Hope you’ve handled the heat ok, or managed to avoid it. Remember, whenever you need tips or information about something like how to ride in heat, just search, “tips for biking in the heat” (or whatever the topic) then add “bikeportland” and you’ll find all our coverage. In this case, I’ve made a page with some great basic hot riding tips, and then you can browse all the BP archives and comment threads on the topic.
*Advertisement* Before we get to this week’s links, don’t forget that June 21st is the annual Gorge Ride. This is a gorgeous, out-and-back route with full support that gives you the opportunity to soak in amazing views and paths with lots of other fine folks on bikes. This year, organizers have arranged discounts at local establishments — including cafes, ice cream joints, and even the oldest book store in Oregon. Don’t miss this ride!
And with that, here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past seven days…
CPSC and MAHA: The Trump Administration wants to reduce staff at the Consumer Product Safety Commission — you know, that entity that makes sure helmets and bikes are safe — and put it under the control of Health & Human Services Sec. Robert Kennedy. (Bicycle Retailer)
Europe’s bike tourism payoff: Because Europe has invested in cycling routes, they are seeing a massive increase in cycle tourism and the once-niche activity leads to $171 billion in annual economic benefit. (Euronews)
Girls on bikes: It’s worth understanding why young girls tend to give up cycling at a much higher rate than boys — and then doing something to counter the trend. One bit of advice: Let them ride whatever and however they want! (MSN via Bicycling)
Driving and living: The way to a better future is in first understanding — and then organizing around — the relationship between housing and driving. Even subtle differences in housing development can equate to significantly lower VMT per person. (Slate)
Silly NYC mayor: NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ latest terrible decision is to impose a 15 mph speed limit on electric bikes. Hard to know where to begin with what a bad policy idea that is. (Streetsblog NYC)
Tactical urbanist charged: I know there are some Portlanders who will be interested to know that a Virginia man was charged by authorities with vandalism for drawing a DIY, unsanctioned crosswalk. (The Guardian)
One man’s entertainment: A Seattle man who revved and sped his Dodge Charger all over the city just to impress followers on Instagram is standing trial. His defense is, essentially, that it’s no big deal because he’s just having some fun for his fans. (Seattle Times)
Floral flex posts: Those plastic bollards too ugly for ya’? How about, instead of taking them out you make them pretty like this town in England did when they turned theirs into tulips. (BBC)
Transit priority, clarified: Portlander Jarrett Walker’s latest opinion column in a Canadian news outlet clearly communicates the problem with cars blocking buses and why transit priority infrastructure is such an important win for cities. (Globe and Mail)
Video of the Week: A classic, American, mainstream media view of cycling in this profile of an ultra-distance commuter:
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
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Just a quick reminder that many folks here expressed support for speed limits on motorized bikes in lieu of hard-to-enforce power limits.
Big difference between a speed governor that kicks in at 20 or 28 mph and arbitrary enforcement of mode based speed limits.
I’m not sure I understand — are you saying there’s a difference between using governors and enforcement to moderate speed, or that speed limits for vehicles in bike lanes are arbitrary if they differ from vehicles in traffic lanes? Or something else?
In the conversation I was referencing, many people, but not necessarily you, were arguing that rather than requiring governors on vehicles (which is essentially what the class system amounts to, and which commentors convinced me was unenforceable), it was better to regulate behavior directly, which amounts to enforcement of behavior. This is the approach Mayor Adams wants to take.
I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other, but I wanted to remind folks of that recent prior conversation before outrage over bike speed limits in NYC made its appearance to help them avoid taking potentially embarrassingly inconsistent positions.
Yep – governors are easily defeated and regulatory speed limits never get enforced.
Neither will actually do anything.
I will support Speed Limit on ebikes if/when there are governors on cars/trucks that limit them to posted speed limits.
So, just to clarify, does that mean that until we mandate regulators for cars you would support no regulations on how fast a motorized bike can go when using bike infrastructure?
I too support a speed limit for motorized bikes. what I do not support is arbitrarily and selectively limiting e-bikes to 15 mph while cars and trucks can legally go almost twice as fast. Also, the proposed speed limit would not be limited to dedicated bike infrastructure, so that’s a red herring.
Apologies for jumping into your thread. I am curious of what thoughts if any you have to the apparent targeting of Waymo down in Los Angeles. I certainly did not foresee them being considered “tools of the state” by the peaceful protestors and being torched.
Also this quote that I did not see coming from activists,
““There is no human element to Waymo,” climate and labor organizer Elise Joshi similarly posted on X. “It’s expensive and bought-out politicians are using it as an excuse to defund public transit. I pray on Waymo’s downfall.”
Do you this this will be a hindrance to full acceptance of autonomous cars or just a hiccup?
https://time.com/7292652/waymo-self-driving-cars-vandalized-fire-protests-los-angeles-why/
I advocated for posted bike speed limits on Multi Use Paths over regulation of equipment. Shared paths are different from surface streets where bike and ebike riders are at the bottom of the pecking order. Mayor Adams appears to be pushing a city wide speed limit on ebikes wherever they are operated. It’s a farce to limit ebikes on the street to a speed that is only a cruise for many conventional bikers and nowhere near the top speed of urban bike riders.
It’s too bad that we have a one size fits all approach to bike infrastructure. It might seem a little hard on road bikers when their sport becomes illegal on an MUP with a speed limit of 15 mph if that were the only possible place for them to ride. In fact the sport has adapted to using shared surface roads for over a century. The great thing about dedicated cycling infrastructure is that it’s really flexible. For example, a natural surface trail could be both a recreational facility and a transportation corridor.
One major difference between ebikes and bikes is that most ebikes have an installed speedometer, something that is vanishingly rare on conventional bikes sold at retail. There probably is a retail bike available in Portland with factory installed lights, fenders and a speedometer but you’d have to shop for it.
And just ten days ago, BikePortland published a lengthy screed decrying a similar act of tactical urbanism. I wonder if all the commenters nodding in unison over there feel the same about this illegal crosswalk? I mean seriously we had people threatening to tattle to PBOT, remove the signs themselves (and sell them on eBay) and even record the person who installed them with trail cameras and identify them for the purposes of mob justice.
Yes, BikePortland published a GUEST CONTRIBUTOR’s opinion piece about that, which generated a range of comments in support and opposition.
BikePortland’s publishing an guest’s opinion doesn’t mean it supports that opinion any more than its publishing a link to this article means it supports the vandalism charge. And having commenters “nodding in uhison” doesn’t mean much when there were dozens of commenters disagreeing with them.
There is a pretty big difference between linking to a news story and publishing an editorial opinion piece, even if it was written by someone else.
Imagine that, a group of people with an interest in bikes and generally leaning towards improving road safety for people outside cars like something that aligns with those goals, and are annoyed by things they see as antagonistic to them. You have truly stumbled upon something huge.
In the phrase “tactical urbanist,” the word “urbanist” means something. “Urbanism,” as used in tactical urbanism, means that someone is doing things to support human-scaled movement around cities: walking, biking, or otherwise rolling. Those signs are not “tactical urbanism,” because they weren’t promoting urbanism. People reacting to the signs in Kerns were reacting to the way that the signs seemed to put more responsibility on pedestrians and less responsibility on drivers operating multi-ton machines of steel and glass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_urbanism
I see no reason why signs promoting behavior intended to make pedestrians safer would not fall under this rubric.
Never mind the fact that the man in Virginia was very public about what he did after trying to convince the city to put a crosswalk there themselves. Since this is already an apples to oranges comparison I’m not sure you’re commenting in good faith.
Nevertheless I would hardly call that opinion piece a screed. The author even acknowledged the person putting up the signs could be doing it as public service.The comments were hardly calling for mob justice. I did a quick search and the word camera doesn’t appear to be used in any of the comments. My ebay comment was me being cheeky. Not to mention that a ton of the comments are about how it’s not that big of a deal and we shouldn’t be so concerned about it. Or flat out saying well duh you should look and then going off on cyclists and pedestrians.
They are not similar acts at all. The Virginia crosswalk was a very public effort to draw attention to the city’s failure to fix an unsafe intersection. It was also made with chalk, which is temporary.
Crosswalks are there to remind drivers of their legal duty to yield to pedestrians. On the other hand, the “make eye contact” signs are there to be able to say “I told you so” whenever a pedestrian gets injured because a driver failed to yield.
My dad and I went to the Netherlands for a week last year to do a bike tour. He’s 81 and it worked great, but I am struggling to even find something similar in the US that is anywhere near the same price point. One of the other big advantages of how popular these bike tourism opportunities have gotten in Europe is that economies of scale have really driven down the cost to do it. Honestly it is cheaper to fly there and pay for a package that includes renting bikes than it is to find something similar in terms of having your luggage moved etc here in the US, and that is before you start caring about how safe the roads you will be riding on are.
Bjorn, if you would mind?…And give us some price point examples since many of us have not yet taken a fully supported ebike tour in EU or anywhere.
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjC6uGLzeWNAxUXH60GHZYIIIEYABAFGgJwdg&co=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwurhi83ljQMVFx-tBh2WCCCBEAAYASAAEgKE0vD_BwE&cce=1&sig=AOD64_3VNzHl06M5ve2d565F652emTZCxQ&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjggt2LzeWNAxWKFjQIHQ-vKfQQ0Qx6BAgQEAQ
They look great, I just saw a couple of these tours in Slovenian while on vacation recently, they were staying at same Hotel.
They are not inexpensive.
One or two day tours on famous Alps roads or wine tours thruout Europe are available but expect $500 a day.
thx
I rode the coast from Astoria to Los Angeles as a young, brave cyclist. Would never do it again, there are hundreds of miles where the road ends at or near the fog line and the semis and RVs are right on top of you. European paths for long-distance touring are as far ahead of the US as their healthcare system.
Wanted to add: we have world-class views on the coast, it’s a shame we don’t have cycle tourism infrastructure to match
If you look there is still some tours out there
https://www.adventurecycling.org/guided-tours/self-contained-tours/oregon-coastal-loop/
https://www.adventurecycling.org/guided-tours/self-contained-tours/pacific-coast-central/
https://www.adventurecycling.org/guided-tours/self-contained-tours/pacific-coast-north/
https://usabiketours.com/product/oregon-coast-willamette-valley/
https://usabiketours.com/product/oregon-coast-to-crater-lake-bike-tour/
That was after about 10 min of looking.
If your waiting for the right infrastructure I think you will be waiting forever and miss out some epic rides. Now biking the coast from top to bottom is on my bucket list. I am 65 and still plan to do it on a bike (I hate the term acoustic bike and will not use it). I will say after spending all of 2019 working in Toledo Oregon and living in a hotel in Newport that there is a drastic difference in traffic between Memorial Day and Labor day and the rest of the year. My preference would be late September to early October.
This is not to critique you–we all fly–but one typical person’s trip to Amsterdam releases the same carbon as their car does in the entire year.
International tourism arbitrage has exploded as the US has entered a league of its own in COL and Europe’s decreasing incomes mesh with their jet set lifestyles. (Europe has deals because they make half what we do).
Here in Asia one meets nomad/yoga teachers/life coaches flying all around South/East Asia and then to Oaxaca/Tulum as they espouse organic eating and kindness and what not, (or you have the bro ones who have short flings with the yoga girls and don’t even pretend to care.)
I try to remember people really don’t understand how much carbon flying uses.
Then again, they often claim not to believe in the carbon/warming theory, vaccines, but they do think pesticides are harmful– so whatever works for them I guess.
“I try to remember people really don’t understand how much carbon flying uses”
Thats very generous of you, but I think people do know and anyone who advocates for bike/human power use over car use definitely knows.
Real sacrifice for the climate (and by extension other humans) is for the peasants though.
NYC ebike article: So the article briefly alludes to it, but it’s important to note the difference on the ground between driving a car and riding a bike in NYC. Currently, if you are on a bike in NYC and you go through a red light, you receive a criminal summons. If you are in a car there is very little impetus to stop you (most intersections have red light runners).
Speeding drivers receive a speed ticket, even if it <40mph over the posted limit (31-40mph over gets you 8 points on your license). For cyclists speeding is now a criminal summons. So that means drivers can pay a ticket online, and cyclists must go to criminal court. That also means an ulterior motive to target deliveristas (largely immigrants) with potential encounters with ICE while going to criminal court (means for deportation).
The addition of a citywide, all-encompassing 15mph speed limit on the surface doesn’t seem so bad (and may even be appropriate for a lot of streets in NYC), IF it were applied equally to SOVs as well. But in practical terms, it criminalizes cycling. Most people stop at intersections, check to see if there is cross-traffic, and continue often with the walk sign since it’s a leading interval. Now that behavior means a criminal offense.
En lieu of complaining: So what would functional policy from the mayor look like?
1) To start Transalt has a super speeder map where the next pedestrian deaths will likely occur. Those intersections need redesigns, speed cameras, and the people with over X# of infractions (some people have hundreds), should have their cars impounded, and licenses revoked.
2) Reduce speed citywide for ALL modes, and not target a scapegoat.
It’s a bizarre situation where in NYC you have some of the best infrastructure in the country, and consistent policy by mayors to undermine it. Without that constant strain by NYPD of targeting cyclists (sometimes tackling or ramming them “for their own safety”), and the mayor simply ignoring the city’s own laws to require X miles of separated bike lanes and separated bus lanes, cycling wouldn’t just be increasing consistently, but dramatically surging similar to Paris.
Following up – after sharing that AZ news report on the bike super commuter – I googled his commute route and his choice of route doubles his ride…potentially it could be as short as 60 miles total (~30 each way) depending on connections and his home address. A less insane daily ride.
Problem: vast majority of pedestrian deaths happen when someone is hit by a car
NYC mayor’s solution: make life more difficult for cyclists
Yeah, that sounds about right.