Welcome to this week’s roundup! Our first video (above) is an explanation about how Filmed By Bike works and how it helps the cycling community. I love the style of this- there’s enough information and also enough entertainment to keep it interesting.
This new Streetfilms video tries to answer why cycling works in Toyko. Given 14%+ mode share, it’s an interesting question. My favorite quote: “they’re cycling because it makes sense.” There’s a discussion about how expensive cars are, especially parking. I’m sure that helps with the mode share.
Summer may be coming, but it’s wrapping up for the southern hemisphere. Here’s a short video showing gravel grinding in New Zealand. (bonus: hilarious shot of derpy sheep around 40 seconds)
Speaking of that area of the world, this PSA comes from Tasmania. It does a really good job of explaining why it’s important for drivers to give space when passing a cyclist. The video has a great premise, it communicates the message without needing words.
Terrible design comes up in bicycling, especially bike advocacy: can we change the design of things so people intuitively do the right thing? (for instance, can we design a bridge entrance so it isn’t possible to drive on the sidewalk?) This video is about poorly designed doors and how they are so pervasive. Naturally, when it comes to design, it all comes back to 99% Invisible.
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I’m a fan of the Armstrong-Pantani era of pro cycling, and I strongly dislike Lance Armstrong. I tend to watch and read everything objective about it, so I couldn’t help but watch this interview series with him. The first one is below; here are others: USADA, do it all again?, EPO vs other doping, lifetime ban, and riders union.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt-Jmg0f4qo
Some cyclists opt to vocalize their frustration with car drivers. Here’s an example where the smallest of comments led to assault. (if someone finds an update on this, please reply below)
GCN has a howto on using disc brakes this week. There are certainly a lot of myths about disc brakes, which are certainly taking over the road bike market.
This week’s honorable mentions: Lucas Brunelle’s ‘love hotel’ filled with bikes outside Cancun (warning: language), what to do when you bonk (aka ‘hit the wall’), Clever Cycles reviewing the Douze and explains why riding a longtail makes sense, and all the places ceramic bearings are used in pro bikes (expensive!).
Inclusion criteria: If I’ve missed something, post it in the comments! I prefer videos published in the last week or so. Note if there’s a specific point in a long video that is worth highlighting. Also note if there is colorful language. I will delay videos containing pro racing spoilers by 7 days.
– Ted Timmons, @tedder42
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What a GREAT Filmed By Bike Video. I’m getting my tix now!
Tell me that parade segment isn’t straight out of Portlandia… 😉
We live in such a white city…
Awesome FbB video! Ayleen is responsible for SO many fantastic bike-related events over the years, and I count myself lucky to have worked with her on a myriad of cool projects. Our beloved, weird, and unique PDX bike scene wouldn’t be the same without her- HUGE THANKS for all you do Ayleen- FbB this year is gonna be killer!
Disk Brakes are a solution in search of a problem. The only two situations where disk brakes are superior to rim brakes ( a style of disk brake) are mud clogged rims ( cyclocross, certain kinds of mountain biking) delicate carbon fiber rims, or oversize tires . Otherwise they have less mechanical advantage, put extra stress in to the spokes, and forks. And are more expensive to maintain and require specialized parts once they wear. Most of the advantage that people atribute to disk brakes comes from compairing cheap poorly designed rim brakes to modern sophisticated disk brakes. Be sure they make sense for you before drinking the high tech kool-aid.
Thanks for the laugh. Seriously funny stuff…enjoy those canti’s.
Having been an early adopter in road disc brakes (http://windluvr.com/masi), I’ll back this up. I do believe the modulation and power feels slightly better using the discs (I can brake later because they engage smoothly and slow me quickly), but unless you’re cyclocrossing or wet riding or (like me) a cheapskate wanting to prolong the life of your carbon rims, rim braking is likely better.
We recently got a Santana tandem and I had these conversations with them, and they highly recommend against front disc brakes for tandems, and oversize (and preferably vented) disc rotor in the back… which is the exact opposite for a road bike setup. I swapped out a clunky old WinZip on the back for a TRP Spyre, switched old DA 9-speed for new 105 (Super SLR pulls 20% more cable), put a DA BR-9000 caliper on the front, and now it brakes on a dime (OK… quarter ;).
Noise, fussiness, and maintenance costs are definitely higher for discs, I can vouch for that. I still love ’em though, but my new favorite thing is fat rims!
i used to burn through rims every 1-2 years. after switching to disc brakes (over a decade ago) i now burn through $9 disc brake pads. using disc brakes has saved me many hundreds of dollars.
other advantages of disc brakes (hydraulic, of course):
1. better modulation.
2. more immediate stopping power — especially when wet.
3. require very little maintenance.
My rims seem to do okay with calipers. Just had to rebuild my back wheel. After twenty years of use, I started breaking spokes. I used the original mavic rim in the rebuild, looks like I will get another 20 years out of it.
One thing I can recommend for people using mechanical disc brakes is compression-less housing (the stuff with straight lining like derailleur housing and not the accordion-like standard brake lining). With the TRP Hy/Rd I found a tremendous improvement, rebuilt my rain/CX bike with it on Friday and noticed much better responsiveness in the rain on Saturday (front TRP Spyre, rear Shimano CX), and used it on a Santana tandem rebuild (rear TRP Spyre) where it seems to really make a difference running all that distance to the back. (I think it was the “Jagwire Ripcord Mountain Pro” kit that I picked up on Amazon).
What about when you’re on a cargo bike, in the rain, heading towards a red light at the bottom of the hill? Yeah.
Not sure if a cargo bike is quite like a tandem, but here’s their perspective, after testing many tandems on a very steep, long hill near their facility: http://santanatandems.com/Techno/UnderstandingBraking.html
Interesting about the doors. I was in Paris recently and kept trying to push doors that pulled open. My cousin explained it’s because in the US most doors open out to ease egress during a fire, but there you’d be knocking people over frequently because the doors tend to be solid and impinge on narrow sidewalk space.
In relation to bike lanes and intersection design, we’ve had the best luck when we can engage engineers to meet with us at the problem spot and watch car/bike/ped traffic for a while (as Norman suggests). Unfortunately their process tends not to be iterative, so once paint or concrete goes down it’s extremely hard to get them to change it, even if you can show it still doesn’t work (or works worse).
Cycling in Tokyo – politeness makes it work.
Increasingly, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to carry a sidearm to deal with angry drivers like the one above. It might JUST be worth the risk of death or jail time.
I think that if you want to get out of jail time, you need to drive a vehicle and call it an “accident”.
Good point. I’m sure that if police eventually catch up with the driver, they’ll end up charging the cyclist with something instead.