It was while screaming downhill, past hundreds of other cyclists who were slowly climbing in the opposite direction, that the thought crossed my mind. “Huh,” I thought. “This is a thing.” That was on the weekend as I happily rode the Highwood Pass for the first time, a local highway that, for a few weekends …
Read more “This temporary car-free haven shows how people on bikes flock to safe routes”
Maybe it was the news that Tesla is now the largest U.S. carmaker by market cap, or maybe it has been the uncertainty around the price of oil, but there has been a flurry of futurism lately centred around looming changes to our transportation systems, specifically around autonomous electric cars. Autonomous, electric vehicles are about …
Read more “The future of transportation is already here, but everybody is missing it”
On Bike to Work Day, I asked people a couple of straightforward questions about their chosen commuting mode. Here’s what they said. Take note of how many who said they ride for environmental reasons, for ideology, or because they hate cars (hint: none).
A reader recently asked a question recently that got me thinking: If conditions are ripe for cycling, why bother adding bike infrastructure? The question came out of my recent post from Yellowknife in which I mused about the city’s potential as a great bike town thanks to its wide streets, slow traffic and hearty residents. …
Read more “Increasing number of dead pedestrians are a reminder that bike lanes matter”
“Big grocery.” That is a slightly tongue-in-cheek suggestion about how to make cities more bike friendly by Ontarian Lana Stewart, who speaks and writes thoughtfully about the fixation of urban cycling advocates on commuters, despite statistics showing that a huge percentage of car trips are elsewhere, such as running errands, shuffling kids to activities and, yes, getting …
Read more “Do bike lanes marginalize people in the suburbs?”
For years, I’ve ridden the same winter commuting bike, which I affectionately, but sometimes derisively, refer to as my p.o.s.: a crappy 20-year-old mountain bike whose best days were in the last century. While I do have a soft spot in my heart for this bike, that spot often grows hard. The machine is an …
Read more “My perfect winter bike really exists, and I just bought it”
You’re fat off shortbread and turkey. The consumer orgy haze of Dec. 25 still lingers. You can remember nothing on New Year’s Eve after Mariah Carey. Sounds like the perfect time to start a new habit! So here, future winter cyclist, are some suggestions to get you going in 2017. Resolve to ride more When …
Read more “10 new year’s resolutions for your winter-bike commute”
Examining all the proposed reasons for bike licencing one by one.
A few weeks ago, I criticized cities for failing to build sensible connections between existing bike lanes. Then I rolled over a relatively new piece of bike infrastructure in my city, and had a bit of a moment. “There,” I thought. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Here’s that new piece of infrastructure. https://www.instagram.com/p/BK2ClNDAamW/ (Just …
Read more “Here’s how little connections can make big improvements to bike friendliness”
Let’s play a little bicycle commuter game. There are two videos below, both of which I shot, very professionally, by holding up my phone while I rode my bicycle to work. These videos were shot on two roads that run parallel to each other one block apart. Here’s the challenge: Guess which road contains bike-specific …
Read more “Want to build better bike infrastructure? Listen to people riding bikes”