Wednesday Video Roundup: neighborhood history, alphabet walkers, and e-bike power


Welcome to this week’s roundup! I’ve reviewed 84 videos this week, in addition to attending Filmed By Bike. Did you go? There were some great videos. I’m starting the week with the film that won top marks at the festival, taken by a Slovokian filmmaking duo. It’s very artistic, which is pleasing.


I think the Adventure Night was the best screening of the weekend, though to me the best film version of the following film that was shown at the VIP Night screening. (last week I actually showed a version of this video aimed at promoting the bike manufacturer- I didn’t know there was a full video). Yes, the fashion show was real.

Vancouver’s progress on bike infrastructure has been on BikePortland lately. This video is aimed at businesses, talking about one experience with retail patterns when the bike infrastructure went in.

Streetfilms unearthed some classic transportation videos. Here’s one 1959 emphasizing the failures of the jaywalking pedestrian and invents terms for “gee walker”, “O walker”, “I walker”, and “ex walker”. I don’t think those terms caught on, though “I walking” is how many drivers seem to believe the law goes (“show consideration for the drivers”). But we don’t improperly blame pedestrians anymore, right?

Speaking of Jay, heres a short video showing the number of double-parked cars (and other cars ignoring lane markings) on Jay Street in Brooklyn. This makes the supposedly terrible center bike lanes in DC seem appealing. (note all the scaffolding too)

I really like this springtime video showing riders climbing Col de la Bonette on the first day it has been cleared of snow. There’s a great blog writeup about it too.

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Here’s a good intro to techniques and tactics in sprint racing with Dutch track cyclist Jeffrey Hoogland (“a sprint race is just like animals hunting each other”). I really think it’s interesting how different subcultures of cycling are incredibly specialized.

Wheelys Cafe has a series of franchised coffee bikes. (We have coffee bikes too!). This video shows Maria, the owner, getting sweet sweet revenge on Starbucks:

Detroit Bikes was in this week’s news roundup and has been featured in the video roundup too- here’s a promo showing their work with New Belgium Brewing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiNzHMlxeWk

E-Bikes are a big deal lately- on the street, on the trail, and (ahem) in racing. Flux bikes wanted to show off what their bike can do by towing a Prius:

I love this history of a neighborhood in Denver. It’s really neat to get a neighborhood’s history, not just a glimpse. It’s from a transportation department yet it gives a fairly neutral history of the neighborhood. After the first seven minutes it turns into an argument for a highway expansion, but goes back into discussion of the history later.

Trans-am rider, bike maker, and adventure rider Sarah Swallow is featured in this episode of ‘Adventure Dispatch’ in Humbolt County, California. The road looks a lot like Larch Mountain to me.

Drawing a bicycle is an interesting memory test (see a previous example of this). A graphical agency had its employees draw a bike from memory. It’s entertaining.

Here’s another bike from the River City Bicycles collection- an early-2000s full-suspension bike.

I like this “road bike safety tips” video from GCN. It’s a good video for a novice who has been on the road for a little bit and is ready to understand the big picture. It’s hard when someone is such a novice that they are struggling with things like shifting and braking, but they are things that are definitely required for proficient road cycling.

Motors in bike racing have been in the news a lot lately. This video is really informative, showing the various ways to detect a motor. It’s a level of detail I haven’t seen from UCI.

This video from Western Bike Works is showing off a new backpack from Shimano, but I’m highlighting it because it’s basically a video postcard to Portland.

It came out that Gino Bartali, who won the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France a combined five times, was smuggling documents by bike for the Italian resistance during World War 2, helping Jewish refugees. The following is from a recent documentary about his efforts:

Here’s a preview for Wolfpack Hustle’s Long Beach race. Good music.

KymNonStop ran the third-annual Mission Crit, this video shows the whole experience, not jut the race.

Red Hook crit crash

I waited a week to avoid spoiling it, and generally highlighting crashes is a little NASCAR-y for me, but the moto-caused crash at Red Hook was epically terrible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFkBJZmVVc8

Another view:

Here it is from a rider’s POV:

(want to blame it on the lack of brakes? bikesnobnyc breaks it down)

Giro d’Italia highlights

It’s going on all month. I’m not going to cover it much because of spoilers. Any videos here don’t spoil the race or leaders.

How do the pros warm up for a time trial? Team Sky is the most precise team in the peloton, so it’s especially interesting to see what they do.

Honorable Mentions

This week’s honorable mentions: video clip showing ‘moments’ captured on the Cycliq cameras, a dramatic right-hook collision, Laurents ten Dam talking about living and training in California, ride along the new Blackfriars bike superhighway in London (look how busy it is!), discussion from the pros on how to wear cycling caps (“cap down for some of the Italians with their long noses”), Tom Dumoulin’s time trial bike (so many small details), this “new bike” video from Trek is great because it actually markets an entry-level bike with entry-level jargon, the appeal of mountain biking in Northern Scotland, and London police hit a cyclist at Critical Mass.

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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bikeninja
bikeninja
7 years ago

Wow, the Jaywalker video blew my mind. Some people think of the 1950’s as the good old days, but this video makes it clear that it was when we went down the wrong road ( literally), and began our worship of the automobile, and the demonization of all other users of the public space as little more than road kill.

Bradwagon
Bradwagon
7 years ago

Sounds like Denver’s I-70 needs a road diet…

TonyT
Tony T
7 years ago

Watching Hoogland on the rollers is insane. That bike doesn’t move. It’s like it’s bolted in place. Goes to show you don’t get to be Euro champ by having a bad spin.