Every day, I witness fellow cyclists blatantly breaking rules of the road, putting themselves and others at risk, and making the rest of us law-abiding bikers look bad. Blasting through red lights, wearing dark clothes at night with no lights or reflectors, and aggressively cutting in front of cars are just a few examples of belligerent cycling that is rampant. When I ride with friends, we definitely try to stay in single file if we are on a busy road. Just the other day as I was driving, some woman riding with her buddies was in the lane while her friends stayed to the right. Believe me, I know that we are entitled to the lane, but if there is room to let a car pass, that should always be the priority in order to avoid incident.

So what can we do? Our cities are not designed with bicycles as the priority, although some reformation is taking place nowadays. Entire city street plans would need to be shifted in order to have bikes and cars truly cooperating. Some cities are ahead of the pack. Like I mentioned last week, Portland rules for biking in the US. They initiated a plan to become more biker-friendly back in 1971. Europe, however, seems to be leading the way for bicycle oriented thoroughfares. The Dutch and the Danish have some fantastic cycling innovations. Just check out these videos.

So we have some examples to learn from. Perhaps someday soon, a great cycling advocate will rise up into a position of political power and the necessary changes shall be made! But until then, please stay aware of your surroundings and ride safe.

I was just digging through some old boxes of my dad’s and discovered some really awesome headband/ear covers that are super crucial for this brisk air. I definitely ride with gloves on so my hands don’t go numb, but my ears are often still forced to endure extreme wind chill. These headbands should make a world of difference!

At least the rainy season has yet to begin. How do you protect yourself in the rain? Some sort of fender over the back tire to prevent mud splashing onto your back is a great idea, especially if you’re on the way to work in nice clothes. There are also numerous options for waterproof pants or shoes. There are even capes available that allow for ventilation to avoid the swampy humid feeling that arises when pedaling aggressively under several layers of clothing.

But more importantly, we must calculate the additional road space required to stop on wet asphalt. As I ride, I tend to assume that everyone else on the road is going to make a maneuver that endangers me. If that sounds paranoid, just this weekend I was riding with a friend, my buddy moved directly in front of me very suddenly and I had to skid a little bit to avoid a collision. It was nothing serious, and I made no point of it to him, but these little habits of caution are the type of action that avoid escalation into larger incidents.

One day after work last winter, I had to ride home in a sudden torrential downpour. Luckily, my house was only a couple miles away. Even so, I ended up completely drenched from my waist down. I had worn a waterproof jacket on top, but regular jeans and sneakers on bottom. My socks were literally saturated, which has to be one of the worst feelings. I was reminded of Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump, who was adamant about the necessity for clean, dry socks: “There is one item of GI gear that can be the difference between life and death: Socks.” I tend to agree with his sentiments, and love the feeling of a fresh pair of warm fuzzy socks. When I finally got home from my rapid ride though the squall, I was lucky my dad had a fire roaring. I immediately changed into dry clothes and made myself cozy by the fireplace.

Weather is an extremely powerful phenomenon, and humans have generally done a pretty awesome job of adapting to it in order to thrive in places like the Himalayas.

There are times, however, when an alternative route probably should be taken.

Like this:

It’s also pretty cool that anyone can make these movies. You just type the words, and the animated characters speak them. They don’t always speak them correctly, but then that’s the source of some of the humor, right?

Enjoy!

The Typical Post Ride Conversation:

Here–an interview with Phil Ligget:

I will first clarify points I disagree with:

1. I will probably never drop five grand on a bike. Ever. I only buy parts with pro-deals, discounts, and on e-bay.
2. A steel frame from 1988 is a perfectly fine thing, so long as it’s quality.
3. Hipsters.  I really hate the pants, the tiny handle bars, and the fixed gear bikes. But the messenger bags are cool. I mean, every commuter needs one of those, they’re ergonomically correct! Even MC SpandX should understand that.
4. I’m not sure it really is all about performance. Sometimes I like to ride just for fun
5. Objectifying women by having them pump tires in unzipped jerseys isn’t nice. It sets unreasonable standards for the rest of us who only unzip our jerseys until after we’ve gotten hot while riding, not just to make MC SpandXlook like he can get the ladies.

Ok, aside from those 5 points, I pretty much love this video.

It sounded like a great idea to me, and somewhat tragic that the things could be banned (I might feel differently if the article had provided some accident statistics or something). I wanted to see these bikes in action. I kind of want to go to Amsterdam just to ride one. So what did I do instead? I went to the trusty Youtube–where one can always find exactly what is needed when one can’t afford a trip to Amsterdam. I present to you, the beer bike: