A few weeks ago, I participated in a radio call-in show about urban cycling during which a caller expressed her fear that her adult son was going to be killed on the roads. He is a bicycle commuter who had already been struck by cars twice while riding inside a painted bike lane. I mumbled …
Read more “The folly of paint: Is it time to give up on painted bike lanes completely?”
A decade ago, riding a bicycle in Toronto and Vancouver was, in some ways, a similar experience. Two of Canada’s biggest cities, both had dense and walkable urban cores, but little in the way of bike-specific infrastructure, so riding through the city could be a harrowing experience. Both cities had thousands of cyclists who were …
You’ve been there, even if you haven’t consciously been there: Riding your bike down a typical city street feeling squeezed from all sides, unable to see past the next intersection, worried about being doored and generally unwelcome on what should be public space. Why do you feel that way? Because the street looks like this: …
Read more “Here’s what happens to your bike ride when thousands of more cars are added to roads”
Several years ago, Zak Pashak was in the market for a new bike. Not an expensive carbon-fibre race machine, or a $10,000 status symbol. He just wanted a simple, practical bike that wouldn’t require a lot of maintenance, time or money. But he was quickly turned off by the athletic focus of the bike shops …
Read more “Are our irrational consumer tastes holding us back from more bike-friendly lives?”
Some things about driving a car are difficult. Doing a 180-degree e-brake slide into a parking space, for example. Or that famous kickflip in the James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun, which was so difficult nobody even attempted to replicate it for 40 years. Another thing that’s difficult, apparently, is passing a …
Read more “How to pass a bike in a car without killing anyone (or being a dick)”
The biggest argument in urban cycling of the last 20 years is pretty much settled. So why are we still arguing about it? After last week’s post about the ways Montreal managed to become one of the continent’s most bike-friendly cities, that old saw fired up again. Much of the commentary focused on the perceived shortfalls and benefits of vehicular …
Read more “Vehicular cycling is dead, just don’t bury the body yet”
The bag of chips, inhumanely large, groaned under the strain when I heard the passerby say it: “Now that,” she said, “is the kind of bike you need for Costco.” Mercifully, the bag didn’t explode and send a thousand kilograms of quinoa- and chia-infused tortilla skyward, but instead settled nicely into the saddle bags of …
Read more “Can a cargo bike pass the ultimate test of suburban life: A trip to Costco?”
In addition to cheese, trains and museums, Europeans tend to look down on another aspect of North American life: The way we dress on a bike. Cases in point. This image is from my city of Calgary. This one from the Netherlands. Calgary. Netherlands See the difference? I’m not judging their fashion choices (good lord, have …
Read more “Middle-ground fashion: Are we in the midst of transitional North American cycle chic?”