Post 100

I let the one-year anniversary of this blog slip by without comment or celebration, so I'll celebrate the hundredth post, which is also worthy of note, I think. As this post hits, I'm on a brief vacation on the Rhode Island shore, and not doing any practical cycling.

About the blog: this is really a collection of mini-essays on (mostly) cycling topics, reflecting my own idiosyncratic point of view, and usually based on whatever comes to mind in that hour to hour and twenty minutes that I spend on my bike most days. (I guess you knew that already). It is very different from a more newsy, multi-contributor blog. I try to say something only when I've got something to say, and not to just "feed the monster". That's why it's taken over a year to hit 100 posts.

About you: You readers are from all over the world, every continent (except Antarctica, of course). There are between 40 and 70 of you a day visiting this site, and you hit the site between 50 and 120 times a day.

About us: I'm very honored to have you as readers of this collection of articles. I hope you continue to find value visiting here. I hope you feel free to "pipe up", comment on the posts, and let me know what you think.

More to come.

Online Bike repair guides

In the old days, when there weren't so many bike shops and the Internet was a green-screen geeks-only paradise that offered only email, FTP, and Usenet discussion groups, getting information on how to fix your bike was difficult. Bicycle repair was a matter of lore, and virtually all serious riders were competent mechanics (at least to a degree.) For the first 20 years of the Tour de France (1903 - 1923), a rider was in fact required to do his own repairs. (Thanks Chairman Bill.) Perhaps this custom that riders be self-sufficient is why John Forrester's seminal book Effective Cycling has so many of its pages dedicated to bike maintenance and repair.

Now, of course, if you don't want to get your hands dirty, it's a quick trip down to the local bike shop to get that drivetrain fixed or those brakes adjusted, or maybe even a trip down there to get diagnosed what is wrong in the first place. This is fine if you have the money, or lack a mechanical aptitude gene. (It also keeps the local bike shop in business, which isn't a bad thing either.) So you, dear reader, have choices, and an excellent choice is an on-line bicycle repair website. The web is full of them, some good, some very good, and some quite generic (the "generic" ones are the ones that list "bike repair" up alongside "gutter repair" and "13 uses for baking soda".) I've surveyed several of the bike-specific sites here and hope you find the overview useful:

Park Tools Repair Site:

This ia an encyclopedic, professional bike repair web site. Not surprising when you consider the source -- Park tools have a deservedly excellent reputation and there's no better way to sell and support tools than to show people the proper way to use them. The Park website has a nifty interactive Flash-based "bicycle map" that hightlights the parts of the bike that may need repair and navigates you to the "chapter" of the website where you can see the specific topics on that part.

Bikewebsite.com:
This website is very old-school. It has a chaotic layout, with ads sprinked about. Topics are hit-or-miss. The illustrations are both sparse and of marginal quality, looking like they were created with a DOS-based paint program on a VGA screen. There are a few interesting sections, though, including a section that deals with diagnosing what's wrong with your bike based on how often you hear noises.

Bicycletutor.com:

This is easily the most "social web" oriented of the repair sites. Most if not all instructions include downloadable videos. Note the "tags" below the image-map of the bike at right. All instructions allow comments by users. This site has some general topics, such as "how to shift gears" and "how to tune up your bike", as well as the specific highly-categorized topics.

Utah Mountain Biking:

This site has a large selection of topics; each topic is well-illustrated with lots of well-cropped photos. I like that the graphic bike-parts index includes "Chad". Definitely a focus on mountain bike and downhill stuff here -- this is the place to go to get info on disk brakes and shocks.

Jim Langley's Bicycling Site:

This is definitely an "old-school" site with a pleasing personality. Lots of old-bicycle-poster eye candy, lots of mini-articles about bikes, with a focus on antique bikes. He does have a page calling out bike terminology, but unlike the other sites, he doesn't use this as a clickable index. This won't suit everyone, but the information given, although you may have to hunt around a bit to find it, is good. He has a number of topics on bicycle fit and adjustment.

Sheldon Brown's Fixit Pages:

The late, great Sheldon Brown of Massachusetts' Harris Cyclery had a collection of pages on the Harris website. The range of topics is by no means encyclopedic, in fact it's hit-and-miss, but if Sheldon Brown covers a topic, it's worth taking a look, because the depth of his topics is extreme (including things about the history of each component, going back to the English/ French/ Italian standards of the 1950s). Each topic is more like a brief "white-paper" style treatise on that kind of bike component or situation. For the experienced cyclist, this will be elucidating and enjoyable, but it's not for beginners who are looking for a "step-by-step" approach.

Wheelpro Wheel Building Guide:

I'm going to wrap this up with a single-topic website, or rather, a reference to an excellent book on perhaps the most important maintenance / repair topic, and that is wheels and wheelbuilding. Roger Musson, a British bicycle wheelbuilder and mechanic, has written the final word on building bike wheels.

It's not free, but neither is it expensive, and it comes with a money-back guarantee. It's packed with useful information and guarantees you that if you follow the instructions, you can build a wheel that will be straight and true for its lifetime (i.e., until the rims wear out.) If you like riding on round, true wheels and want to build wheels that are better than those you can buy, this is the reference for you.

Summary Chart:
For those of you who have made it this far, here's a chart summarizing the topics covered in all the sites listed. Click the image for a high-resolution, printable version.

Bike Comics

Bike comic strips and comic books, that is. No stand-up here. Let's visit a couple of modern-day heroes, and one very special superhero from the 70's.

Frazz by Jef Mallet

Frazz, aka Edwin Frazier, is a man for our times. Obviously educated, he is nonetheless underemployed (intentionally, for his backstory is, he's a songwriter who has made it big but can't give up the interactions of his "day job" as a middle-school janitor.) His interests? Education, philosophy, music, the impertinence of youth, and (to no small degree) physical activity, which includes a good deal of bicycling. To his credit, when Frazz is on a bike, he always wears a helmet. If you're lucky enough to have a daily newspaper that carries Frazz, don't pass him by.

I really like Mallet's graphic style. While it is very disciplined, it looks loose and sketchy, almost at times like Bill Watterson. His characterizations (both visual and dialogue-based) are great. I especially like Ms. Olson, who (no doubt unfairly) reminds me of countless teachers of my youth.

Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery by Rick Smith

Yehuda Moon, like Frazz, is full of attitude (what practical cyclist isn't?) Yehuda is in the trenches, however. He works in a bike shop (the Kickstand Cyclery) and is a year-round commuter. He lives to ride, and will use any excuse to get on his bike to "run an errand". He seems to lack Frazz's lofty philosophical point of view, though, and the day-to-day of the world gets to him quite a bit more than Frazz. Sometimes the 'tude manifests itself as antipathy to heedless drivers (as in the example above) and sometimes it's just pure stubbornness, as in Yehuda's refusal to wear a bike helmet.

Yehuda Moon is an online-only strip and is subscription supported. Judging from the amount of comments on a strip on any given day, he has a strong readership (and I hope that is reflected in the subscription ranks.) There are a lot of cyclist "insider" jokes in this strip, and casual recreational cyclists might not get all of them. But you know, I've known guys (especially in Austin, Texas, where I used to live) who worked in bike shops who were just like Yehuda Moon.

Sprocketman by Louis Saekow

Sprocketman is a superhero with a single purpose, to see that people are safe on their bikes. He originally appeared in the mid-t0-late 1970's in a comic book that was published and distributed as a joint project of the (California) Department of Public Safety and a nonprofit organization called the Urban Bikeway Design Collaborative. The comic book was drawn by a pre-med student at Stanford named Louis Saekow. It turned out to be a bit of a game-changer for Saekow, as he had so much fun drawing the comic book (his first) that he changed his major from medicine to graphic design!

In late 2002, Stanford University Transportation Services commissioned Saekow to do some more Sprocketman promotions. I'm not sure if they ever intended to do a complete comic book, but if it happened, I haven't been able to locate it. I think I may still have some original Sprockeman comics out in the garage — I used it in a bike commuting class that I taught 'way back in 1979. If you want to see the original Sprocketman comic book, you can download a PDF of it here.

Sprocketman also puts in an appearance in a very quirky website called "Pisser," which stands for "Public Information & Safety Superhero Education Rangers".

A review that makes me want to buy the book

David Byrne, who has received coverage in this blog before, has become the de facto spokesman for cyclists in New York City and beyond. Normally, I'm the type who resents (to no small degree) being spoken for, but Byrne's eloquence in his review (in today's New York Times Book Review) of Jeff Mapes' PEDALING REVOLUTION: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities is so compelling that I'm inclined to settle and say, "I'm happy with Byrne being the voice of my generation."

According to the NYT-Book Review editors, Byrne is himself writing a book on bicycling and cities and their intersection called Bicycle Diaries in September. This will be worth reading, as city (and suburban) planning and the impact of cycling on it (and vice versa) is a topic I'm finding more and more interesting.

There is one egregious flaw in Byrne's review. He says therein,

I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

I must insist here that it can be only false modesty that allows Byrne to assert that his personal involvment "won't make riding any cooler".

AIA-SFO: Integrating Bikes and Business

Next week I'll be attending the American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention in San Francisco. Architects are (at long last) becoming environmental leaders in the professional communities, and "cycling" and "environmental" fit together nicely for me, so I'll be taking a folding bike to push the envelope of "green consciousness" for architects. I don't want to be unfair here—I've noticed that there exists a large intersection among architects, cyclists, and (even) bike builders, it's just that, when it comes to cycling, and particularly practical, everyday cycling, there's a lot more lip service than action. So I hope to turn that around in a small way.

My company, Nemetschek NA, produces a computer-aided design software called Vectorworks. It's used primarily by architects (as I am), but it has great 3D and solids capabilities, and I want to design bikes with it. (This would be just another integration of life, work, and avocation for me.) I've designed buildings and shoes with it, but not yet bikes. If you've used CAD to design bikes, I want to talk to you, so leave me a comment and a way to get in touch!

San Francisco is a city where I've spent time before. And it has hills that are serious challenges to walk up, much less bike up. I don't think I have a bike set up with the gears needed for all of San Francisco.

That's the bad news. The good news is, I'm going to be spending almost all my time in the "SoMa" (South of Market) area, which is quite flat, by SFO standards. Following one of the guiding principles of Practical Cycling, "Research your Route", I've done some homework on SFO. Here's a nifty topographical map of the city overlaid with bike routes. Below is a Google map of what I'm going to be up to. The aqua-colored destination in the middle of the Castro district is where my friend Scott and his wife Polly reside, and that is at the top of a pretty awesome hill, one I don't think I'd try and tackle unless I had about 22" gears. So Scott and I will have to meet elsewhere (maybe at the "Zeitgeist" bar, which is I'm told a favorite of the local bike couriers), or I'll take the bus to his house.

View SFO AIA Convention 2009 in a larger map

So, I've decided to take my folder for the flat areas. I bought (off my brother, who wasn't using it) a Dahon "Speed D7" folder, (mine being about 8 years old, not quite as nice as the one in the link), and a Samsonite "Oyster" standard-airline-case (SAC) that it fits in for transport. I spent a weekend overhauling it, getting it properly equipped for minimal practical cycling (tool kit, pump, lock, patches, lights,) and learning how to pack it. (I made some breakthroughs in this area. There are websites that state that you can't pack a Dahon folder in an Oyster without removing the stem and handlebars, a major pain since I added a cyclocomputer mount. I found that I need only remove the wheels, and everything else fits neatly. (I'll leave the details of that for another post.)

I was in Seattle at the beginning of April and used the trip out there as a first shake-down trip for the travelling cyclist use-case. Excepting a tangled chain on initial unpacking of the bike, everything went surprisingly well. I found the little Dahon, while a bit short in the leg for my tall frame, to still be an acceptable ride for up to, say, 20 miles. I put about 75-80 miles on the Dahon in 5 days, in Seattle, a city not devoid of hills itself. The gear range is rather limited, at both the top and (somewhat surprisingly, given the 20" wheels) the bottom.

So, if you're in San Francisco next week and see the very tall guy on the clown bicycle wearing the Vectorworks shirt, that will be me. Flag me down and tell me you're a reader of A Practical Cyclist, and I'll be glad to invite you to the Vectorworks "City to Green" party on Thursday night! And if by chance you're attending the AIA convention, please drop by the Vectorworks booth, #1651, and let's talk bicycles, design, and computer-aided design.

Bag Security / Laptops

Marcus Sanford, one of the two co-editors over at the Austin on Two Wheels blog (see my blogroll), has just experienced a major equipment failure with a pannier which failed to protect his laptop, and he cracked his screen as a result. Read the story here.

My condolences to Marcus. I think that bag security is a major issue for commuting cyclists. I, like Marcus, carry my laptop in to work on a daily basis. Until early last year, I wore a padded laptop backpack to do so. However, I changed over to large touring panniers that are large enough to actually take the padded backpack inside. Although initially somewhat improvised, this has proven to be a quite workable solution.

Marcus' experience was that the laptop pannier he chose (the Axiom "Transition") didn't have an obvious (or documented) lock-down mechanism to guarantee that the pannier wouldn't fly off the rack. (His dispute with the Axiom company is that they did in fact have a locking device, but failed to inform the users about it! I can't blame Marcus for being heated.)

My big panniers sit far back on my rack, to make room for my big feet. They are secured with hooks, with heavy elastic tie-downs, and (as a backup) with Velcro safety straps that encircle the top rails of my rear rack. (See the image.) If the panniers that you use on your bike have a comparable safety device, use it, even if it takes an extra moment to do. (Marcus will tell you it's worth it.)

Although these are by no means expensive bags, (they're the Nashbar house brand), they get the job done. They are plenty big (and that's a major virtue), and they are soft and kind of floppy, so that abrupt bumps are "suspended" by the flexibility of the bag itself. I've hit many bumps over the 3,000 miles of last year, and no major accidents yet. It's also a major advantage that, if I park my bike, I can easily lift out the backpack with my laptop, and carry it with me comfortably.

I do consciously think about my bags. I look back at them at least once on every commute. If I see them swinging about, I stop and check attachments. So far, so good.

PS: End of the first week of March, and I'm now at 500+ miles. Woo-hoo!

David Lega: Motivation, Invention, Inspiration

My posts have been a little off this week, as I've been in Europe (Munich / Basel) at a series of management meetings for my job with Nemetschek North America, makers of the CAD product Vectorworks. (This product placement is done for the benefit of the GoogleSearch gurus in our marketing department. You know who you are :)

I attended, late last week, a remarkable motivation-type keynote talk by a world champion Paralympic athlete from Sweden named David Lega. David was born with massive physical disabilities as a result of a virus his mother contracted while pregnant. I won't go into detail on either his disabilities nor his many notable accomplishments, but rather direct you to his website so you can learn more. I will say that if you represent a company in need of a motivational speaker, David will provide an unforgettable talk. David is an athlete, an inventor, a writer, an entrepreneur, a force of nature.

What I want to focus on here is the vehicle that you see David using in the picture. It's a tricycle of unusual design. It is of David's invention (he said it was either the fourth or fifth generation, I don't remember exactly) and it's unique in the world. It's unique because of the unusual nature of David's disabilities. He has virtually no arm or hand function, so a conventional wheelchair (even an electric one with a hand control) is not useful. He's an active and accomplished athlete, so an electric chair with say a mouth control is not interesting nor attractive, because he wants to use the muscles he has (his legs have a limited range of motion).

Take a close look at it and you'll see it's a tricycle of (somewhat) standard layout, but lacking any sort of handlebar. This means that steering and propulsion are both accomplished with foot action. You push a little more with the right foot at just the right moment in the cycle to turn left, and vice versa to turn right. David has developed spectacular and perhaps unique capabilities with his feet, and watching him smoothly navigate this wheelchair around a room is quite remarkable. I wonder if all the people in the room appreciated the skills involved.

I'm Jazzed

January's just done, and I'm at 253 miles. I don't think I had this many miles last year until it was into April. This is going to be a great year for cycling, and a good year for this blog, too. I think I've found a rhythm to posting that won't wear me out. Some of my posts will be longer compilations (like the Cargo bikes and the more recent Winter Cycle clothing) that frankly take a long time to put together. So I'll try and intersperse little "easy" ones, to keep the conversation going.

Speaking of conversation, I'd love to hear more from the people who visit. Feel free to comment -- I've put virtually no restrictions on it, and I won't remove stuff unless it's spam. I'd love to hear especially from people who might want to write articles on cycling. If there is some interest from folks who want to write once in a while but who don't want to have to write on a regular basis, let me know, and we can accommodate.

Today, I began some drawing work in the CAD program I use (Vectorworks Architect) for some upcoming bike-safety diagrams. The image at right is my prototypical cycle commuter, but I don't have a name for him (/her) yet. Feel free to make suggestions....

2903.77 --> 0.00

Happy New Year to All!

For me, it's that most mixed-emotion of times -- time to reset the odometer. There may be those who say that one should just go on running up the miles, but not me. I think goals are good things to have, and you have to know where you're starting. My goal last year was 3000 miles, which I almost made, even considering that I didn't ride much in January or February.

This year is starting out with ugly Maryland weather, rainy and cold, but I'll be out in the first two months of the year this time around. I'm wanting to make 3300 miles of "practical" (displaced automobile) miles, and that means I need an early start.

I'm feeling pretty positive about the blog. Something just happened that has never happened before. My last post (the cargo bike review) got two comments on the first day -- whoo hoo! There are many good topics for the Practical Cyclist this year. I expect I'll be writing on my winter clothing in some more detail before the winter goes much further, and I have some overseas adventures planned with a folding bike that I've, uh, "re-cycled" from my brother.

Here's hoping the year has good cycling in store for you, too.