Cars Are Hazardous

(Courtesy of Bentley Motors)

It has come to the attention of the good people at Bentley Motors that their "Winged B" hood ornament could injure a pedestrian in the event of a crash. The spring mount of the ornament is designed to retract in the case of such an unfortunate event, but alas the mechanism may corrode, leading to failure and thus Bentley has issued a preventative recall. I, for one, applaud Bentley's application of conscience in this matter and look forward to the logical consequence of this precedent, namely that auto manufacturers and the public at large will recognize that placing several tons of metal in motion is hazardous to human life and we will recall vast numbers of these dangerous machines. Until that day, I will continue to point people towards resources that will allow them to reduce their dependence on these hazardous devices and increase their chances at avoiding unfortunate encounters with machines of excessive momentum. In that spirit, I invite everyone to spend a few minutes looking at Michael Bluejay's excellent site: How Not To Get Hit By Cars.

While my own preferences have lead me to construct a life in which I avoid interactions with personal motor vehicles as much as possible, many people successfully use their cars or trucks to transport their bikes. People do this successfully every day, but I work in a bike shop and at least a few times a year I get to see what happens when the car+bike story ends as tragically as the scorpion+frog story.

Image and sad story via theZeph

If you do carry your bike on a roof rack, always, always, always remember it is there. Because if you don't and you drive home into your garage or through a bank drive-thru or into a parking garage, you may get that loud, sickening reminder like theZeph did. I know some folks stuff their garage remote into an old cycling glove to help them remember. I think if I were in a position to be piloting such a big rig, I'd remember the cautionary fable sung by C.W. McCall in which he recounts a sign saying "clearance to the twelve-foot line, but the chickens was stacked to thirteen-nine."

Rear racks are not without their own perils, however. I know several people who have had their bikes smashed when their cars were rear ended, a few that have had their bikes fall off their racks and just this past Sunday I sold a new tire to a fellow whose bike tire had been toasted by a too hot tailpipe.

Since I'm not a car-driver, I have no sage advice other than this: cars are hazardous. Remember that.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

One Watt Tail Lights Compared: Planet Bike Super Flash Turbo vs. PDW RADBOT 1000

My wife will tell you that I have something of an obsession with bicycle lights. I don't stop riding when it gets dark and I'm a big fan of things that light up and reflect. LED technology keeps evolving and the lights of today get far more light from a pair of batteries than the lights of just a few years ago. Since there is still no free lunch in the physical world, lighting designers have to make trade-offs between battery life and brightness. I personally use several different tail lights on my bikes, some simple ones where the batteries seem to last forever and some lights in the "blindingly bright" category that are quite visible even in daylight but whose battery life never matches the optimistic claims that decorate their packaging.

Several years ago Planet Bike introduced the Superflash, a dazzling tail light that used a half-Watt LED and a couple of smaller LEDs. The Superflash quickly became quite popular with randonneurs, commuters and anyone looking for a very bright tail light.

When Dan and Erik left Planet Bike to start their own company, Portland Design Works, one of their products, the RADBOT 1000, pushed tail light brightness even further. The RADBOT 1000 uses a one-Watt LED, has a built-in reflector and was noticeably brighter than the Superflash. PDW also makes a half-Watt version of the RADBOT, the RADBOT 500. While the RADBOT 500 was basically directly competing with the Superflash in terms of runtime and brightness and was the light that Dan and Erik both use on their own commuting bikes, the RADBOT 1000 far outshone the RADBOT 500 both in brightness and sales. The market seemed to say, in terms of brightness, more is better.

The folks at Planet Bike don't stay on the top of the bike lighting game by sitting on their hands, so this spring they are releasing a one-Watt version of the Superflash, the Superflash Turbo. It's not in stores yet, so I don't have a link where you can buy one, but the good folks at Planet Bike did send me one of their lights so I could review it. And by the way, the people I've dealt with at both Planet Bike and Portland Design Works are good folks. Both companies are staffed by genuine bike geeks and both contribute a portion of their profits to bicycle advocacy.

The Planet Bike Superflash Turbo is the same size as the original Superflash and it has the same switch mechanism and mounting hardware. The switch toggles the light between off, flashing and steady modes. As you can see in the above photos, the RADBOT 1000 is a bit bigger than the Superflash Turbo, but both lights use basically identical mounting hardware and can interchange in their brackets. BTW, the RADBOT lights come with one more bracket that the Planet Bike lights, a handy bracket for mounting the light on a rear rack.

I didn't take photos of both lights with fresh batteries but the lights are basically identically eye-searingly bright with fresh batteries. Think painful. Think about not staring directly at these lights. Think about Nazis opening the Ark of the Covenant in that Indiana Jones movie. That's about how bright these lights are. They overwhelmed my camera's settings, so I gave up taking pictures of the lights with fresh batteries.

I do know that marketing claims of "up to 100 hours on 2 AAA batteries" are basically fiction. Maybe in flashing mode with lithium batteries or something (and even then I'm very doubtful), but I figured I'd test these in something close to a fair "apples to apples" comparison. I loaded each light with freshly charged Rayovac rechargeable AAA cells. Now to be fair to the lights tested, these are pretty low capacity rechargeable batteries. Read the battery review here.

Jun Nogami ran an interesting test on battery life comparing the Radbot 1000 to the original Superflash. Now that I had both lights in hand, I set out with my lights and my batteries to recreate his test. I don't have a test bench or even a very good camera but I did record some results the old fashioned way. I turned the lights on to their solid mode and checked them every half hour or so. Here's what I found.

At 4.5 hours, the PDW Radbot 1000 was noticeably dimming. The Planet Bike Superflash Turbo still was going strong.

At 5.0 hours, both lights were visibly dimming. The Planet Bike Superflash Turbo was about twice as bright as the Radbot 1000 at this point in the test.

At about 6.0 hours, the Planet Bike Superflash Turbo shut itself off. The Radbot 1000 was still glowing dimly. Less than half an hour later, the Radbot 1000 also shut down.

These results are consistent with Jun's findings. Letting the lights "rest" for a bit and turning them back on, they'd light for a bit (ten minutes or so) and then shut down. This doesn't mean these are bad lights, but it does show that bright lights draw a lot of power. And that you shouldn't believe the packaging.

My own approach to lighting is redundancy. I'll use a very bright light like the Superflash Turbo or a RADBOT 1000 but after every ride I check the brightness of the lights and change batteries as needed. I carry spare batteries with me. I also use lights that use lower power LEDs to get more useful light out of a set of batteries. And, as someone is sure to comment, a generator hub is one of the best, most reliable ways to ensure you have lights that will run all night.

Keep 'em rolling. And, if you ride at night, keep 'em lit.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

What's In A Name?

A fellow who goes by the name @VeloDoc posted this on Twitter:

"We're not bikers! Bikers ride Harley's. We are cyclists!!"

I understand for many people that the term "Biker" may conjure an image of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, I for one, am unwilling to grant exclusive use of the term "biker" to those whose two-wheeled machines are motorized. While I know that in a world where we drive on parkways and park on driveways that this may be a losing battle, it is a battle I have fought for years and will continue to fight as long as I have the strength to speak, type or turn a pedal. I have been, and always shall be, a biker.

The machine I ride, I call a bike. I go on bike rides. I work in a bike shop. I sometimes ride with a bike club. In the woods I go mountain biking.

I don't grab my cycle and go cycling. I don't belong to a cycle club. Maybe you do and if so, great. I'm sure that works fine for you. But don't tell me I have to go cycling.

I'm grabbing my bike and going biking.

Because I'm a biker.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Small Is Beautiful

Sarah Chan is stylish and practical on her Dahon D3.

While there isn't a single wheel size that is perfect for every bicycle, owning various small-wheeled bikes over the years has given me an opportunity to get acquainted with the virtues of having a petite machine. While my 29er Octocog is a machine well-suited for the high, rocky wilderness, tiny wheels let my Dahon D3 go many places that my 29er cannot. The city, the train station and the crowded coffee shop all remind me that small is beautiful.

On her blog Sarah Chan tells this story:

"...we ran into some guys who were ogling the bike and having a smoke while I unfolded the Dahon back into it's fully functional form.

A few minutes passed with chit chat about the thing, and I offered for one of the guys to test ride it up and down the block since he was so curious about whether it was fast at all. This is where his friend told him that the only important thing was knowing it was faster than walking. I never heard somebody put it that way before but... that's a good way of looking at it!"

While it is true that small wheels don't hold their speed the way a bigger wheel does, that lack of momentum when rolling means that the wheels also have less inertia when stopped. A little wheeled bike rolls up to speed rapidly and the bike is very maneuverable. The way I tend to describe it is by saying that the little wheels may not be fast, but they are quick. In stop and go city riding, my Dahon tends to be my fastest bike.

People also seem to have a hard time grasping that gear ratios can let a small wheel cover a decent bit of distance for a given pedal stroke. I've ridden a full super-randonneur brevet series as well as Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London on a 20 inch wheeled Bike Friday and I lost track of how many times I've been asked "don't you have to pedal a lot more to make those little wheels go?" Eventually I just gave up trying to explain the gearing and instead decided to look very serious and say "Yes, it is much, much harder. Fortunately, I'm much tougher than all those other fellows!" And, for the record, Matteo Luzzana is even tougher than I am. He rode LEL on a Brompton T3.

My first folding bike was a Bridgestone Picnica, the machine that made a horrible commute wonderful. At the time (about 26 years ago), Christine and I were living in Bridgeport, CT, she was a brand-new stay-at-home mom and I was working in White Plains, NY. The drive along I-95 was miserable, but I found a van-pool that went from Stratford CT to Purchase NY. So instead of fighting traffic everyday in a car and pouring a lot of gas in a tank, I paid my way into the van-pool. In the morning, I'd ride my bike to Stratford and fold the bike. The bike and I rode in the van to Purchase where I unfolded the bike and rode to White Plains. In the evenings, the process was reversed. I saved money, time and a lot of aggravation. I could read on the van instead of fume at traffic. I got exercise everyday riding my bike. My folding bike and the van-pool made bike commuting possible, even in an "impossible" situation.

While the classic folding bike scenario is a multi-modal journey involving a van or a train or a bus or a plane, having a compact bicycle has many other rewards. Lynette Chang, author of "The Handsomest Man in Cuba" and inventor of the Traffic Cone Bag, rides a Bike Friday because, as she says, "it fits her five-foot-nothing self." Folding bikes are a great option for shorter people looking to get a quality bike. While it can often be hard to find a good conventional bike that fits a person of short stature, folding bikes tend to size down well. This fact can make them great bikes for growing kids, a fact not lost on Anne's daughter over at Car Free Days. Apparently this mothers and daughters sharing bikes thing still holds when the mother and daughter are both adults as well, as evidenced by Melanie and her Mom.

Some folding bikes also fit taller folks. While I personally love my little Dahon Curve D3, it's not a bike I'd recommend to someone over six feet tall. The five-foot tall Sarah Chan does say that her six-foot-four husband sometimes rides her D3 but "Admittedly, it's comical." Actually, that comic effect holds true for darn near anybody on a folding bike, we really do look kind of goofy. And maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to me that drivers are less aggressive when I'm on the Dahon instead of one of my more conventional-looking bikes. I know I'm less aggressive. As I've said before, it is impossible to imagine that you are Lance Armstrong while riding a tiny folding bike.

But tall fellows, like Lazy Rando Vik, can and do log many happy miles on folding bikes. Vik points out another great virtue of a small folding bike in his Bike Locking Case #4. As Vik notes, the best way to lock your bike is to not have to lock your bike by keeping it with you. Tikets, Dahons and Bromptons all fit easily under cafe tables and pack into small corners of small apartments. If you have a car, a folding bike can be quickly and securely stowed in the trunk.

As someone who lives car free in a second story apartment, I can tell you that one reason my Dahon gets used so often is that it is an easy bike to carry up and down stairs. My smallest bike happens to be my lightest bike and my easiest bike to maneuver in tight spots.

Many folks think a cargo bike has to be some massive machine with loads of hauling capacity but in several decades of car free living, I've only found a few occasions where I needed to lug big things around. So, for me, owning a "cargo bike" has never been a priority. Almost every day I do wind up hauling some cargo, but in some sense every bike is a cargo bike. It just depends on how much cargo you are interested in hauling. Melanie's little pink Dahon is the cutest cargo bike ever. If you want to haul more gear but still stick with something compact and foldable, Burley makes a wonderful folding trailer. As the photo of Sarah on the top of this blog illustrates, with the small front wheel there is a lot of room to hang a bag from the handlebars on a folding bike.

Todd from Clever Cycles in Portland wonderfully illustrated just how versatile and fun a folding bike can be by riding his Brompton down the Pacific Coast last August. As Todd described the "perma-grin" that set in on the fifth day of that tour I knew exactly what he meant when he said that he "touched the wire that powers everything." Todd knows that a small machine can connect you with a big, wonderful world. Todd recently reminded me of one of the more interesting aspects of having a small little bike: the social side of things. As Todd says "folding bikes are almost as effective as dogs at breaking social ice. They give strangers something to ask about." If you want to meet people, get a folding bike.

While I'm sure there are many reasons someone might want a folding bike or find one useful, the single best reason I have for owning my little red bike is the big grin it puts on my face pretty much every time I ride it. That, more than anything else, is why I keep those little wheels rolling.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Drive Fast

It's not very often that I dispense automotive advice. Today, I am. It is Sunday and I'm going to preach a little. My advice is two words, and those two words are "Drive Fast," but I hope you stick with me long enough to hear why that's my advice.

Like pretty much every American, I live in a world designed for driving. My home, like yours I suspect, has a space specifically made for my automobile. My workplace, naturally, has plenty of parking. My bank features a drive-thru teller window, as do most of the coffee shops and fast food places. These fast places are mostly along the wide road, the one just off the swooping freeway exits. In the past hundred years we've put a lot of effort into making it easy to go from here to there quickly and while sometimes we can, too often we can't, so we've invented things like traffic reports, and books on tape to help us cope. And even when we do get from here to there and back again without incident or aggravation, the here and there are not quite like we dreamed. The dreams, the world shown us in the car commercials, is the driver on the open road, a lone car driving beneath blue skies, along a rocky coast or twisting through a green forest. In truth, we build rivers of concrete through our cities. We really do pave paradise to put up parking lots. Every day we chop down trees to make thousands of greasy bags to hold the millions of french fries we scarf down on our important trips to important places.

Far too often, our desires and dreams of rapid mobility are thwarted by all those idiots clogging our damn roads. Where the hell are all these bozos going? I need to be moving, of course, but what's up with the clown in the Honda? Of course, if we stop and breathe and think, we realize that we are all the clown in the Honda, so to speak, and while his errand may, in fact, be more or less important than mine at this moment, his task, to him, is what he needs to be doing.

Hmm, stop and breathe and think. There's an idea. It's an idea that came to me decades ago, when I was stuck in traffic. I wouldn't give up my car, not forever anyway, but maybe I'd take a break, briefly. I decided to drive fast.

Not fast as in zoom, zoom but fast as in take a break. Some people fast for reasons of religion or health, deciding, for example, to abstain from eating meat. I decided to fast from driving, for a while, for my health. Mostly for my mental health.

I think it was easier for me than for many because I really never enjoyed driving. The disconnect between the dream and the reality was always too much for me. Pressing a gas pedal never thrilled me the way turning a bike pedal does. But maybe that's just me.

I do know that my driving fast worked for me. I liked not driving. I liked seeing where I was dependent on having a car, seeing that as a problem and working on that problem. The easiest way to work on the problem was to work on myself and my circumstance. My fast grew from a day without driving to something bigger. I don't hate cars, but I love much of the world that we've been destroying to make way for them. I allied myself with simpler forms of locomotion, like walking and cycling. But I also allied myself with big complex systems like trains and buses. Motor vehicles have their place, but for me I found that place didn't have to be my own parking place with my own car.

Christine and I have lived happily without owning an automobile for just under a quarter of century. We've raised two sons who are now both grown men and who have somehow never bothered to become licensed drivers. This is just the reality of our lives but somehow this has been thought of as news and we wind up giving talks to people who want to know our "secret". The secret is making choices. Everyone makes choices every day and I know my choices will not be yours.

But I do have this advice. Try giving something up. Briefly. It's easy if it's something you don't enjoy or some part of your life that you suspect is not really giving you what you need. Maybe today is the day you drive fast. And by that I mean that maybe today is the day you don't drive. Try it, for a day. Look at your city and your life from the standpoint of a pedestrian or from the seat of a bicycle. You might like some of what you see and you probably won't like some of what you see. But I think you'll find it interesting.

Drive Fast. That's my advice.

Kent Peterson

Issaquah, WA USA

The Simple Pleasure of a Bike Ride

"Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride." ~ John F. Kennedy

Fans of epic ride reports will do well to skip this post, for there is no drama here. No adversity was overcome to bring you these words, no weather endured unless you count enduring a sunny day in February some sort of hardship. There were no close calls with cars and all canine encounters were most cordial. My machine fell victim to no mechanical maladies and I encountered no obvious injustice to make me righteously rage against the world.

I ride my bicycle and since the day is sunny and my immediate obligations are slight, I ride the long way to the city. The direct route uses the floating bridge and the clever tunnel but the long route follows the shores of lakes and rivers. What was once a native path became the rail line and now that the age of steam is mostly a rusting memory, this route is mostly trails once again.

The sky and the lake are blue, the air is crisp and my clothing is warm enough for the day.

Many of the homes along the trail have privacy fences and one home owner along the route makes and sells pictures for the fences. I always think this one would look more at home in a coffee shop.

There are hundreds of geese at Marymoor Park.

Marymoor Park is also home to a velodrome.



Much of Marymoor park is the old Willowmoor Farm site. The windmill is over one hundred years old.

I have a huge collection of "my bike next to things" pictures. Here's my bike next to the "naked woman sitting on nothing" statue.

It is still early in the ride, but I suspect this will be the oddest photograph of the day.


There is a bunch of salmon-themed art along the trail. This is the Salmon-Moon sculpture in Woodinville.

I pause to browse and grab some lunch at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park and then continue on my way.

The Burke-Gilman Trail is in the Rail Trail Hall of Fame. On sunny days in the summer, it's packed with people. On a sunny day in February, it's not as crowded.

Despite the "it rains all the time" reputation, blue sky days are amazing in Seattle. This is Lake Washington as viewed from Matthews Beach Park.

Yet another picture of my bike next to public art. This is the UW Husky.


One of my favorite bits of home-brew public art.

Yet another view of Lake Washington, looking east towards the Cascades.

The switch-backed road leads back down to the water.


The boats at Leschi with Mount Rainier in the distance.

My favorite road sign on Lake Washington Boulevard.

Looking back at the Seattle skyline from Seward Park.


Mount Rainier as seen from the southern edge of Seward Park


I roll onward to Renton, the land of airplanes. These are some of the little ones.


The Cedar River Trail loops back towards home.

I try to be courteous on the roads and trails, but I suspect I am not the only one who may occasionally exceed this limit. I'd much rather see a sign that says "Don't ride like a jerk!"


The sun is getting low as I turn off the trail. The Cedar Grove Road leads to the Issaquah-Hobart Road which leads me home.

Just a day in the sun, on a bike. A simple day to remember the simple pleasure of a bike ride.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Random Thoughts from Portland

Working in a bike shop means that I work on weekends and my days off happen in the middle of what the rest of the world views as its work week. Last week my Dahon and I visited various friends in Portland. Rather than write up some sort of "I did this and this and this" report, I offer instead this collection of blurry snapshots and random observations from some guy on a little red bike.

Speaking of the little red bike, my Dahon totally freekin' rocks. Christine bought me a nice nylon bag for the bike and early Wednesday I rode from Issaquah to the Seattle Amtrak Station. Amtrak also totally rocks as a way to get from Seattle to Portland -- thirty bucks and about three and half hours each way. I unfold the bag, fold up the bike, put the bike in the bag, carry the bag on the train, and settle in for a nice train ride.

Portland is a bike-friendly town, with a huge number of riders and lots of bike-related businesses. It is the kind of town that not only has a bike map, it has a pocket-sized bike map that is easy to carry on your bike. It is a town that has signs everywhere telling you where the bike-friendly streets are. It is a town where biking to work is normal. And it is a town that expends a huge amount of energy and angst wondering if it is bike friendly enough, if its bike infrastructure is only serving white people of privilege, if Minneapolis really is more bike-friendly than Portland and so on. I often suspect that a large number of people in Portland think that people elsewhere think about Portland more than they actually do.

But when I'm in Portland, I do think about Portland and the Portlandia dream, which is very easy to mock. The real city is shaped by dreams of those who chose to move here or keep living here and as I ride down these real streets and talk with these real people, I can't help but be impressed by the ways people really do manage to make a living in this weirdly wonderful city.

Dan and Erik left Planet Bike a few years ago to start a company called Portland Design Works. They make lights and fenders and other bike bits and currently share space in a gigantic tin shed with a company that makes traffic cones and a bunch of other small bike business. I first met Dan via email back when he was at Planet Bike and they helped me get the Bicycle Alliance Get Lit program rolling. They continue to give back to the community while making nifty products. Dan tells me that they are finally at the point where they are hiring a third person and are going to be moving their operation to a bigger space. A space, by the way, big enough to enclose their velodrome. Portland is the kind of town where buying your own velodrome (they did get a hell of a deal) makes sense.

Dan and Erik show me prototypes of the new PDW fenders, which are metal and have a grey finish that will look good on a wide range of bikes. The finish looks identical to that of Shimano's current Ultegra components. The discussion of fenders leads us to one of the other businesses housed in the big tin shed, where I meet Shawn, the chief engineer of Ruckus Components. Shawn does something very few people do, he fixes and modifies carbon fiber frames. He also makes some very cool, very light carbon fenders for bike whose original designers never gave thought to fender clearance.

Portland is a town where a random guy riding down random streets will see three-wheeled electric cars and bike-towed mobile homes parked by the curb. It's a town where Cyclone Bicycle Supply uses a bike cargo service to deliver parts to bike shops. It's a town where if a guy has enough friends, it's virtually impossible for him to pay for a cup of coffee or a meal. It's the town where the egg you had for breakfast came from a chicken with a name and you'll constantly be asked if you're vegan and you may feel guilty that you're not.

Portland is a town where you can completely randomly get into a "how much wool are you wearing?" contest and the guy who wins is the guy who "is not wearing any non-wool." And you may feel guilty that you don't know the name of every sheep that was shorn to give you that wool. That undercurrent of sincere earnestness that lets me visit Portland and enjoy it, but still be very, very certain that I'm much happier living elsewhere.

Portland is a town where there are signs saying "Do Not Enter (Except For Bikes)" and people who will tell you how much bikes are oppressed here. It is a town where 78% of the drivers and 93% of the cyclists roll through stop signs. I tend to be a pretty law-abiding cyclist and I found myself rolling through Portland stop signs because they have about eleventy-billion of the things. It seems like every damn corner in every tiny neighborhood has at least a couple of stop signs. I am reminded of what some folks said about the old Campy Delta brakes "they are not for stopping, they are for modulating your velocity." Now I am not suggesting that Portland remove all its stop signs (I've heard they tried that and people kept running into each other) but I am pointing out that "normal" varies from place to place.

My friends Russ and Laura have made Portland their winter home, despite the rains, but for them Portland is less a home and more of a long campsite. They know perhaps too much about pedaling to ride too long on paths these pedaled and they are plotting routes to places they have yet to see. We speak of making enough to keep moving, of small bikes and big trains, of extension cords and the cost of data plans. We speak of going to empty places to find what it is we need to fill.

Some folks find Portland is the place they grow roots, while others find it odd or gloomy and move on. My friend Scott has been three years in this city and is still uncertain of the rain, still less than in love with the city. Portland is tolerant of many things and many lifestyles, but an immunity to the charms of the Rose City is viewed with the most extreme suspicion. But no place is the place for everyone.

I come here to roll down streets that welcome me and converse with people building up a city of which they're justly proud. But this is not my town, my place. It is a place I wonder at and enjoy. I take pictures and memories of conversations and ideas and I roll away.

I'll probably be back, but for now I have to keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The Magical Wheel Size

In the early days of bicycles, they were direct drive machines. The bigger the size of your machine's wheels, the more ground you would cover in a single pedal stroke. The upper limit to wheel size was determined by the maximum extension of a human leg and the high wheeled Penny-farthings ruled the roads. Rear wheels on these machines kept them from toppling backwards without the rider needing a unicyclist's balancing skill, but the dreaded "header" (when the wheel stuck in a rut or struck an object and the rider flew off, head first) was always a danger. The 1889 American Eagle and Star bicycles addressed the header problem by placing the smaller, non-driven wheel in the front and making that the wheel that steered. Of course it would now be possible to fall backwards off the bike. I would love to think that falling backwards off your bicycle and landing on your bum was the origin of the word "bummer", but the folks who write real linguistic histories don't seem to agree with my theory.

The chain drive (which allowed a gear ratio to be selected independent of wheel size) and the pneumatic tire (which allowed small wheels to provide a smooth ride) led to the rise of the "Safety" bicycle. Bicycles with two smaller wheels of the same size became the norm and the high-wheeled Penny-farthing is now most often seen in museums, nostalgic advertisements and the occasional dandy tweed ride.

Some folks (myself included) just love to tinker with bicycles and over the years, a wide range of machines with various tire and wheel sizes have been tried. This is natural when you think about it. People come in different sizes, they ride bicycles over a variety of surfaces and they use bicycles in different ways. Different wheel sizes and different tires have different properties. No one wheel size will be perfect for every application, but every few years someone discovers (or rediscovers) a certain wheel size and it becomes "the greatest thing ever!"

Path dependence puts a lot of inertia into the manufacturing and marketing loop. If you are going to invent something like a mountain bike you wind up building the early ones out of parts you have: old Schwinn's from the 1940s because they had the big cushy tires, gears from the skinny-tired euro-bikes. Graft them together for Mountain Bike 1.0. And for at least the next decade mountain bikes will have wheels that have a diameter of 26 inches, the same size as those old Schwinn paper boy bikes. But is 26" the best size for a mountain bike? Some folks questioned that and now a bunch of those folks are riding 29ers. Guitar Ted put together a great history of 29ers and it is fascinating reading.

Now I love riding my 29er. The wheels do have more inertia, they roll over some things easier and so forth, but 26 inch wheels have certain advantages as well. In some cases (lots of starts & stops or very twisty trails) smaller wheels might be better. Reasonable people can have reasonable reasons for riding a bike with different size wheels.

On the road bike side of things, some people love, love, love 650B wheels. These are smaller in diameter than the now dominant 700c wheels. You can build a frame to that allows cushier tires or in some cases retrofit this wheel-size into a 700c frame (you need to find some longer reach brakes) and then you can get the cushy tires and your life will be wonderful. Or so the 650B folk tell me. It's the same sermon the 29er folks preach but going a different direction. And I've also heard from some folks that actually 650B is the perfect mountain bike wheel size as well. My pal Beth has a great heretical rant about 650B wheels.

I actually think that there is no magic, perfect wheel size. It's not magic, it's physics and physiology and psychology and something about different horses for different courses. My 29er is a great bike and I like winding the big wheels up to speed and letting 'em roll down a long, rugged trail. But I still have a 26" wheeled mountain bike and by golly it's lots of fun and I ride it a bunch. My 16" wheeled Dahon folder is light and fast and the little wheels spin up in an instant. It is my favorite bike for many rides and it lets me buzz around town like a hummingbird. The little wheels are quick, but it's not as fast on the long haul as a big wheeled bike.

Some people seem to think that everything is evolving toward some perfect end, but from what I've seen the world doesn't work that way. We have whales and hummingbirds, turtles and cheetahs. And as long as we have bicycles, we'll probably have them in a variety of shapes & wheel sizes. I think that's pretty cool. Heck, it's damn near magical.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

6 Books in a Backpack: Episodes 2, 3 & 4

Last month I wrote about my idea for 6 Books in a Backpack, a scheme I had that would give me reasons to ride, keep in touch with friends & get some ideas flowing in the form of book exchanges. I've now done a 4 of these exchanges and I have another one scheduled for next week in Portland.

The principle behind these exchanges is that from zero to 6 books can change hands, but you have to leave with the same number of books you came with. Barb Chamberlin describes this as The SISO Method for Life Management. In my first exchange with Joe, 6 books changed hands. In the second exchange with my friend Lexi, we traded 5 books. In my meeting with Barb, we swapped 3 books and when I met up with Ryan, 3 books changed hands.

In the past I've been vague about identifying a certain camping spot because I'd really be happier if a bunch of people didn't wind up camping there and similarly I've concluded that it's best not to detail every exchange in a "I got this book to A and got this book in exchange" fashion. A couple of the books I've gotten in trade I've already really enjoyed and I've thought "Oh, X will really like this, I'll put it in the pile of books I'm taking to my meeting with him." It would be a real shame to meet with X and have him say "Oh yeah, that was a great book, I bought it as soon as I read about it on your blog!"

I will, within these self-imposed concepts of vagueness, report on the great success of this project. While the first 3 meetings were with old friends, my latest was with a new friend, Ryan who was up visiting from Portland and got in touch because of my initial post on this subject. I turns out that Ryan and I have friends in common & we traded a couple of emails to assess our tastes in books.

In every exchange I've gotten books that were new to me, some by authors I've never read. The self-imposed deadlines of these meetings have me reading more, scanning my shelves and talking more books with more people. All good things. And I've ridden at least one hundred miles going to and from these meetings and had terrific, wide ranging conversations.

The exchanges themselves remind me of playing cards. We each pull out our six books, describe them and then we may or may not swap. Sometimes there's a "Oh yeah, that's good, I read it in college" or "Nah, I've got too many historical novels on my plate already" and that's fine. Sometimes we discuss books we didn't bring, other books by the authors we've brought to the table, or books that we find similar in theme or tone to the books at hand.

I'm reading more, riding more & having a lot of wide ranging conversations because of the 6 Books in a Backpack project, so I count it as a rousing success. If you're at all bookish, you might want to give it a try.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Want Is Not Need

While the title of this post is one of those "Well, duh!" aphorisms, I find myself lured from lethargy to type those words. I'm by no means certain that I need to type this but I certainly want to type this because it seems to me that much of the trouble we bring on ourselves is a result of our conflating and confusing the simple concepts of want and need.

While discussing this subject with my lovely and talented spouse, she reminded me of a time long ago when our kids were still kids and learning the ways of the world and the ways we use language to make sense of things. In the store and on a budget, Christine tried to teach the boys the difference between want and need. "You don't need Oreos," she explained, "you just want them." Our boys were sharp students and learned quickly. Needs trump wants so from that day forward they learned and practiced the mantra of the marketplace, a grating whine centered on the word need with the pronunciation drawn out so it sounds like neeeeeeeeed. Christine really did need some quiet and a respite from the high-pitched pleas, so more than a few times we found ourselves with the Oreos we desperately needed.

The problems with the tricks we learn as children is that we often keep using these tricks past their useful lifespans. We believe our own words and build a world where happiness is always just a few key objects away. Whether we're lusting after the latest iPhone or we've convinced ourselves we would really be happy if we could only get down to 57 good things, we seem to think stuff is the problem. We have too much or too little, but either way it's a drag. Stuff is sticky and it's hard to let it go, but stuff seldom falls cleanly into the need it or not piles. In some sense, we need to want, for want is what keeps us moving. Our goal often turn out to be mystical macguffin, but it doesn't matter if our Maltese Falcon turns out to be a cheap forgery, if it has gotten us in motion. I suspect the value lies not in the goal, but in the pursuit.

When stuff, either a lack of item A or too much of item B, is seen as a need when it is in fact a want, we run the serious risk of either delaying our departure or riding with the brakes on. I was prompted to write these words after reading this blog post:

If I'm A Really Strong Cyclist, Do I Need An Electric Bike?

The man describing himself as "Average Joe Cyclist" does a good job describing how his e-bike helps him ride more, gets him in motion and made him stronger and that's all well and good. If e-bikes help more people ride, exercise and do more with less, more power to 'em. But I think Average Joe missed an important lesson in his tale: he made it up his big hill, carrying the motor and batteries as dead weight. Yet he concludes that he needs to ride with an electric assist. How does he know? The evidence I see in his story leads me to a different conclusion.

I love all different kinds of bicycles but something strikes me as a bit off when I hear people say things like "you need a Long Haul Trucker to tour cross country." A Trucker is a fine machine and if you want one, go for it. But do you need it? Or do you just want it?

We gain strength and grace by moving forward, pressing ahead when we're not quite sure we have all we need. We seldom have all we want. But if we try sometimes we just might find, we've got what we need.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The Seattle I-90 Bike Tunnel

Yesterday I rode into Seattle to have lunch with my friend Barb. As I rolled off the floating bridge and through the tunnel it occurred to me (not for the first time) how amazing it is that we have both a bridge that floats on water and a tunnel that serves both pedestrians and cyclists. These are the big pieces of infrastructure that really do make a big difference. The bridge cuts miles off the alternatives of going around the north or south ends of Lake Washington and tunnel eliminates a huge climb by boring straight through the ridge that forms the eastern edge of Seattle.

While I've ridden through the tunnel a few thousand times, I realized I didn't know much about its construction. Arriving home, that curiosity paired with Google led me Robert's page about the I-90 tunnel. And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, I know the rest of the story.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Instigators and the Opening Day of Biking Season

Photos by Mark Canizaro and Brad Hawkins.

One of my great fortunes in this world is that I know Instigators. Instigators are folks who pick a point on a map, a day on a calendar or something else random and not only say "hey, let's do this thing", they show up and do it.

The first of the year is a good excuse to shut down the usual business that fills the day. The Seattle Cargo Crew refer to this day as the Opening Day of Biking Season and my own gang of instigators use riding to their ride as an excuse to ride. It's a wonderful thing.

I live 17 miles east of Seattle but Brad, Mark and Michael, who all live in Seattle, ride out to meet up with me in my icy part of the world. I'd managed to convince them via email that despite Seattle's relatively clear streets, it was still icy as hell in the Issaquah convergence zone. These are times when tires are chosen for maximum traction, not minimal rolling resistance.

After a brief, strategic stop at our local purveyor of warm, caffeinated beverages, we roll south out of town toward the May Valley Road. Michael's theory that the May Valley Road, being on the southern, sun-exposed side of Squak Mountain, will be fairly ice-free proves to be mostly true. The same can't be said for exposed water bottles, which quickly ice up in the sub-freezing air.

We loop northward on Coal Creek Parkway, pause for pictures on the icy trail at the Bellevue Slough. Crossing Mercer Island on my old, highly optimized commute route, we calculate that I've ridden these roads and crossed these bridges thousands of times. There are always new sites, overlaid with old memories. One of the things I miss from this commute is the smell of breakfast bacon that used to come from one of the houses along North Mercer Way. A few years ago either the owner moved or made some healthy resolution because the bacon aroma went away. But the memory, that lingers.

Our cautious pace is not up to Brad's optimistic time-table so we head not to the start, but to the destination of the Cargo Crew. We are the first riders at the park and Brad informs us of his generous and welcome plan to buy us all Phở. Warm soup on a brisk day is very welcome and while the three of us stake our claim to one of the park's sunnier picnic tables and split up our stash of little muchie bars, Brad pedals off to the one of International District's many fine delis for the soup.

Brad and the Cargo folks converge on the park at about the same time. Like last year, the Cargo people bring more than most people would ever think you could carry on a bicycle. Cast iron frying pans, a wood stove, wood, several axes, charcoal, and vast variety food and drinks are quickly and skillfully deployed. One woman passes me an insulated mug the size of my head. "It's hot chocolate with some whiskey in it," she tells me. It's actually hot whiskey with a bit of chocolate in it, but I don't bother to correct her.

Aaron, Val, Megan, Carl and all the rest put on a hell of an annual party. I'm glad to know such instigators, fine folks who know that pretty much any day can be a good day to ride.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA