I’d like a robot that’d make me a sandwich. Maybe read my email aloud in the voice of Data and degrease/lube a chain in one fast operation. A robot that parks bikes is good as well …
Noted elsewhere
But I think I’d rather have a hardass bike valet carefully keep all the bikes inline and monitor them, then a darn robot. Robots are prone to growing into giants and taking over the world.
Will the bike industry ever stop re-launching Bridgestones? Bike Radar spotted the Mellow Johnny commuter and an astute commenter noted
I’m intrigued by this chainless design …
No chain! It’s a dandy horse!! Now that’s way old school.
(Photo Credit: Trek)
Following folding bikes in pop culture, we just got tipped that Dahons are on the CSI:NY set, at Pomono College for their Green Bike program, and were on the Coachella Amtrak Train with DJ Mark Farina.
At Coachella, the DJ booth ran on full solar plus bikes being used as a charging station for iPods and phones.
(Photo Credit: MXF of the Sycons)
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According to press reports over the weekend, Washington DC is launching the first bike share program in the US. It works like Zipcar with an annual fee, stations, and 120 bikes. The SmartBikeDC bikes are three-speed, upright “comfort” bikes. They feature mudguards to prevent the rider from getting wet, chain guards to keep clothes from getting caught, front and rear lights that turn on in the dark and easily adjustable seats.
A quick teaser that we’ve got Bettie 2.0 being built right now as well as the Yuba Mundo — full tests and posts are coming soon. With two longtail, sport-utility, cargo bikes on test, maybe we’ll race them or something …
While focused on climbing, I enjoyed this video from Gregory Mountain Products, and longed for a ride in the quite of nothing around me. The video features Joe Kinder, an NYC Punk that went rural in Hurricane, Utah.
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With the news that the economic stimulus checks are going out, I wondered what bike huggers would spend them on; would they bank the cash for gas when they have to drive, upgrade their bikes, get some new bike parts, wheels? Donate it? Or work on folding it all into shirts!
What are you spending it on?
I’d add a bike rack to this art project
for the irony and found this French Fry Holder incredibly obscene and then thought, “that’d be pretty cool for Bettie when taking the kids out to eat!
We’re in Portland Oregon for our next Hugga Event and it’s on May 21st to coincide with Webvisions. Just like we did at SXSW, we’re going to ride and then meetup at a pub for a reception with a raffle, giveaways, and schwag o’ plenty. Register for the Mobile Social on Upcoming. Participation is limited to 50.
Check below for the ride details and back here for updates.
WebVisions is a two-day web conference that explores the future of Web design, technology, user experience and business strategy.
Built up the Trek Project One Madone over the weekend with SRAM Force. Earlier this year, the DA parts from the Madone had been dispersed to the Hotspur and Modal and I’ve been wanting to test SRAM. The summary report is “very good” with these observations
I figured out the DoubleTap shifting in about 17 seconds. I did periodically grab the brake lever while shifting and I also a few times wanted to shift a button with my thumb like Campy. Cable actuation and all the engineering didn’t matter much to me, but I did wonder what was happening between my index finger and brain to figure out that a short tap meant a rapid upshift and a longer double-click meant a downshift. I didn’t really have to think about it is the point. It just works.
Some link love for the bloggers at Sea Otter
Gergely wrote to tell us that Budapest, traditionally one of the most bicycle-unfriendly cities, has experienced a major boost in the numbers of bike-commuters and cycling is emerging in their mainstream media from the work of a small group of bike activists.
Critical Mass in Budapest include tens of thousands, from diverse backgrounds: “whole families, white collar workers, as well as messengers, young guys on bmxes, etc.” Their next ride is tomorrow and 30 thousand are expected.
... Read more »Met this commuter riding home on Beach Drive, near Alki Beach in Seattle. We talked about his Novara Big Buzz and how he rides it everyday. He dug it and also wished it had a bigger climbing gear and a longer seatpost.
We’re putting together the details now for our next Hugga event in Portland, the land of bike culture and Creative Capacity. The event is scheduled for May 21st to coincide with Webvisions. Just like we did at SXSW, we’re going to ride and then meetup at a pub for a reception with a raffle, giveaways, and schwag o’ plenty.
Recommendations on the ride and pub?
At the Biggest Little Bike Shop in the World, they’ve got an Oil Addiction Treatment Center and it’s staffed by Jim Hopperstad who’s been around forever, since the days of leather chamois, wearing cycling shoes without socks, and when bikes were only made with steel …
As the story goes, back in 1969, his brother smoked a big, fat spliff and came up with the name Bikesmiths — there are lots of Bikesmiths now, but this one is the original. Jim’s featured in Road Bike Action this month and for every possible bike topic, he’s got an opinion. For example, he observed my Rolls saddle was dated and that lead to a discussion concerning hairnet helmets with an additional digression into the quality of Deda components v. Ritchey. Then onto Michelin’s new Pro 3, how Seattle is an anthill, and how riding fixies without brakes can lead to broken wrists.
Of all the things I’ve found while riding (a garden gnome, various screwdrivers, a yoyo, etc.) this bra is one of the best and I thought it made a nice adornment to Mark’s frame…
It was found on Western Ave in downtown Seattle.
What have you found? I heard about a cyclist finding an XBox once and one of my teammates found enough cash to buy us all pizza.
At Bike Hugger we’ve become connoisseurs of bike paths and think that Santa Barbara has the best ones in the world. Huggacast Thirty Eight features two sections of the Pacific Coast Route.
What bike paths do you think are world class?
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This is Pike Tandem and it’s good. What’s your favorite bike beer?
Huggacast Episode Thirty Seven, we commute in Shanghai by bike, ferry, and on a Maglev train.
Notes:
Lynskey built this bike for Sgt. Lee Robbs of the Chattanooga Police Department who will take part in the 2008 Police Unity Tour: a ride for those who died.
Back from Shanghai and finally, mostly over the massive jet lag, I toggled the Modal from single to geared. Despite the f’ing rain, I found that most enjoyable because there’s zen in working quietly on a bike and going out for a ride. It took me about an hour to switch and Mark does it in about 15 minutes.
A few updates:
Note: The Modal is a travel bike concept that folds and toggles between single, fixed, and geared modes.
I think everyone saw the Trek/Lemond split coming …
Trek Company Update, ‘Trek to Immediately Sever Relationship with Greg LeMond’
There’s a Press Release and a whole media primer. If this is public, you can bet it got real nasty — you can even smoking gun it yourself in this initial summons and read a ways into the complaint to find that it’s an alleged Bro deal gone wrong (page 4, para 16)!
… since 1999 Greg LeMond has made numerous purchases of LeMond bicycles at employee pricing from Trek with a suggested retail value of over $2,500,000. Upon information and belief, Greg LeMond has resold, bartered for value or otherwise distributed many or most of these bikes, harming Trek and its dealers
Bring together two design houses — Cinelli and RVCA — with renowned artists to work on a new sportswear concept with an artistic sensibility and that results in Pressure
Providing a new statement on a traditional sport and furthermore imparting a fresh insight into a subculture very much responsible for a new movement in popular culture, Pressure matches RVCA’s deep roots within the arts and Cinelli’s apparent appreciation for world class design.
Pressure is a haute couture bike show!
Launch Date & Time World Premiere Thursday | 19th June | 2008 7pm To 10pm
Location Vasf Gallery 1485 Haight St San Francisco | Ca
Bikes seen in Shanghai …
And whenever I’d see one of these bikes, I’d wonder, "what’s he doing with that big bag of ?" Also seen, but not photographed were “giant tubes” and my all-time fav was scooter-assisted cargo bike.
That happens a lot in China, btw, you’ll see all sorts of crazy things on the street. I’ll never forget bucket-of-meat bike in Beijing.
Reading about the self-induced misery, woe-as-me, sad, geek, overweight bloggers, nearing an early death in the NYTimes, I thought, “get outside!” At least with bike blogging, we’re like out testing and riding bikes — traveling around and blogging about it. And for the celeb watchers, Bicycling is featuring Dr. McDreamy on the cover who lost 15 pounds by riding his bike — yippee! I see a blogger episode of the Biggest Loser already being planned. The irony of social media is how unsocial and unhealthy it is for the people glued to their computer screens, least of which is how unproductive it can become.
I get asked about posting frequency a lot and the volume you read from us is the mininum to push any sort of traffic advertisers and Google will notice. But note that more volume, like that of a Gawker Media blog, and you have no life, outside of Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, and various other social media apps. I don’t consider that heroic, btw, even if the money is purportedly good or slashdotted as being really not that much. It’s more heroic to blog and balance your life. For us, there’s just too much riding out there to do and our posting volume shows that.
Hope you all are ok with that and are out riding as well.
Another alternative transportation that totally f’ing rules — at least from a tourist point of view — is Maglev! We hit 301K km/h, got to the airport from downtown in 7 minutes (an hour in a cab) and you wouldn’t know you were going that fast unless you looked outside …
More on the Maglev
All over the news here in Shanghai, on CNN International, is NYC’s congestion charging initiative. Following London and the UK, NYC is about to implement fees to drive into the city. Woohoo we say and Dahon has already got a page up supporting the measure and expect other manufactures to follow.
We’d hope most people would just realize, “hey you can ride in,” but if we’ve got to do some hand waving to help, then ok.
Your thoughts on city’s charging to drive?
The French Concession has bike and scooter only roads that wind around and we rode them with Jonathan from the Crash Test Dummy Blog while he shot video. Yes that’s rather recursive, but so it goes in the bike blogosphere …(and I never see this angle, as I’m usually the one shooting video)
Notes:
In Huggacast Episode Thirty Six, we visit the Bund by way of a trippy tourist tunnel and find the Pudong bike expressway where a scooter-assisted cargo bike is plodding along. Watch for the mockery from another scooter as they ride by.
Notes:
We were at a party last night in Shanghai and met a fellow bike racer … a perfect topic for Huggacast Episode Thirty Five.
Video from day one in Shanghai at the Intel Developer Forum and riding the Bund.
To make ourselves more relevant in Web 2.0, we’re changing our name to Bike Huggr. Later today, the rebrand will roll out with various other two-syllable, no consonant sounds and new consumer goods like
and we’re working on wrapping old bikes with carbon fiber to speed them up.
Last night we toured the French concession with Robert from the Crash Test Dummy blog. Besides every other occupation you can imagine, Robert occasionally straps a camera to his bike, rides to work in Shanghai traffic, and uploads the video. We naturally have something in common. And besides introducing us to Yue-Sai Kan, the most famous women in China who also has a blog, we also talked about Shanghai at length. Living, working, riding here, and the culture.
And saw a glimpse of the Sun this morning. After more coffee it’s off to the Intel Developer Forum and all the new mobile technology.
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