okay welcome everybody to the second edition of the seattle bike blog bike news roundup chat i am your editor Tom fuqua Laura and I'm here with Marlee Blonsky thank you for showing up yes a little bit of a scheduling but we did it yes yes you did it thank you for having me yes be there will be no crying baby in this episode so yes excited about that I've had a fun couple days personally of being the only one at home when do they are out in Denver they come back this week okay um so I've had a couple days of like playing music late at night is me kind of nice yeah my partner has also been out of town this week which I'd need to like do so much laundry before he gets back so so the bike news roundup video is we're gonna go through a couple stories that count you know caught my eye in recent weeks and just kind of talk about them gonna be very casual and we should just get into it but the first one is actually a couple weeks old starring Marlee in the Washington Post the act democracy dies in darkness it's so weird to see that photo just like on The Washington Post right it's I actually hated that photo for a long time um now that it's over I'm like okay I like it say hey you got Crocs hanging off clearly we're having a good day it was a fun cure so where was this it was a Vancouver Island for July 4th last year I went up with a couple girlfriends and we took the ferry to Victoria and then rode around up in that area I highly recommend you wanted to go somewhere where they were not celebrating America it worked no fireworks I bet uh well it's right by Canada today and so there were definitely some leftover fireworks - okay so turns out people celebrate everywhere yeah fireworks can be fun yeah so um I guess tell me a little bit about how this story happened like where did it come from how did it happen yes so as folks may or may not have heard my friend Kaylie and I connected at the WTF bike explorers summit last year and we did a CO presentation about how we can make our communities more inclusive for people of all sizes on bikes but especially for fat folks that's how I personally identify or four people in larger bodies and then we were encouraged to submit that presentation to the League of American Bicyclists they do an annual or a National Bike Summit every year and so we submitted it it got accepted as a proposal and so we'll be going to Washington DC to give this proposal in a couple weeks and we start doing the math on it and realize this is gonna be a pretty expensive trip you know flights and hotel and just kind of all the logistics that went into it so Kayla and I were kind of like well maybe we'll ask some industry folks for money to just offset the cost because neither of us work in the bike industry and then after talking to some friends they're like well I would ship in you know 20 bucks or 50 bucks or hundred bucks and that's how we set it on the GoFundMe and so we launched it and then we got an email out of the blue from this reporter Theresa Vargas and she also is a recreational writer in Washington DC but she was telling us about how you know write writing WRI T writing about bikes is kind of a third rail in DC and she's just you know I voids it at all costs but she said this was like a way to humanize it and she just really identified strongly with our story and said I want to explore this and I just kind of went from there great yeah yeah what I guess for people who have not read it what um it's about big fat on bicycles which you wouldn't think as a radical act um but I've been riding my bike around Seattle for a long time now and Kaylie's been doing the same and you know I think when people see us or they hear that we go bike camping or go on adventure cycling trips it's like this you do what now so we often get a lot of questions about like the practicalities of what equipment we use or what bikes we ride so a part of our presentation is about that and some of the articles about that but it's also just about like how we as a cycling community can be more inclusive to people of all sizes and that of course extends to incomes and genders and all sorts of things because I think cycling can be like very mono cultural cultural and it seems like this is a very thematic conversation yes the bike bugs been having and this is just another element to it like we're not all that spelt feather feather weight writer which great if you are but that's not my experience right and I want to show that biking can be a fun thing right regardless of what body urine in the and also fight back from I imagine you get frustrating comments over and over like good for you oh my gosh yeah and old time especially like at the top of hills or like as I'm like slowly climbing you know people will pass me and be like oh you're almost there like keep up the good work and I just wonder like would you say that to a skinny person riding up the hill so you know I for anybody watching this Oh encourage you like if you're thinking about saying something to somebody like take that second thought and evaluate what I say this was skinny person if not don't like you might think it right don't say it are there other frustrations that you encounter a lot that comes specifically from cycling community yeah it's I think there's an assumption that you know maybe because we're not wearing the right clothes or we don't look like everybody else in a group ride that we're not as experienced and you know that might be the case and that's totally fine but it's probably because they don't make it in our size so it's like if I show up to a group ride not wearing like an actual raincoat like a cycling raincoat and I've got ass like a poncho on it's because they don't make a biking raincoat in my size or you know group group rides with a labeled beginner intermediate and advanced but it's based on the pace of the ride I think there's an assumption there that no matter how long you've been riding if you're slower you're still a beginner and I think that's a pet peeve of mine cascade actually does a really really great job of labeling their riots as like leisurely strenuous like according to the speed and they all like they've got a great chart on their website where they tell you like what that actually means and I just wish so advanced is not twenty miles per hour exactly yeah because like you could be going really slow and you could be riding your entire life so like right just like it takes those value judgments out which I live I wish more rides would do it because yeah and my advance might be your beginning you know like yeah I mean otherwise yeah cuz like the the you know probably the the most advanced bike rider I know of is Merlin it's Charlie she leads rides senior ladies on wheels yeah what you don't have to be a senior or a lady to go to and it's like the most welcoming community ever right so if you're looking for a group ride you're like I don't know what to do look up those right yeah but so like advanced cycling is yeah not mean fast and almost specifically totally I think about some of like the family bikers I know like navigating three kids on a bicycle like that's so badass and like I would call that advanced but you're not gonna see that like I I don't know it's just it's a peppy but as far as frustrations go like I don't find that many of them otherwise you know I wouldn't I don't think biking would be as joyful to me as it is yeah sure I get fresh air for the clothing that's probably my number one frustration because I would love technical clothing that fits well and like does the job like I don't have a good raincoat for cycling like I have a poncho which is awesome but it flaps so especially when it's windy um I were like rain pants everybody like I love when fall comes around everybody's on the forums about like which waterproof pant should I wear and I just want to be like plastic bags like I don't know I don't have a good answer because as if that person I don't have that experience of having technical clothes at fit um I'm sorry I'm just ranting right now but that's great it's not anything yeah it's kind of cool because like this community is this conversation is happening in other outdoor industries as well so there's some really really awesome folks doing a lot of work in like the rock climbing community to get plus-sized harnesses which will open up that world to so many more people and the hiking world and the running world so I think you know we're gonna get there with bicycling especially like as more folks get on a bikes and just we get away from this car centric world we've been living in like I will have a raincoat that fits me one day like it will happen like I'll get the cute long tail and like it'll be good yeah so is it then hmm so you're saying no one even makes the products or that Pete local shops don't as far as well so I don't want to shoot myself in the foot here because there are some brands doing the work but it's limited and hard to find so when this article came out people came out of the woodwork and said you know hey I had the same experience as you I started a company but they're very small niche meet knit I don't know how do you say it but very nice you're in yes it differently okay so I'm not wrong Mich but anyway very very small companies and so that's been really cool to learn about but I mean I've been cycling for I don't know a long time and I shouldn't have to be in the Washington Post to learn if I hope these brands but I've googled for them like it's it's just really really hard like when I go to REI I can find yoga pants I could find hiking pants in plus sizes I started doing that two years ago maybe which is super awesome but in the cycling section it only goes up to like sometimes a double XL which in cycling world usually means a 16 to 18 which just coincidentally the average size of a woman in the US which you can go down all sorts of rabbit holes talking about sedentary lifestyles and bullshit but we need bigger sizes this mm-hmm the crux of it so yeah so what about going into bike shops do you ever have assumptions made or experience frustrations that way not in Seattle as everyone knows you yeah I feel like a jerk saying that but I you know I love the server that just came out I think it showed the strength of our community um because I think in general especially over the past six or seven years like shops have gotten so much better at just like asking questions and not making assumptions and I haven't had that same experience in other cities and granted I think my experience is different than a lot of folks because of you know the web presence that I've had and speaking at Stoke spoke and just kind of frankly Who I am and in the bike world here in Seattle but when I've gone to other shops and you know Portland or just other places and folks don't know who I am there are for sure assumptions made that like you know I'm there with a partner who rides a bike and I have not the one looking for a bike or and so many times it's not the exact opposite right now yeah although he has two bikes when he first started dating he didn't have any bikes good job yeah yeah one of us also like this is gonna need to happen we're getting married yeah what yeah no yeah I don't got to wear my ring tonight um close the gym before this but uh yeah we're getting around this summer thanks that's great yeah yeah so whoo more big news yeah awesome you heard it here first yes no probably not actually I probably just missed a Facebook post or something yeah I don't think maybe our anyway anyway anyway it's exciting yeah yeah in other cities there's so many assumptions made from you know you want to be on a cruiser bike or you know when I rent bikes in other cities I often get like a shitty hybrid no offense to anybody who rides a hybrid if that works for you but I'm often looking for like a touring style bike or something that's kind of holding my weight in all honesty I you know I get something that's just like not comfortable for me to ride and I have to like prove my knowledge for them to like set me up on a bike that they feel is appropriate for me so yeah what else what else from the story oh gosh um well if you haven't seen this month's bicycling magazine uh-huh um go pick it up Kaylee who's right here she's on the cover of it which we should we should pull that up and show folks but she wrote this awesome awesome article Kaylee is a PhD student and she is just really really articulate and phenomenal and has done a lot of work around fad activism and body positivity and so I really encourage folks to go read that article and you know follow us on social media to to hear more about it but yeah Thomas pulling it up now but she's the print night on the cover and it's just been really overwhelming to kind of see this movement take off yeah it's been oh that's awesome I have enough I haven't read this yet so I'll have to add it to the please do yeah and then everyone you all watching the video will know like oh that was added later yeah have the insights like how it all comes together oh yeah great that's awesome yeah so we had the Washington DC in a couple weeks really really excited for it and actually the Washington Post article helped us meet our fundraising goal so anybody who's watching this thank you and we exceeded the goal and so we're actually able to give the talk to a couple extra audiences while we're out there so we'll give it to the Washington Alliance Washington area bicyclist Alliance and then we're also gonna take the train up to DC excuse me from DC to New York and give it to we bike New York City which is a women's empowerment focus group so that's awesome yeah it's really exciting that's great and are you doing the talk around here we have not thought about that but we should yeah yeah it tends to be more it's like an hour-long kind of seminar um are you depending on timing we might be doing it at the Washington State bike Beck and roll I totally have a work trip scheduled to Germany but we'll see what happens with coronavirus so my work cancelled all international travel right now um so who knows if I don't go to Germany I'll be in Spokane giving the talk there okay but then I think we should try and set something up maybe at a brewery or something cuz it's definitely it's a really really good talk but it also it's an awesome community building experience yeah yeah yeah and bad great thanks yeah anything else we should talk about in the story not that I can think of um you know I would say reach out if you read it and have questions um we link to a blog that that I posted I guess on my own blog with some practical resources you know talking about one thing that we don't address in the article itself but that is a big part of our conversation when we get this talk is safety as a larger person or a bicycle there's some like everyday realities to it like bikes have my creams have weight limits and so you know if you're a bigger person in a bigger body whose bike shopping I'd say don't be afraid to ask those questions but also be aware that like you're gonna go through brake pads faster which isn't a big deal just learn how to change your brakes yourself and you're gonna save yourself a lot of money like that's something I didn't learn it first and I was paying mechanics so much money to change my brake pads the first thing you did to yourself like that was it yeah yeah but you know what good for them like I love like support your local bike shop absolutely but yeah I don't think there's anything else specifically in there but that question came up a lot it was like specific shopping or recommendation so I would say go to my blog and we've got practical tips people still get the Snickers um no but I think we're gonna get more okay so yeah we'll make you some more with these live stickers cuz everybody loved him yeah yeah I've seen though I've seen them around yeah that's all you saw yes she talked about some other news uh well I want to ask you one more just like how did you in general start writing and evangelizing know this like what that's a great question um I think I saw I haven't really thought about this and I probably should know my origin story a little better um my cousin asked me this of Thanksgiving she's like you know I noticed a shift in your your online presence I think it was watching other fat activists on Instagram like be really true about their story and be true about themselves and then when I was at the WTF bike explorers summit two years ago in Montana we were talking so much about inclusivity and creating community and I still felt like there was this like proverbial elephant in the room where we weren't talking about people of different body sizes you know we're talking a lot about race and class and gender and super super important topics but you know when we would talk about clothing recommendations I felt left out because it was like oh I just wear these men's wool underwear and it was like okay cool they go up to a size large or whatever it is or talking about jerseys and it's like okay that company doesn't even make my size and so I realized even in this like incredibly supportive environment at the WTF bike Explorer summit that there was still learning that needed to happen within our community and so I gave the first intro talk I give a first talk in Montana kind of off the cuff of here's hope we can be better right now in this space and that morphed into collaborating last year with Kaylee into writing about it and sharing more of my experiences as you know even just feedback from the community of like hey you've got a like really compelling story that's inspiring to people we should tell it and that took a lot of coaxing on my side cuz I was like I'm just riding my bike like I don't see this as anything like radical or revolutionary and that's like oh maybe it is well so I still have to be convinced of it somedays right well I'm I appreciate everything they all the work that you put into it Thanks and being so like sharing and cuz like you know I think every you know there's a lot of people who think that no one would care about my story yeah I mean that's honestly how I felt for a long time and then you started hearing people say like oh you inspired me to do this I'm like oh thanks like right it's really easy to discount yourself then it's like wait a second okay and that's what keeps me going and doing this it's like okay I really want to take the bus today or if I ride my bike like I might see some friends out there I might see somebody then you know who's stuck on the bus saying like oh well that lady's riding her bike it looks like she's having fun maybe I should try that so yeah absolutely yeah but sometimes I still take the bus oh yeah the bus is awesome I love the bus it's like it's a you stand on it and it goes we do anything it's amazing there's a really good podcast 99% invisible and I was the speaker last week but it was all about buses and they were kind of like knocking on America's bus systems and I was like not in Seattle like the best bus system like it comes all the time well okay I'm talking from the point of privilege I live in Fremont our buses have gotten way better over the years so absolutely and I hope they continue to so yes yes yes uh we don't have a story about know we started off that podcast yes yes okay but I was story about I nine seven six funding yeah the update there which I don't know I'll put it in the bike news on the pasta okay is that some early worrying losses in King County court over that mm nothing definitive and Dunn's doesn't totally matter because it's all gonna get appealed to as high as it can go anyway but it obviously is better if you win the first case but if you lose it so they haven't lost yet but the judge threw out a bunch of the arguments against it that out people were hopeful we're gonna stick so you know it's all gonna get appealed a million times this thing's gonna drag out forever but I nine seven six funds our bus service are a huge chunk of it so those is it like your seven-minute buses might become 15-minute buses which is the difference between I will just go there right and it you know just wait for the next one and oh when is the schedule and you know following it or like I'll just transfer cuz it's doesn't matter versus like oh sometimes you transfer and it takes like forever hi yeah your twenty minute bus ride becomes like an hour long bus right yeah and we'll get back in their cars which is like the worst thing so yes I won't so hopefully we can find a way to not cut all of us servers but all right early vote often you want to talk about well first let's talk about Stokes poke oh sorry yeah actually bring that up um so Stokes poke is happening on Wednesday this upcoming Wednesday the 26th Stokes poke is a annual presentation or program series put on by our local Swift industries it's a storytelling night and this month is really special it's all people of color telling stories so it should be really really exciting and then also beforehand we're doing a WTF happy hour beat up so for folks who aren't familiar WTF is women trans femme and non-binary so if you fall into that bucket or those many buckets and you want to meet up with other folks please feel free to come out we are gonna meet up at optimism brewing okay starting around 5:00 and then we'll go and tell I think doors open at 6:30 I'm super casual optimism is all ages so if you're under 21 or have a kiddo feel free to bring them by and it's not exclusive but we would like to keep it WTF centric so please do respect that yeah that finally and I believe Stoics poke costs five bucks at the door so yeah but it's really fun a really great way to you know it's kind of that time where you might want to be planning what you're gonna be doing with if you're if you're not in the winter bike adventures which they're playing people are I'm not one of them I I have done them and if you heard that you know the concept of type 2 fun yeah so the types of fun I have known have no idea where this came from do you know I think it's like am I got hiking like mountain adventuring don't make sense but oh wow the types of fun are like type 1 fun is it's just fun yeah I would do it again like without hesitation it's fun while you're doing it yeah and it's fun to talk about it later yeah type 2 fun is it kind of sucked while doing it but it's fun to talk about later great yeah and type 3 is just like hollaback was called like yeah yeah but you mainly hear about like type 1 or type 2 so yeah yeah yeah type 3 fun just isn't actually fun it's not actually fun but I mean I guess like if you survive it you have a great story to tell great but yeah you know like what was that movie with the guy had to cut his arm off good oh that's not the no 127 you got a great story but so ya know I've done some winter camping trips where like was you know it rained 40-degree rain no thank you or you know six hours of biking and you can't dry off because then you get to your campsite and what you climb in a tent okay that's not that's not super dry like yeah I got I feel like I've had summer trips I better like fall season where it's like I just can't get warm and I think about doing that now and I'm like oh I did one camping trip we biked that - uh what's that Monte Cristo in the yeah okay all the way Donald Trump's grandpa had an office or something you know that that's really good well yes you can we on that trip there are too many of us to take the bus so you can it's a really really hardcore day but you can take the bus to Everett essentially and you have more options during the week but on the weekends you pretty much limited to Everett but you can take some buses like like get you out to like gold bar or something I think oh my gosh only during the week but yeah so you can bike from the end of the bus I'll come out on the highway and then there's a road just that goes up there now which for a long time I was washed out okay there is a road that you can actually bike on the main road is washed out but there's like a back road Oh which we found out that out the hard way we went up there on the old road and we had to like here like throw our bikes across the river basically but we drove up there to like the parking lot and then we did the washed out area and I'd like for de River and yeah yeah yeah but it's a cool cool ghost towns so go see it but it we but I wouldn't do it in the winter no yeah this was this was I guess late fall but it was super cold and the night was like 15 hours 14 hours was it like that yeah oh and my sleeping bag my tent started leaking and then it made the area of my sleeping bag was completely soaked so I had to like curl up so that my feet weren't in the water the whole night no thank you type that was definitely type 2 fun yeah but I saw the site of Donald Trump's grandpa's old real estate office well howdy boy anyway the point is you should go see other people tell stories yes because they will have pictures and inspiration and it supports a cool thing but also if your WTF coming out with us beforehand optimism yes yeah well obviously gonna make sure y'all see and you know of course with industry is a love like blood sponsor okay so this was not did not pay us to do this bit but I guess they sort of did so dentistry's is amazing they not just because their bags are good they're so supportive as a company just everything yep I love them okay what's your talking about next um podcast I've been trying to get this podcast the whole time okay I'm really excited about this one so we got to hang out is a really cool podcast out of Portland and they typically do with almost always bicycle eccentric stories and this time it was about our local friend is he cedar bomb Seder mom I hope I said that correctly but you should totally listen to it I listen to it at lunch and I was laughing I was crying I learned so so so so much just go listen to it I don't care who you are it's so good so is this podcast always really good yes okay but I especially related to this episode they we got to hang out tends to be more like a racing focused so they tend to interview a lot of folks who were like professional cyclists or like really deep into the bike industry so that's not really like where my passions in cycling lie but it was cool to hear from Izzy they grew up with a racing background but now they do a lot of work around like trans transgender rights and justice and equity and they've done a lot of work with the WTF bike explorers and they were also involved it's not my story to tell at all but they were involved in that the really tragic accident in North Bend a couple years ago and this is I think the first time they've spoken publicly about it so but the story that is he tells is just phenomenal about so many things that I learned so much that I can't can't recommend it enough so give it a listen great yeah thank you yes I am NOT I don't now listen to yes no I'm very excited yeah it's a great listen and is he as funny as hell like I found myself laughing so many times also enough yeah well it sounds great yeah really good alright looking at story from our list now this one yeah this one this is Seattle Times thing got cut offices so this this is okay so this story there's a lot to unpack in this story so there's this building with you know like these units in this building like the cheapest you could possibly get is about six hundred thousand dollars and they go up to like you know over a million yeah um for you know one bedrooms here who are talking about and so downtown yes it's right next I place market well it says what is it Stuart's written something it's downtown yeah between downtown and felt Allen it's probably technically Belle town and they're finding what you know what the point of the story is saying is that they didn't build a ton of parking for every unit okay so they both sixty two parking stalls for two hundred and sixty two residences and they're saying that they're having a hard time selling Lee is because of the parking yeah which I find it hard to believe but maybe that's just my skeptic its ISM nobody I know is buying 1.5 million other condos I'm gonna have friends who are fortunate enough to be buying but they're not buying that room and I know there is a lot of like outside investment money coming at this town I just do yeah yeah it's um you know what's interesting is so it's costing that they're charging what a hundred thousand dollars for a parking space in this building I think I think so yeah and people don't like the idea of paying a hundred thousand dollars right from hyperspace but that's how much it cost about to build yeah so I think the urban has tweeted out this link and they said Seattle Times to cries the lack of socialism for cars I think the idea that like everyone in the building should subsidize the people who have part and space race is essentially what they're saying it you know like if you don't want to pay the actual cost to build a parking space so sight line Institute a long time ago did this research where they looked into how much it cost to excavate deeper which means building larger and more burly walls like every little bit that you go deeper is enormous ly expensive so every single floor of an underground parking garage that you add is extremely expensive and it can they estimated that it can end up adding $100,000 per slot that you build once you start excavating right sounds like well okay so that's how much it cost men I don't know I I feel like you know you traveled and one of the interesting things on this as they said that the the real estate investment firm behind this is based out of Hong Kong and I've been fortunate enough to travel to Hong Kong and a couple other cities around the globe and so many of those cities are there people are moving away from cars because like they've got awesome transit and they see like with the density of their populations it's impractical to own a car so I just I want to like give those developers like kudos I mean not for building a luxury high-rise condominium because we don't need that but also like we're having the foresight to be like no Seattle you can deal with less parking than number of people like this is the future but I just want to like shake everybody else and be like it's not because of the parking lot they're not buying it like yeah it becomes this really twisted cycle also where even if someone is okay with not having a parking spot for themselves it's like well this is my investment and I feel like if it doesn't have a parking space I will go sell it yeah yeah like and so it's like this thing like okay so you want to build a parking space that you don't you want to use so that you can feel like later that's gonna help you sell it yeah and like if that's we're just spend a hundred thousand dollars to do that it's like yeah this is all twisted you know I wouldn't you know the this building was built but there's also this problem of it's hard to build buildings with less parking even if the developer wants to and has the money to do it because or I guess doesn't have the money to do it even the developer wants to and has a business model that says they could because banks will not lend the money to do it if it doesn't have a certain amount of parking that is not based on what Seattle wants like Seattle rules its based on whatever the bank once like I don't want to fund something that's not gonna have this level of parking whatever and so like this problem of building parking is ridiculous cuz like so there's a glut of parking in South Lake Union in downtown okay there's more of it than is being used and there's no reason to build more because like what they end up doing in the story they're like well yeah we've just made a deal with the lot across the street that have a bunch of empty spaces and so you can park across the street oh my gosh but people like it's not yours it's like a you're renting it space and people want it to be theirs I guess excuse me but like there's there's already too much parking like you cannot physically get enough cars in downtown do you fill those parking spaces like traffic's too bad wait like you can't give them in and out so there's no need to build more and yet we keep doing it for reasons capitalism says that this is what we need to do right and so we do it and it's completely nonsense but anyway I I imagine that even if sales are a little bit slower they will fill this building I think so too so I'm not ultimately thinking that this is complete death to this project or anything I think they're gonna do all right you know the million dollar condos I bet some will still buy it here's where it's located but who wants to drive right around there anyway like oh like so I have to admit something I have a car I bought it I know I bought it a couple years ago to get up to the mountains and like occasionally I have to drive downtown and it's so stressful and like I bike on those streets all the time but like driving down there No yeah not fun why would why would you willingly do it yeah all the time yeah yeah yeah you know I know and it's it's not going to get better don't yeah I know it's it's uh you know it's kind of the problem of like trying to shift away from driving there's so many different pieces that all have to move together yeah and like here's one that we don't think about a lot pathetic oh right like people developers want to build more parking not because they need the parking or that anyone needs the parking because it's gonna make them easier to sell the units in that building so they can get out of there yeah out of the project and so we're building parking that we don't need for a ridiculous reason but then when you have parking and incentivizes parking and it also makes all of the housing that building more expensive because everyone you know the cop part of the cost of that unit is to cover the cost of parking okay whether you have a car or not you have to pay that I don't we should do what ban cars oh yeah I don't have that I don't have that up there there's a whole band cars fight on Twitter Oh past week I don't think what whether or not it's okay to say that oh I have so many things muted on Twitter now they're like that's good yeah it was a silly fight and I never stepped into it because it was like my Twitter like is like full of cute dogs and cute children and like some tik-tok videos that I don't understand but like Twitter used to give me such anxiety that I just had a certain muting like everything that pissed me off yeah so now it's just sunshine and rainbows you must have a lot of terms me yeah so it's not a reflection of reality at all right so I don't know about this ban cars but I think we should do it yeah at least that's perfect perfect you know you you talk about how horrible it is to drive downtown now let's back up yeah right here so people you know if we were to ban cars from any street we could definitely start with Pike Place Market oh my gosh this street right here oh you know what you can't see my mouse but this everybody knows what straight we're talking about the street right in front of market right yeah right under the letters where it says Pike Place Market yeah which is basically a pedestrian thoroughfare but for some reason everyone small car comes through yeah I'm gonna let it happen like why yeah and and without fail whenever you see a car coming down that street it is someone who's stressed and they accidentally got turned in and now they deeply regret totally having made that turn what if we just did something like do you move back when they what we used to do like renegade pop-up bike lanes mmm-hmm what if we just did that and like just put cones out with a street closed sign right I think who's gonna stop us yeah someone at the market would be very mad well we can let the delivery truck sir yeah yes the thing is like you could say accept deliveries yeah oh yeah that's fine that's always the excuse of people gotta get deliveries to their stands look okay get that yeah but I mean it's not only delivery trucks that are going through and like I mean I would like to see like what percentage of like purchases are made by people who park right there lab drove in in part yeah it's probably I would be surprised if it's one person right I'm sure I bet you if like I always hear people like kind of complaining about it on Twitter but I wonder if like some group actually like actively dedicated themselves to that mmm-hmm if I could get done but then again I think about like I think there's so many more I want to say important but like high priority projects like Rainier I think needs to be done first and like I think about like the equity and like people's lives are actually in danger like yeah that's it like Pike Place is a nice to have but if folks are gonna dedicate like actual hours to that okay I think this decision needs to come from Pike Place itself oh yeah like at some point I think you know some vendors and say hey if we close the street I could put up like seating in the street because I've run out of seating yeah and there's there's nowhere else to put tables but if you look at what they didn't like Herald Square and like Times Square and so many places in New York City when he was Janette Sadiq Khan was mayor she was just like no he was the traffic controller yes she should be bear yeah no idea Bloomberg was the mayor oh gosh okay well this just got awkward anyway take it back it's terrible anyway so they just like closed off so many areas that were like horrible for pedestrians horrible for cars and now they're lovely and it just took that like bold leadership to say I'm doing this so like Jenny Durkin if you're listening just be like executive action I'm doing this like especially if you want to get reelected and won any of us on your side frankly that could bring us to this sorry I'm being very straightforward to me I don't know I had these feelings great so this was pretty simple yeah she knots pretty early that she's running for re-election she filed her papers and all that which allows her to start fundraising I was kind of surprised that she did it this early me tail it's more than a year and a half yeah more than a year and a half away from the actual election I wonder if part of its to take advantage of like all the politicians coming through right now prior to oh they're run up because now in all the news it's you know mm-hmm I don't know what the wording is for that but like it'll all be part of the right whatever if that goes right there's also lots of speculation that she's actually hated this job and wasn't gonna run again but I guess that's yeah I guess that was pure speculation yeah I mean I don't know how she could like the job like yeah seems horrible it yeah I mean as somebody who is in the public's fear a lot of the time like just the amount of criticism that she gets it held on how you do it and I'm not a fan of hers um I was very concerned when she got elected about like upholding the move Seattle levy I'm very concerned now about the LEED project getting funding security for that but I I also recognize like her humanity and I just don't know I think they don't have to wear and you as a person but I guess politicians are a special breed of people right though I shouldn't feel bad like you volunteered for this right yeah yeah there's um yeah she so she announced right after she had done like a this press conference in South Lake Union announcing how we're gonna you know celebrating all the bike lanes that we built downtown which is like yeah the completed bike neck which she didn't actually say that at the thing but you know and it's like okay well things have indeed started back up they were on poss for a while right and people were very frustrated and they have started again we're way behind because we took a year and a half yeah off to be fair and I tweeted this out and people I think responded pretty well to it we have come a long ways and I don't think it's at the pace any of us want but like I rode the other day looks like you still on Capitol Hill I don't go very often anymore but I rode with my partner who is a brand new cyclist we rode from Capitol Hill through downtown to the International District entirely unprotected bike lanes well I guess not fully protected but almost entirely and like it felt safe it felt comfortable we're able to chat with each other the whole time and like even two years ago you you couldn't do that so yeah oh yeah I know and there's of course room for improvement like coming down pike I think it spiked more than you transition to sidewalk and it was like okay what are we even doing here like this is not good despite any stretch of the imagination but it's so much better than where we were at and having been like involved in this work for so long I'm like doing outreach to the businesses and just like even telling them three years ago about we want bike lanes and they were like why would we do that to look just as seeing happening like I don't want to lose sight of that oh yeah absolutely I mean very soon whenever they finish out Bell Street you will be able to bite from the Fremont Bridge to the international district without leaving lightly which is pretty rad it's unbelievable yeah absolutely unbelievable unimaginable even a couple years ago okay you know pie in the sky dream kind of thing I mean I remember when we didn't have a decent bike lane on Second Avenue yeah like when Shere Khan unfortunately got killed I think that bike lane was just a deathtrap because cars are turning into you all the time and then it was like hey we're installing the 2-way with was it was McGinn no that was Marie Marie Marie was our mayor and he made that announcement it's like okay this is happening yeah another mayor that everyone was really worried about for that he was gonna stop everything biking yeah and then didn't you were like okay whoa wait we can please yeah we're gonna do this okay we're gonna do it I guess I thought that you were not gonna build any of it but yeah yeah which you know mayor Durkin has been much slower than Ed Murray was to come around to the biking thing yeah she also has the advantage of not being accused by multiple people of sexual abuse yeah in forcing a resignation early so you know and it's like doing better than our last mayor looks there's so many things about where I want to support like as a mere person like I love that she's openly gay and I love that she's a woman and like but also I just yeah I I do hope that like her election brings up some really awesome candidates like I love who we had running last time and like that are racing really good conversations like Nikita Oliver being in the race was phenomenal and I hope that it really some of those conversations continue with this next session yeah yeah I think that it'll be interesting to see how deep some of the wounds that came out of her first year her first year in office was really horrific yeah she basically said no to everything and everyone and like like bike people were all like why is it we haven't heard anything about this product is this happening like she won't say yes or no and you know eventually you're like is it is it no yeah and you know people were kind of freaking out a little bit and then you started hearing from like other communities other activist groups like oh this is happening to every yeah like what is going on um and yeah there's a lot in just like indecisiveness but she's trying to turn it around but it's like it wasn't is this too late like you know now she's already campaigning again right as things are getting rolling yeah and then is she gonna be able to sell herself as no really like I don't just do this during a campaign yeah I really am gonna do this even when I'm not campaigning so I think that those are going to be some interesting questions to see like all of those different groups that felt left out of our first couple years including people into you know safer bike infrastructure how how many of them there are and whether they're going to forgive her or not I think it will heavily dependent who else runs yeah I'm excited to see what this brings out means that meet you alright that's all we need to say about that yeah we move on to bicycle benefits yeah so there's they have a survey right now okay we should say what bison would benefit says to me yeah sure so bicycle if it's is a really cool program that you buy a sticker for five bucks I believe it is and get a little sticker for your helmet and then you can use it at a bunch of local businesses for discounts is that 212 businesses that without this is pretty interactive but it is not you know where you can find it's like Oh Seattle bike blog.com I don't know if you ever been to this website it's really useful has a bicycle benefits navigation bar look at that and it has a map of the participating businesses and I think it might even be up-to-date so if you click online what kind of discounts can we get so if you go to personal it's a second base flowers on 15th yeah 10% off is like the base level of they'll even accept usually yes except for like extenuating circumstance like I think they do yes less than that if you're like a grocery store because your margins are way too small to do 10% but here I got I'll highlight my favorite one and this is gonna be another advertiser unintended advertiser bit central cinema two-for-one admission I did not know that it's the best fell it's the best one in the city it's awesome girl I need to explore this map a little more because definitely have a bike benefits sticker and you've got a centrist anyone Pig full price yeah well don't okay with cuz they're a really cool of it yeah I know and they were really bad like I want to give you money yeah well just buy more food which I did yeah and then beer they'll give you beer yeah many as many beers as you want one less that you put that's illegal I'll give you beers while you watch movies which is really cool died they don't have their deal in here oh that's because they're not on there those from the man oh I almost got real excited almost I was like oh I know I was like wait Jackson here okay these this yeah but yeah so anyway they're doing a survey right now which I'd encourage folks to go geo sounds like they're trying to figure out how to make it better and they're also looking for ambassadors if they're not really clear on what ambassadorship entails I think probably talking up the program and working with local vendors I would assume I think Mike benefits is run by one person which is quite the program Andy yeah nationwide so Ian which we've got bike camping together he's a fun guy he's very good at juggling contract I didn't even know that about him yeah next time you see him ask them better you know the most interesting person I've ever met in my life he wanders the country and just like sets up like benefit programs wherever he lands yeah and like he was like rollin to a top into a city with like no idea where he's gonna sleep that night yeah hey just like figures it up yeah we posted him he's he's stayed with us multiple yeah always so fun have him around I met him through Mattie Carlson yeah he was staying in her backyard for a while I remember like in what's amazing about Ian is that he all I'll know if I've ever met anyone who follows through on what they say as much as he does yeah like he'll say these things you're like like I'm gonna do this it sounds fun but like that's not the cat thing that anyone ever does right and then he like just not only does he do it he'll do like the next day right which is pretty remarkable like yeah it's awesome yeah we've been trying to film this blog for a week now and I didn't happen what's happening now it is thank you yeah so anyway bicycle benefits is really awesome I imagine part of the job is making sure people have stickers yeah keeping fuel stock because sometimes that can kind of start to fall apart at the stickers gone for too long we've gone through some dry spells with the stickers I happen to know the ride bicycles has a huge cachet oh sweet okay so another now former advertiser they finally they were riding bicycles our tests for years and they just finally decided to you know spend their money elsewhere but they were an enormous supporter of Seattle bike plug for years and so yeah ride bicycles but also I was in there X I needed a new helmet someone cut my helmet strap yeah which is apparently like they like just clearly with scissors just to be a jerk like they didn't steal it yeah let's just cut it yeah and so I had like tied a knot in the strap but like it didn't really work so I went in there to get a new helmet and they're like oh yeah they busted out this like huge cachet of stickers like okay yeah you have stickers for sure if anyone ever asks me like well where to go and then they also replaced it for free cuz when I got a new helmet they're like oh well you have one on that so which is good you know because um if you ever get in a crash you need to replace your helmet mhm yeah don't yeah don't not replace your helmet because you know you want to keep the sticker I know the first time I got a bike crash it felt very sad to have to replace my helmet because how much are expensive it feels like waste of money yeah that's not the fun thing no spend money London and but I'm glad I was wearing it yeah I'm glad you're okay me too it wasn't a bad crash thankfully I just I felt yeah anyways yeah so yeah bicycle benefits really cool you to join if you're not already you should tell Tom in the comments what your favorite bicycle benefits mmm benefit is outdoor research outlet has a really good one too sweet I forget the exact details go look it up right now cuz I'm always amazed it's always better than I remember it being yo 20% off one item and that's amazing because you can get like a rain jacket right Trent yeah or I think yeah I got rain pants there once in which are always like so much more expensive than you want to spend cuz like there's nothing to rain pants I wouldn't know they don't make me my says no I know I realize I walked into that one example yeah it's octo research get on that and yeah and then Marley will buy them for 20% off I think yeah other friends who are sailors or Mountaineers or whatever other sports you wear rain pants for I don't know I actually hate being pants 82 when I couldn't wear them there was one time when I wore some and they got really hot yeah they get really hot yeah like that is for me it's an emergency situation only like it's pouring so hard and have to ride really far yeah and especially if I need to go somewhere it's not my return trip yeah if I return trip I can just get home and you know peel off the wet jeans or whatever but if I'm going somewhere and it's pouring really hard and I'm gonna be out for a while it's like alright this is what I do it that's like the only time because they get so hot and they're so uncomfortable I hate putting them on because like if they flip them over your shoes if your shoes are already wet you know look because you'll want to take your shoes off up like it's raining look at your sock what it's I hate wearing pants but um you know um oh yeah a new advertiser here just to mention it you should register for their run city ride because it's really fun yeah it's the I know it's the cascade ride I really look forward to you know you wouldn't think riding on a highway would be fun but it actually is it's really fun on there no cars yeah it's also one of the things I was like well you only get to do this during this event like you're not allowed to ride on i-5 elsewhere yeah you know people people do but it's not it's not recommended be careful out there all right make good choices yes anything else I do want to talk about this story um sure we can we can that's complicated it's very complicated but basically AOC had a I think a bill to try and get electric vehicle charging stations across the country as part of the interstate network and when they would be like rapid charging stations to charge up your electric vehicle as quickly as you can fill it up with regular gas or diesel and folks are challenging her on that because it doesn't align with going car free or quite as like aggressive as we need to to hit the climate goals that like a true green new deal would I think it's I think my understanding the gist of us correctly yeah you know I think it's a really interesting argument on both sides I I work in sustainability professionally for a big logistics company electric vehicles are a really big challenge but also just electrifying or decarbonizing the entire freight sector like moving things you know they say we've got till the end of twenty thirty or whatever to get to pass the carbon of what we're at now I think is what they're saying to miss anyway we've got a really really really big challenge ahead of us and I don't know the electric vehicles are the answer because there's a lot that goes into like mining goes bad or getting the raw materials for those batteries and the the middle or the the number of miles you have to drive an electric vehicle versus a traditional gas vehicle to like mitigate the environmental impact or the mining is a lot so that's a basically long way of saying they're not necessarily better if the environment when you look at the full lifecycle of electric vehicles so yeah in an in the yeah like the equation works out really well depending on your electricity source yes like it's a way fewer miles that you have to drive if it's like hydro right Rick like still doesn't take into account the mining like the lithium to get there and also the end of life of those batteries like that's a whole nother mountain that I don't think a lot of us are even considering is like okay we're building on these electric vehicles but what happens at the end of their life like how are we gonna dispose of all that or like repurpose it in some way and there's just a lot of challenges and obviously I'm not advocating for oil and gas cars but some sort of drastic new shift or new innovation and I don't know where that's going to come from it's exciting yeah because the argument for the for the charging stations is basically well people have range anxiety they're not gonna buy a car if they're worried they won't be able to that they're gonna run out of juice in the middle of nowhere yeah which is a legitimate concern yeah like and so yeah it's like well if we just build these charging stations then people will buy electric cars because they won't be worried about yeah running on Ranger or maybe you know electric Freight could work because you could right so I I mean I I think it's actually a really good interim step because I don't think we're gonna get to like the next iteration of electric vehicles are like hydro vehicles whatever is gonna be the next zero carbon thing only we're gonna get there in the next ten years that we need to be sending this is a really good interim solution it's getting those rapid Chargers out there so that way you know what folks are ready to buy that next car they can yeah I'm not yet ready to say this is a good interim solution cuz I don't know all the details and if it cost as much as like high-speed rail or something then no don't do it yeah this is the rail yeah yeah but yeah I don't like I haven't I haven't dove into the nitty-gritty of all these things have been more expensive than I always think that they're gonna be totally I'm also kind of a realist and this might get me in trouble with some folks but like my partner's family lives in Montana and a lot of my family lives out in like Missouri and I think we have a lot of work to do in those communities as far as just like basic transportation and you know convincing folks they don't need to drive a mile to the grocery store you know shrinking those communities down to make them walkable and even if there's so many challenges but high-speed rail is one thing but even just getting people out of their cars and their own neighborhoods as a challenge I know yeah you know the problem that gets overwhelming because I was a family I'm from st. Louis so I grew up in the suburbs the st. Louis yes sprawls forever and you know like none of my parents house in it you know it's a 45-minute walk to the nearest bus stop and that bus around six times a day hmm three times clockwise and three times counterclockwise and it's the most confusing weird bus route yeah it's just like well yeah of course nobody you're like this doesn't work like it's it's crazy and like I worry about as a parents age like hopefully I'll be driving last because it's just not safe but how do they continue to be social how do they get to the grocery store how do they how do we make this work in a world that wasn't built that we intentionally didn't build to be used with our cars and like I feel like e bikes can solve a lot of it or electric tricycles or something but we also need to make sure it's safe for them to do it yeah yeah my st. Louis route so like in Seattle I'm Way lesson to let your car's but I am st. Louis see this is like oh well yeah they'd be a lot better yeah cuz the problems just so enormous and there's so many places there it's just like I don't understand how we can retrofit these places do not need a car yeah it's so intrinsic build denser and yeah and then in Missouri it's also really complicated because like so much of their electricity comes from coal is like right oh I mean like that doesn't even help that much co2 electric if you do it like but you know at least like maybe changing of our coal plant will be easier than changing every car but yeah yeah you also talked about the materials to build the cars I think the other big unknown is how long are they gonna last I mean you can keep a gas-powered car going really long time if you just keep doing the repairs yeah maintenance and like you know I mean there's you know it's not that hard to keep a car going 20 years if you keep up with it yeah I mean my car's a 2003 I think so it's a 17 year old car and I bought it used it has 80,000 miles on it it's like I Drive it once a month maybe so it was probably not a very smart investment but that's okay yeah yeah I mean you know of course that's all so I guess we'll just bring it back to bikes right yeah I've always collected bikes that's why bikes you're so amazing is it should cuz it's like like I so I finally my first bike like the bike not my first bike the bike that I had my first like really long-term bike in Seattle was this 1983 steel frame nice you know clunker thing that I learned all of the skills of bike repair on it because all of it needed a beautiful yes so you do that by quick search on your own I need some a Pike works I did some it ever brothers I think was actually the first place I went and then I did a bunch of it just acquiring tools and doing it at home yeah and then a friend who got really into bike repair like when I did but there's always a little better than me thanks friend to have yeah and so he went and acquired much of the tools like hey can I do can I use that tool like sure you bring it over to let me borrow it back ok can you also show me how the Tool Works it's like I you know can you fix my bike no yeah but yeah so like I finally broke it by the bottom bracket whatever the thing that holds the bottom bracket that part of the frame I don't know that's terrible that's called either with a down Shubin that whatever meet yeah that's the bottom bracket holder yes official name yes it sheared off what once I was pedaling it like this completely sheared I was like well that's that's very broken yeah did I thought of anything this is the spike is older than I am and it was still until it sheared off yeah good strong still going strong I was like how many miles like how much like was saved by this bike existing in the world like so much was accomplished that could not have been accomplished by walking yeah and so much energy was saved by using this bike for all of its miles threats in its entire life and this is just one bike great you multiply that by each bike there's so much energy is just being it's almost like these are carbon capture devices practically that's not really that that works but right so much carbon has not been released because these bikes have existed alone I mean the other cool thing is like it's never just a bike like Lily's for me like there's always a story or adventure or like a memory or associated to it like you know you get in the car and you drive somewhere and it's like you could be going anywhere in any town whereas you jail on a bike it's like you notice new artwork or you see a new business or you smell something or like it's not always pleasant like right I don't know I just really get interact with life so much more my bicycle mm-hmm so yeah yeah if I didn't bikes are amazing I am Pro bike how about you I'm also Pro bike okay unanimous yeah you know it's funny I I went out with some friends last night and I thought I found myself parking my bike next to a bike that I think a couple years ago I would have like look down on disdainfully here like maybe take it a picture up and put it on Instagram append link hahaha look at this funny-looking bicycle and I caught myself like changing that narrative in my head and be like no like that person is out here having a good time just like I am like Who am I to judge how their handlebars are set up or like what kind of saddle they have and just like I don't know I yeah it felt good to be like I don't what I don't need to judge this person's bike setup yeah it doesn't affect me in any way what's a little yeah yeah there's a lot of that also with like um one poison within my community is that like judgmental thing that can happen about what someone else is doing yeah like it doesn't why does it matter to you what someone else is doing like so long as they've not impacted you right like like you know like someone biking bleeped too fast on the trail yeah it's a closed path yeah it's like okay yeah that's worth griping about for sure well like you know I'll get the people who are like I hate it when someone on a knee bypasses me uphills yeah they're cheating it's like no they're not what is vanity you how hard they're peddling yeah like it doesn't at all exactly yeah the irrelevant like so long as like they didn't pass it close then it's not in any way yours to judge like totally why should you care like what somebody else is wearing or like doesn't matter no no however you want a bike you should like that way yeah whatever bike you in ride whatever you wanna wear exactly thank you not matter to anyone be you exactly you do you yep great well I don't know if we have anything else anything else we need to plug I can't think of anything come hang out with us at happy hour on Wednesday listen to Izzy's podcast donate to this you got a bike bug it's not donations their supporters oh yeah don't donate become a severe I'm a supporter supporter program yes you will get nothing in return you get the pleasure of supporting this fantastic publication you will get Saddleback blog being published yes yeah but I'm not sure though I'm ordering stickers so Seattle by klog supporters stickers will be in the mail sometime in the coming months sweet I'm ordering them from a very cheap sticker manufacturer so it might take a while especially if they're impacted by any of the supply train stuff happening right now yeah well I think they're the USA me that materials or not yeah that's for sure yeah yes that's a good point yeah total subject change but that'll be interesting to watch as well to see if now that impacts the bicycle supply chain if you're into that because lots of factories are not doing anything right now yeah yeah it's gonna have a ripple impact on all sorts of places yes and also I hope everyone is okay yes more than anything spread and people don't die yeah but yes and also this might not be the time to buy tires I've no idea tires have gotten more expensive but you're wrong either trying to think of things more expensive yeah it could be anything I would just imagine that like if you're buying it from China it might have some shipping delays mm-hmm so um support your local bike shop yep and also buy their stock all right we can roll the eye up show what do you say thank you so much for joining you I appreciate your time yes appreciate all you do and see at all yeah I don't know if you see me out on the bike say hi to me I'm pretty friendly alright outro video [Music]