, but have cycled parts of the world and have lots more to ride.
Erck.org was outfitted by Elliott Bay Bicycles, one of our sponsors, and started their journey earlier this year. Inspired by the book, Miles from Nowhere they’re riding New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and South America.
They’re somewhere in Cambodia now, are not divorced, and like our trip to Beijing, are seeing a totally different world.
The deadline for the Seattle Bicycle Master Plan has been extended until 5 pm, May 18th, 2007. Get your comments in now; especially in light of the pressure the plan is under from Stone Way businesses.
Not nearly as surprising as seeing a Biomega in Design Within Reach, but today the New York Times ran a story on electric bikes. While good (any mainsteam coverage of bike commuting is good), the article missed the sport-utility bike market being built by companies like Clever Cycles, Xtracycle, Surly, and custom builders like Sycip and Vanilla.
We agree that cyclists are finding that bikes are, “a viable option for commuting, shopping and other local trips” especially with a long tail, rack, and motor assist.
As I noted in my Bettie Delivers post, if the attention the Bike Hugger Bettie gets is any indication of a national trend, we expect more cyclists to use their cars a lot less, if at all.
For more on electric bikes, check Electric Bikes Northwest ebikes.ca, a bike v. Prius, and Todd’s thougts on motors and bikes.
ESPN.com: Page 2 : Nothing little about IU's Little 500
ESPN's Jim Caple offers a feature story on Indiana University's Little 500, the race that features in 1979's Oscar-nominated Breaking Away.
This year's edition went off April 21st, and was won in a photo finish by the Cutters team, their 8th overall victory.
Also:
Gallery from gfisk.com
Flickr photoset by spence_sirRunning the kids around, errands, dates, and mostly delivering the goods is what we’ve been doing with Bettie. I’ve got suggestions for Stokemonkey, observations, and a movie after the jump.
It’s not often a bike-themed movie comes along and who knows if we’ll ever see one about Lance. That leaves us American Flyers, Breaking Away, and Quicksilver. In advance of the screenings, there are good reviews of The Flying Scotsman and Seattle is one of the few cities to get it in theaters.
Of course I remember the story in 1993 when Graham Obree broke the world record, had it stripped, won again, and the ongoing battles with his mind. In 1994, I started to get “serious” about cycling and he was one of the most talked about athletes in the sport.
Ain’t it cool news interviews Jonny Lee Miller who plays Obree and according to the reviews, Obree has several cameos in the movie.
A sinkhole will ruin a commute every-time! Bike Month Day Two in Seattle was interrupted by a massive sink hole under the south end of University Bridge.
I talked to a couple of cyclists from Redfin that just missed the sinkhole. Anyone see that happen?
Update
The Seattle PI updates the Sinkhole story with photos and the blogs are posting.
Hills, especially for those of us that don’t climb, are often debated, considered, and argued about during rides or when prepping for the big race. “What’s the grade? Does it stair-step? Is there a wall? Mostly flat, or rollers?” While we debate if it’s a climber’s race or power hills and what wheels to ride, a reader sent in meInnovations Rides, a definitive guide to the hills of the northwest, including Cougar Mountain.
... Read more »During an REI Legendary Lunch Ride last week, I quipped, “Hey! no one told me it was bring the good wheels day!” One of the lunch ride hammerheads was all riding his Zipp’s and damn, I should’ve brought my Heds. That reminded me it was time to post a review of my new hoops.
To some, cycling is all about the wheels and earlier this year, Mark posted his Aero Wheel Wisdom and that’s the Stinger 50 he’s gluing up. I’ve also been riding the Jet 60, another great wheelset.
... Read more »As we kick off National Bike Month this morning, the hugga is here to provide a list of Seattle local events and happenings throughout the month. Many thanks to our friends over at Cascade for a great schedule of events.
- Throughout May: Group Health Commute Challenge and Bike to School Challenge
- May 2: UW Hubbub Rally
- May 18th: Starbucks Bike to Work Day and Bike to School Day
Bike Month is here — yippee! — and all over the country bike challenges are being thrown down. Like the Seattle org that’s donating cash for every 5 round trips a commuter rides, the Kennewick REI stores with schwag and prizes, and the overall Group Health Commute Challenge with lots of activities and lots of sponsors.
... Read more »Next Bike Hugger Mobile Social
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