Wednesday Video Roundup: bridge pedaling, test bikes, and bamboo bikes

Welcome to this week’s roundup! This past weekend was the Emerald City Bike Ride in Seattle. It’s the first year, and the highlights were riding across the new Hwy 520 floating bridge and then going down the I-5 express lanes. It had a similar surreal feeling as riding over the Fremont Bridge during our city’s Bridge Pedal event. Above is my short highlights video; another interesting view was from the rider who was first out and got to set the KOM across the bridge and then again on the express lanes.

The weather has been nice (though it rained Sunday night- did anyone else get caught out in it?), but that doesn’t mean your raingear can be stashed. Western Bikeworks tested Showers Pass gear. It’s a cute video and worth watching all the way through- it pays off at the end.

This video from Trek is, of course, meant for selling their bike, but I liked seeing what the “test bikes” looked like. (you can also see how the adjustable seattube ‘suspension’ works or watch GCN’s segment on it)

Cannondale put up a video where their riders mountain biked in southern Utah. The terrain of that area always seems so exotic to me.

It’s been over a week, so I can spoil Gent-Wevelgem. Peter Sagan won, which is great considering how many second-place finishes he’s had. This behind-the-scenes video is nice, as it shows a different POV than you normally see. (here’s a preview of Tour of Flanders, aka De Ronde. It was a few days ago, but no spoilers this week)

Here’s more Sagan- on a team training ride. He’s in the white jersey, watch him hoon around. Looks like he’s having fun.

On the topic of the Tour of Flanders, this is a great overview of what the Koppenberg is all about. It’s only a couple hundred feet, so why is it so legendary and so difficult? (see also: on-the-scenes preview of the general race circuit)

Calfee has a bamboo bike, this video is for their “DIY kit”, but the most interesting part is where Craig Calfee talks about the company history.

April Fools videos

in addition to Portland’s bike-themed April fools jokes, there were a few on the ‘net. I put this at the bottom, because.. April Fools gets old. GCN’s announcement wasn’t terribly funny, but Mike Cotty’s Col Collective announcement was good. It’s a fantastic series, and thi video jokes that he’s branching out to “Cow Collective”.

Google’s “self driving bicycle” was fun. The joke was that biking would be safer if it didn’t have an operator.

Honorable mentions

This week’s honorable mentions: reverse bike theft from KymNonStop (warning: language), Carlton Reid showing off the new Victoria Embankment cycleway, BikeRadar extolling the virtues of the new aluminum CAAD12, their ‘bike of the year’, short interview of (current road world champion) Lizzie Armistead, and Factor One race bike with a double-downtube design.

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