Cycler's Life

• The one-way bike commute

  Number of comments: 10
  I've discovered a new way to spice up the daily trip downtown--the one-way bike commute! I'd heard of the OWBC before but only in the context of crazy long-distance cyclo-commuters. They might ride in, say 20-30 miles then get a ride or transit home. The bike stays at the office [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 4:29pm EDT
  

• DC Smart Bikes

  Number of comments: 3
  January in Portland was a decent month for cycler-ing around, and I feel like my year's off to a good start. We had an unusual string of clear, calm nights in Portland, and they made for some great night commutes home. I love the almost total silence on late, cold' [...]
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  Posted: February 02, 2009, 2:18pm EST
  

• Cycler's '08

  Number of comments: 2
  It's fun to think back over a year's worth of riding. Even for a person that doesn't ride all that far all at once, those little rides add up to something pretty satisfying. This year, I got down on riding a little when school and work whittled away at my' [...]
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  Posted: January 02, 2009, 9:19pm EST
  

• Zip tie bike tire "chains" II

  Number of comments: 4
  I woke up to a couple of inches of fresh snow, with more still falling, and 28 degree temps. I headed out from Sellwood about 9 AM, and testing conditions were perfect for the zip tie-re chains:
  
  I decided to head for Mt. Tabor (a [...]
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  Posted: December 20, 2008, 2:56pm EST
  

• Zip tie bike tire "chains"

  Number of comments: 1
  Todd Boulanger, Vancouver (WA)'s bike czar, came up with the idea of wrapping zip ties around the rear wheel as lo-fi tire chains, and then bikeportland.org ran with it. The hard plastic bands should in theory provide some start up and braking traction. Of course, if you have a rear' [...]
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  Posted: December 18, 2008, 10:01pm EST
  

• Icy ruts of doom

  Number of comments: 1
  I had planned to take the bus today, but I just couldn't resist another day pedaling in the snow. Things were still fine in the neighborhood, since there was still a little strip of snow between the glare ice and parked cars. The Springwater Trail was another story. The path' [...]
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  Posted: December 15, 2008, 5:45pm EST
  

• PDX powder!

  Number of comments: 2
  To begin, yes, I have become the Rivendell Reader of the bike blogosphere. Oh, wait, the Reader is still really good when it finally shows up. Anyway...
  
  It actually snowed enough to count here! The grass had to really fight to keep from being almost totally subsumed. For my [...]
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  Posted: December 14, 2008, 9:16pm EST
  

• B-SMART

  Number of comments: 1
  As usual, scooped by bikeportland.org! But, I thought I should alert my 5 loyal readers who might otherwise have missed it. I've been working on a web-based tool to collect and organize cyclers' experiences with collisions, close calls, and trouble spots on Portland's roads. The hope is that "hard" data' [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2008, 4:27pm EDT
  

• The big 0-3

  Number of comments: 3
  
  Assuming I don't give in to temptation this week and buy that '84 Pontiac Firebird of my dreams, next Sunday will mark 3 years of carless Broaches. Among other things, that's more than half of our married years and about 10 percent of my life' [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2008, 8:50pm EDT
  

• An overnight trip up the Clackamas River

  Number of comments: 4
  Often, my head decides that something must be done before it allows me any processing time for other tasks. You know, the sort of thing you hit command-option-escape or control-alt-delete for when it happens to your computer. Most of these things sound pretty ridiculous if I say them out loud [...]
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  Posted: July 23, 2008, 12:37pm EDT
  

• Portland bike crash data

  Number of comments: 5
  Update: added a couple of new graphs with data on licensed OR drivers by age group
  
  I've been sifting through the Oregon DOT crash database recently and thought I'd post a few of the more interesting diggings here. Maybe there's something to be learned. Keep in mind that' [...]
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  Posted: July 15, 2008, 1:15am EDT
  

• Bike sharing

  Number of comments: 1
  I was really disappointed to see that Portland killed the bid process for its bike sharing program. Reports everywhere are that people really are unusually willing to consider other options right now. Transit ridership is up, and that's been posing problems for multi-moders trying to find space for bikes' [...]
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  Posted: June 29, 2008, 4:24pm EDT
  by Joe

• "Idaho" stops

  Number of comments: 3
  Riding in to the office today, I was approaching a stop sign in the new South Waterfront area. Now, this stop sign happens to be a reasonable one. Visibility is poor, and there is a fair amount of traffic even on a Sunday. As I slowed and noted a car [...]
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  Posted: May 25, 2008, 9:02pm EDT
  

• Perceptional drift

  Number of comments: 1
  It's fun to have those moments when one realizes his perceptions of the world have been changing. Just slowly enough to not be noticed, but quickly enough to cause a mental "Whoa!" when it is noticed (like the already shoulder-high rosebushes in our backyard). I noticed this morning that my' [...]
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  Posted: May 14, 2008, 3:20pm EDT
  

• Sheldon Brown, 1944-2008

  Number of comments: 2
  (http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell/images/personal/scb_eagle.jpeg)
  
  Sheldon Brown is gone. I get the feeling that I wasn't alone in thinking of Captain Bike on the ride home last night. I even hit the downhills hard in the soggy darkness, remembering tales of the big fella's grinning descents.
  
  There are [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2008, 11:43am EST
  

• My own power

  Number of comments: 6
  A lot of cyclers will tell you there's something really satisfying about getting around by their own power. Headwinds, hills, and cold rainy nights all become accomplishments when the only way to put them behind you is to keep turning the pedals. More than once I've shown up on my [...]
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  Posted: December 24, 2007, 11:36am EST
  

• Downtown bike lanes: a problem becomes tragic

  Number of comments: 0
  By now, most everyone in Portland is aware of the tragic death of a young woman on her bicycle downtown on Thursday. Kent Peterson, Alex Wetmore, and Beth Hamon all have good thoughts on the poor bike lane design that contributed. Basically, striping a bike lane [...]
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  Posted: October 13, 2007, 3:23pm EDT
  

• That other half of the cycling year

  Number of comments: 3
  As temperatures drop toward the hypothermic here in Portland (if one's trapped outdoors in an ice-filled cooler), and the sky verily gushes with water (for about half an hour once a week), the wise Stumptown cycler calls it a season (or starts racing cyclocross). Yesterday, as I roll toward' [...]
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  Posted: October 07, 2007, 7:50pm EDT
  

• San Francisco trip

  Number of comments: 1
  Rachel and I spent last week in San Francisco. Neither of us had spent more than an afternoon there before, and we really enjoyed the city. Our first impression was: "Wow, this place is tiny!" It turns out SF has a population similar to Portland's--only in about one-third of the' [...]
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  Posted: September 19, 2007, 4:25pm EDT
  

• Two-wheeled variety

  Number of comments: 1
  Probably it has something to do with the fact that my body and that ingenious contraption the bicycle just don't seem to combine for much speed. Although my mileage has increased every year for the last few years, my speed on two wheels remains about the same: pretty slow. Now,' [...]
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  Posted: September 06, 2007, 8:46pm EDT
  

• Clever Cycles

  Number of comments: 1
  I've added a link to the Clever Cycles blog. Clever Cycles is local bike shop specializing in bikes which are extremely practical and way fun. I've actually covered about 400 miles in the past month on one of their Dutch city bikes, and I'll post a full review here soon.' [...]
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  Posted: August 26, 2007, 6:24pm EDT
  

• Another threat?

  Number of comments: 6
  Bikeportland.org picked up the story of a bicyclist who was assaulted and robbed on the Springwater Trail multi-use path Wednesday night. The path makes up the bulk of my commute route most nights. The incident actually happened out past Sellwood, where the trail definitely changes character from good spooky [...]
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  Posted: August 26, 2007, 5:16pm EDT
  

• Am I paying my share?

  Number of comments: 0
  The Mary Peters fallout raises an issue that always seems to be aggravating the cycler/driver divide. Do cyclists pay their fair share for the facilities they use? It seems like as soon as anyone asks the question, it changes into "Should they pay their fair share?" and pretty quickly [...]
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  Posted: August 18, 2007, 9:58pm EDT
  

• Socializing bike commutes

  Number of comments: 4
  A couple of posts back, I mentioned socializing bike commuting as one way to ease new commuters into it (or maybe encourage occasional bike commuters to ride more often). Let's push the idea a little more.
  
  It seems like a natural in some ways. One of the advantages of' [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2007, 11:07pm EDT
  

• Car/bike contact

  Number of comments: 0
  Wow, four years of riding pretty much every day, and I finally had my first physical car/bike incident. No damage done (to me), but maybe there's a lesson, or maybe you have time to kill and need something to read.
  
  Going to show that cycling is pretty idiot-proof, quite' [...]
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  Posted: August 11, 2007, 4:20pm EDT
  

• Portland's next step: a contrarian view

  Number of comments: 4
  It's lonely at the top, I guess. There isn't a lot of debate about which big US city is the bikey-est. Having lived in Portland for a year now, I have to agree that this city has gotten a lot of things right, from a cycler's point of view. There' [...]
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  Posted: August 11, 2007, 2:41pm EDT
  

• Cultural Images and Car Culture

  Number of comments: 6
  My favorite kind of read: provocative, smart, funny, and written by a cycler. This one is well worth part of your lunch break.
  
  "The Despotism of the Image" Demetri Orlov (culturechange.org) [link] [...]
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  Posted: January 25, 2007, 5:21pm EST
  

• Snow Day

  Number of comments: 3
  
  
  I wake up, shower, dress, and start breakfast before a strange realization hits me. "Isn't it kind of dark for 9:00 in the morning?" Our front and back porches are covered with clear plastic sheeting, and this morning, they're packed with snow. Snow? Snow!! About [...]
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  Posted: January 17, 2007, 4:14pm EST
  

• Bummer Encounters

  Number of comments: 5
  I actually find it mostly pleasant interacting with cars in the city. There is a type of negative interaction that always sticks with me in a bad way. It happens maybe once every 4 rides, and I've taken to calling them "Bummer Encounters." These are interactions with motorists in which [...]
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  Posted: December 19, 2006, 5:13pm EST
  

• Comfortably Damp; Blog Interrupted

  Number of comments: 3
  (We now interrupt the blog interruption to bring you a post. School, work, riding, writing; I had to pick three for a while. New ideas on the writing front, though, check back soon!)
  
  I think it was Kent Peterson who first introduced me to the idea of being "comfortably [...]
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  Posted: December 15, 2006, 4:46pm EST
  

• Another recipe for fun with a bicycle

  Number of comments: 2
  
  
  Sunrise with Bicycle
  
  Ingredients:
  
  * 1 big hill near you where all the really nice houses are
  * 1 insulated container of hot water, seasoned to taste
  * 1-2 bready products
  * 3-4 warm items of clothing
  * 2-wheeled contraption (tandem good [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2006, 4:49pm EDT
  

• My new commute

  Number of comments: 5
  I wish I could explain why the six miles from our apartment to downtown Portland put a silly grin on my face twice a day. But, those that would understand already know, and those that don't understand, well, just wouldn't. In person, when I tell people more or less what [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2006, 4:39pm EDT
  

• In other news

  Number of comments: 0
  Rachel is back blogging and doing most of the work on the tandem (but, don't tell her that) at cyclerswife.blogspot.com. [...]
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  Posted: September 12, 2006, 7:57pm EDT
  

• Bike Friendly: a play in 3 acts

  Number of comments: 7
  Act I
  
  [Scene: Sellwood Bridge--a gently arcing concrete span that joins two major arterial streets. Spotlight sweeps lone sidewalk on north side of bridge, narrow enough that passing pedestrians brush shoulders. Lone cycler approaches bridge from east, while a steady stream of cars trails behind.]
  
  The two-lane Sellwood [...]
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  Posted: September 11, 2006, 3:02pm EDT
  

• Portland

  Number of comments: 5
  Just a quick note that Rachel and I have landed safely in Portland. We've had fun exploring all of the cool neighborhoods from our home base in Sellwood. Yesterday, we looped over and around the east side of Mt. Tabor on the tandem, and today we rode my soon-to-be commute [...]
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  Posted: August 31, 2006, 7:57pm EDT
  

• Carfree in Los Angeles

  Number of comments: 1
  Heard on NPR this morning (you can listen free here). Chris Balish went from Toyota Sequoia to carfree in L.A. and is writing a book about the experience. I enjoyed his positive approach, and he had some good advice for those considering. [...]
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  Posted: August 15, 2006, 12:51pm EDT
  

• Leonard

  Number of comments: 2
  The topography around Missoula sort of conspires against loop rides of any reasonable distance. I end up doing a lot of out and back rides when I have half a day to spare, and to keep it interesting I plan my turnaround somewhere I can fish, explore, or at least [...]
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  Posted: August 13, 2006, 6:55pm EDT
  

• Time trial

  Sometime last year, I realized that there were lots of times I had a free hour. After a few attempts, I pieced together a pleasant loop of a bit over 15 miles that I could reliably ride in an hour door to door. It wasn't long before I started checking [...]
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  Posted: August 11, 2006, 3:01pm EDT
  

• Ground transportation

  I just returned from a week on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. If anyone wants a disturbing image of car silliness for her upcoming peak oil/sustainable living/other arrangements Pulitzer piece, I suggest a trip over to Baltimore-Washington International airport (BWI). The expanse of parking lots is truly mind-bending, especially given [...]
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  Posted: August 09, 2006, 10:43pm EDT
  

• Would a gas tax be regressive?

  Jim over at OIFS is doing his usual good job of making people uncomfortable--in a good way. As the call for an increased gas tax builds to a loud whisper, Jim notes that opponents are quick to play the regressive card. Put simply, a regressive tax takes a [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2006, 5:10pm EDT
  

• (Not) Like Riding a Bicycle

  I drove a car today. That was my big news on the phone to Rachel, and she asked, "Wow, how was it?" If the Feds were listening in on that converstation, they probably made a couple of tick marks in the crazy box and went back to watching the ballgame. [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2006, 12:23am EDT