It’s time for the weekly Bike News Roundup. As always, this is an open thread.
First up, a new film from a Scottish duo documents their cross-country bike tour. The title: Sleepless ’til Seattle.
Pacific Northwest News:
- Hub and Bespoke Holiday Sale
- Cascade hires former Olympia city councilmember, Matthew Green « Cascade Bike Blog
- BikePortland.org » Duo arrested after loading stolen bikes into pickup near SE Hawthorne Blvd.
- Man, woman hit by SUV Thursday in Wal-Mart parking lot | seattlepi.com
- Only in Seattle: An apartment building designed for bicyclists – MyNorthwest.com
Halftime show! While you were off doing something else, somebody invented this:
National & Global News:
- Bike commuters power though the winter cold – The Washington Post – New bike facilities mean more all-weather cycling (you hear that, Seattle-is-too-rainy naysayers?)
- For kids, riding bikes to school through winter is fun. Parents see something bigger. | Calgary Herald – So awesome.
- Road built around building as couple refuse to move in China | Mail Online – Amazing photos.
- Study: Biking Restores Brain Connectivity in Parkinson’s – Lindsay Abrams – The Atlantic
- Are Cycle Tracks A Better Way To Bike? | KPBS.org
- Bike share, not white share: can Chicago’s program achieve diversity? | Grid Chicago
- Auto Industry Statistics – Nate Silver on Car Culture – Esquire – Several years old, but still good
- Sharrows Are Not A Bike Plan « Systemic Failure
- Mayor Rob Ford guilty, kicked from office but can run again – thestar.com – Funny that his excuse that he didn’t read the conflict-of-interest rules. He should have just read them while driving.
- Green Lane Project plays key part of reimagined Memphis neighborhood
- Mexican president tours new highway on his bike | Fox News Latino
- “Heroine” cyclist plunges into in to Swansea dock to rescue woman… then pedals off | road.cc
- BLAZE Bike Light by Emily Brooke — Kickstarter – A bike light that projects and image of a bike forward to help prevent right hooks (well, it’s British, so left hooks)
Re “Powering Through”: My theory on the seasonality of cycling is something like this: there are a variety of obstacles to biking, and at any given time any person will tolerate obstacles up to some threshold. Some obstacles: distance, hills, cold, rain, darkness, and traffic. When the weather is nice and it’s bright outside I’m willing to ride long distances up and down hills in traffic. When it’s dark, cold, and rainy I’ll still ride, but I won’t ride as far or in as much traffic. If I have to go a long way, and have to choose between steep hills and heavy traffic, I just won’t ride very often in the winter…
And if I’m making a shorter trip, and there’s a route where I’m going that’s reasonably flat, and I’m comfortable with the traffic/intersections on this sort of route, I’ll bike all year. Rain snow or hail.
I went to Memfix. What a great project! This is an exciting time to be in Memphis. We now have 35 miles of bike lanes when a few year back, we had zero. The city has plans for 85 miles, a bike path across the Mississippi River to Arkansas, and the first cycle track should be completed next year. The weather is great for cycling, and the roling hills are not big enough to discourage new riders. One interesting observation: in Memphis, traffic is lower and drivers expect pedestrians to materialize out of nowhere and dart cross the road. This conditions drivers to be more alert to bicycles and pedestrians. I’be felt safer riding here than I expected to.
Well I just kicked in for that green laser bicycle light. Looks pretty cool. My lights are pretty bright but this should give me one more thing to stand out for in city riding.