If you ever doubted the global appeal of the bicycle in winter, today’s third annual Moscow Winter Bike Parade ought to disabuse you of the notion. More than 3,000 Muscovites braved the snow and cold to ride together in the shadow of the Kremlin. For cyclists in this megapolis that is just beginning to look …
Read more “The wonderful (and inspiring) bike lovers of the Moscow Winter Bike Parade”
This sounds stupid, I know, but one of the keys to happy urban cycling is learning how to slow down. Riding more slowly in a city is safer, calmer, more relaxing and is conducive to being in the moment and enjoying the surroundings. So why is that hard? Because much of the bicycle industry is …
Read more “How to ride a bike slowly (and why you would want to)”
There are plenty of challenges to riding a bike in winter, and sometimes they threaten to overwhelm its enjoyableness. But one thing that will always give the season a unique pleasure: Snow. Once you get past the fear of slipping and falling (more on this later), snow offers an experience unlike any other you’ll have …
Call it baby-steps bike infrastructure: the kind of urban design that takes a step toward bike friendliness, but doesn’t quite take the full leap. Twice in recent months, new infrastructure has been built near me that falls into that incremental category, and it’s something being seen in many North American cities. It’s a mashup of …
Read more “These civic improvements are taking only baby-steps toward bike friendliness”
The recent dust-up between Tesla founder Elon Musk and humans who believe that urban transit isn’t a dystopian nightmare highlighted a broader question: Do automakers really care about our cities? It’s not just Musk’s comments that have sparked this conversation. In recent years, leaders of the American automobile industry giants have been musing about how …
Read more “Do automakers really want to help save our cities from the car?”
It didn’t strike like lightning. It was more like a subconscious feeling created by its absence until one day I finally noticed. Hey, I thought. My feet aren’t cold. That was a good day, as have many since then. It seems a small thing, and I didn’t realize it until I realized it, but toasty …
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In Seattle, it was heralded as an urban paradigm shift. In China, it was cited as evidence of a declining national character. In Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, it felt positively genteel. I’m speaking of dockless bike-share systems, and after reading about them being implemented in cities all over the world, I finally got …
Riding a bike is only the best thing ever, so of course you want to do it all winter long. But you’re frightened. All that cold, snow and ice is intimidating. But after more than a decade of riding through northern winters, I’ve learned a secret: Those are not the things you should be afraid …
Read more “This is the one thing you should be frightened of while riding your bike in winter”
As a rootless, tribeless and bike-agnostic cyclist, I ride anything with two wheels. My daily rides can range from fast road bikes when I’m looking for a workout, to a city cruiser when I’m on a slow roll to the pub. But I’ve often wondered which method was best for my commute to work. So …
Read more “The bicycle commute test: Cruiser, road or mountain bike – which one is best?”
Remember the war on cars? The hyperbolic and mostly mythical idea that cyclists, a “special interest group,” were successfully ramming such horrors as bike lanes down the throats of unsupportive legions of car drivers? Since the peak “war on cars” battles of four or five years ago, the hot war has cooled a bit because …