Morning commute

V Street

This great-looking Kronan utility bike was parked in front of the newish American Ice Company bar one afternoon recently. Nice details and apparently they are relatively inexpensive for an upright bike, in the Electra/Public range, but see this 2008 blog post with quite a range of comments about the build quality etc.

Bike Century

Like Bike-to-Work Day? Well, Copenhagenize - with tongue apparently at least partly in cheek - has tried to up the ante with their Bike Century campaign.

Not sure it's more than a half-joking branding exercise, but hey, one more way to plant your flag for a bike-centric future.

You can join the FB group here.

14th and T

Georgetown

Better for drivers and peds too

Complete Streets: It’s About More Than Bike Lanes

Streetfilms decided to look at three of NYC’s most recent re-designs — Columbus Avenue, First and Second Avenues, and Prospect Park West — and show how pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers benefit from safer, calmer streets.

Radar love

So I'm driving down 14th Street yesterday and my 5-year-old daughter says 'look daddy, that woman is riding a bike with high heels, take a picture!' Plenty of other bikers out and about, yet her radar was tuned to the citizen cyclist.

Pinwheel revolution

Introducing a new green bike accessory that harnesses the awesome power of wind as you ride.

You see, the faster you go, the faster it spins, though I can't make scientific claims as to its propulsion capabilities. This is merely a prototype. Haven't figured out how to turn it off either, you park your bike and it keeps on spinning.

As you can see it's actually partly green. And kind of shiny, so it's a safety device as well, making you more visible.

This technology, like many great human advances, was stumbled upon inadvertently. In this case, when I picked my daughter up from school on the bike and she didn't have a free hand to hold her pinwheel.

(Ok, seriously now, who wants to invent a pinwheel-powered bike light? There's an idea for you right there. You're welcome.)

 

When in Wien

My friend Andre, a recent convert to DC's CaBi, sent some pics of the bikeshare in Vienna. Anyone ever used it?