Welcome to the weekly video roundup.
Between bikecamping, biking, city council, and everything else, it’s been a busy week. I hear the Olympics are happening but ignored them to review over 110 videos. Let’s start with River City Bikes, above; Dave G and Richard Schwinn (yes, he’s a Schwinn, also founder of Waterford and Gunnar cycles) talk about the beauty of classic bikes. I really liked it.
I’ve never gone to a ski resort and done the “ski lift” downhill mountain biking thing. I’ve thought about it. Even though that wasn’t the intent, this gives me an idea of what it’s like (such as “how do I load a bike onto the chairlift?”).
Willamette Week did a bar crawl by Biketown bikes. That means they rode while drunk, which is dangerous and probably illegal. Now that that statement is out of the way, watch the video and enjoy.
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The PathLessPedaled road trip spanned several weeks. Here’s a tour of the Spoke’n bike/moto hostel/church in Mitchell, Oregon, just outside Painted Hills:
We (as Portland) have talked about equity and bikeshare. Does bikeshare work for everyone? Here’s a conference that discussed that.
Oh no, Specialized is bringing Hypercolor back. (also daytime running lights)
Brompton World Championships. I’m not going to say they look extra-silly, but I think I just did.
“GCN does science” are like all anecdotal tests: not exactly science, but still informative. It’s interesting to see the difference in the progression of helmets. (BTW, the temperatures quoted, converted to ‘murican, are 90.7 and 93.0 F)
Can you descend on the road faster by using a mountain bike dropper post? (alternate question, “what the hell is a dropper post?”)
Llamas. Bicycle. That is all.
This is another episode from Russ and Laura’s #GreatWesternRamble. It’s special because they talk about how communities can benefit from touring cyclists.
Over 40,000 bikes per day use this intersection. Wow. Note there are four design elements that reduce the right-hook risk: early green light for bikes, early red for bikes, blue bike lane, and a short stop line for cars.
Honorable Mentions
This week’s honorable mentions: in Soviet Russia, mountain bikes YOU! (sorry, so sorry), a heavily-used bikeway in Amsterdam (and scooterway, apparently), 13.6lb road bike, Black Girls Do Bike in New York City, a relaxing 17-minute cyclepath ride in Utrecht, Netherlands, and a new bike path and redevelopment in NL.
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
Thanks for reading.
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Did anyone notice that at the busiest bike intersection in the world, where bikes greatly outnumbered cars, hundreds of bikes were restricted to a narrow crowded lane, while a few cars cars got 80% of the road?
Also interesting that turning cars only get 6 seconds per phase to make their turn (that’s the time after the cycle light turns red and the car light is still green). That means that only a very small number of vehicles can turn at each time around the signal, which means this design only works where turning vehicle volumes are very low.
Turning vehicle volumes, or any volumes for that matter, are not an inherent property of a place independent of the design. Signal timings and other infrastructure choices will affect the routes drivers take and people’s mode choices, too! At a big crossroads in the bike network, maybe you just design infrastructure that doesn’t sacrifice bike movement to accommodate every possible driving maneuver. In the age of Waze it won’t take drivers long to find an alternative.
I enjoyed seeing so many bikeshare bikes out and about in cities (and ridden by a diverse group of users) in the video about equity and bikeshare programs.
Out in Beaverton yesterday and today, through Nike’s woods (yes, the north-south asphalt path through those woods is open to the public dawn to dusk…word straight from Nike security.)..I notice that Nike has replaced its initial, exclusively for use on campus bike share fleet, with new models that appear to be exactly the same BikeTown models that Portland’s BikeTown fleet is equipped with…and of course, do have BikeTown decals on the bikes.
‘Twas a bit of a shock to me to pick one of them up and find that the bikes truly seem to be as heavy as they’ve been described as being. 60lbs doesn’t sound far off. As long as the rider isn’t climbing, the weight might not be a big deal. The bikes are colorful…they look good…better than the earlier models, some of which are still mixed in with the new.
I wonder if anyone has managed to check one out at Nike and return it downtown in under 30 minutes…
They don’t show up on the public Biketown map though. I wonder if SoBi set up a private network for them.
I like the video on cycle lane protection with the dedicated bike traffic light. But I would take it one step further. This is an idea I got riding past a federal building with those pop up bollards in front of the parking garage. In a seperated bike lane ,like the new one on sw 2nd, add the pop up bollards at the edge of the vehicle lane where it intersects the bike lane at the intersection. Then add some smart controls that can tell if a cyclist is in the lane and if a car is trying to turn and presto. A car tries to right(or left) hook the cyclist and the bollards pop up instantly, stopping the dangerous driver with a mighty crunch. How to pay for them you say? Change the traffic laws so that every time a motorists right (or left) hooks a cyclist in Portland their auto insurance has to pay for the installation of one of these “Smart Bollards”. In my experience we would have Portland fully equiped with this life-saving technology in no time, and the party’s most responsible would pay the bill.
Cool idea! I’d hack that for a dollar… 😉
The gas scooters in Amsterdam are really annoying. We had a couple close calls while riding bikes there.
Frankly, the cyclists are really annoying as well, if you want to walk anywhere.
Isn’t looking extra-silly the entire point of the Brompton World Championships?
Not being afraid of looking extra-silly, may be part of the point of the BWC. Not unlike some of the point of riding in WNBR…bunch of naked people riding bikes…heh-heh…but that’s striking at some sensitive territory, I suppose. .
I saw a lycra warrior in the cycle path vid. Looked quite out of place.
Specialized is bring Hypercolor back? Maybe they should go back to the days when they weren’t suing everybody in sight too.
I stayed at the Spoke’n Hostel two nights last week. It is an amazing place now – you can get the sense of where they are going with it.
And don’t worry…it’s not religious. The Pastor is very open minded and we had some really great conversations (I’m half-Jewish with one degree in Evolution). Now, if you are religious you can see that they are doing some Good Works. I had such a good experience there that I committed to building them a repair station with tools for the folks who come through.
Beyond biking while intoxicated, that video also shows the riders using a phone to film while riding, running a red light (Burnside!), and riding in the wrong part of every piece of SW waterfront infrastructure.
And. They didn’t tie their shoes
The video on Schwinn bikes had some moments…the track bike, and the music motif bike. Too bad Schwinn the original company, missed some steps, resulting in it being taken over by various megalith BSO (bike shaped object) conglomerates, over the years. There’s still Waterford, doing some remarkable new bike building, as well as great restoration of surviving top of the line bikes produced throughout Schwinn’s early decades.
Daytime Running Lights — my experience is that blinking lights cause drivers to treat you as a stationary obstacle. I think the number of left cross and right hook conflicts has been reduced by running 2-3 steady lights in each direction (mounted high and low.) If anything, this seems to cause drivers to over-estimate my speed, which is a good thing on an electric bike.
Yes a flashing light is more noticeable from farther away, but lookout if you’re moving faster than 3mph.