Get Lit Ride

To celebrate the winter clock-change and the transition to riding on darkened streets, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington invites you to take part in a special ride. The Get Lit ride is to promote the importance of safe nighttime riding and the use of lights and conspicuous clothing. To help ensure that all riders have access to front and rear lights, the Bicycle Alliance will donate lights to a number of organizations to distribute to their members.

The alliance invites bicyclists to take part in the free Get Lit ride November 5 in Seattle. Riders will meet at Bikestation Seattle at 4:30 PM. After a brief discussion of safe night cycling, riders will ride as a group to the Union Gospel Mission, The Salvation Army, Plymouth Housing Group, Goodwill and Bike Works. At each of these locations bicycle lights will be delivered to be distributed at no cost to low-income cyclists. These lights have been provided by the Bicycle Alliance of Washington's Get Lit program as part of an ongoing effort to improve road safety for all cyclists in Washington. Major funding for this program has been provided by attorney John Duggan, individual donors and Bicycle Alliance income from the Washington State Share The Road license plates.

All riders must register at the start of the ride and have lights, reflective gear and a bicycle helmet. An award will be given for the best-lit cyclist and the most creatively lit cyclist. All riders will receive reflective stickers. Hot cider will be provided at the end of the ride.

When: November 5 (Monday) at 4:30pm
Start: BikeStation Seattle, 311 3rd Avenue South.
Finish: BikeStation Seattle
Cost: free (disclaimer form must be filled in)
Distance: approximately 10 miles

Ivan Illich on Bicycles

Ivan Illich was a man who thought a lot about people and the way we live in the world. On a recent train trip to Portland, I read Ran Prieur's interesting little zine Civilization Will Eat Itself. Ran's zine had a link to his website and one of the things I found there was an excerpt from Illich's Toward a History of Needs. Ran chose to call this excerpt Ivan Illich on Cars but I found the more interesting nuggets were actually about bicycles.

Illich writes:

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A century ago, the ball-bearing was invented. It reduced the coefficient of friction by a factor of a thousand. By applying a well-calibrated ball-bearing between two Neolithic millstones, a man could now grind in a day what took his ancestors a week. The ball-bearing also made possible the bicycle, allowing the wheel -- probably the last of the great Neolithic inventions -- finally to become useful for self-powered mobility.

Man, unaided by any tool, gets around quite efficiently. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer in ten minutes by expending 0.75 calories. Man on his feet is thermodynamically more efficient than any motorized vehicle and most animals. For his weight, he performs more work in locomotion than rats or oxen, less than horses or sturgeon. At this rate of efficiency man settled the world and made its history. At this rate peasant societies spend less than 5 per cent and nomads less than 8 per cent of their respective social time budgets outside the home or the encampment.

Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.

The ball-bearing signaled a true crisis, a true political choice. It created an option between more freedom in equity and more speed. The bearing is an equally fundamental ingredient of two new types of locomotion, respectively symbolized by the bicycle and the car. The bicycle lifted man's auto-mobility into a new order, beyond which progress is theoretically not possible. In contrast, the accelerating individual capsule enabled societies to engage in a ritual of progressively paralyzing speed.

Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems. In the bicycle system, engineered roads are necessary only at certain points of dense traffic, and people who live far from the surfaced path are not thereby automatically isolated as they would be if they depended on cars or trains. The bicycle has extended man's radius without shunting him onto roads he cannot walk. Where he cannot ride his bike, he can usually push it.

The bicycle also uses little space. Eighteen bikes can be parked in the place of one car, thirty of them can move along in the space devoured by a single automobile. It takes three lanes of a given size to move 40,000 people across a bridge in one hour by using automated trains, four to move them on buses, twelve to move them in their cars, and only two lanes for them to pedal across on bicycles. Of all these vehicles, only the bicycle really allows people to go from door to door without walking. The cyclist can reach new destinations of his choice without his tool creating new locations from which he is barred.

Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy, or time. They can spend fewer hours on each mile and still travel more miles in a year. They can get the benefit of technological breakthroughs without putting undue claims on the schedules, energy, or space of others. They become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows. Their new tool creates only those demands which it can also satisfy. Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored. That better traffic runs faster is asserted, but never proved. Before they ask people to pay for it, those who propose acceleration should try to display the evidence for their claim.

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Illich really goes to the heart of what I respond to about a bicycle. It seems to me that a bicycle is perhaps mankind's most delightful gadget. I am swifter with a bicycle than I am alone. With a bicycle I can go more places, see more people and carry more things. Traveling by bicycle makes me stronger but still keeps me in touch with my limits, the shape of the land and the weather of the moment. On a bicycle I am still an active particpant in my journey rather than a passive passenger.

Two Planet Bike Headlights Compared

I've been using a couple of Planet Bike headlights lately and I think the above picture conveys some useful information.

The light on the left is the Planet Bike Beamer 3. This little light runs on 2 AA batteries, comes with a nice handlebar bracket and so far seems quite waterproof and well-built.

The light on the right is the Planet Bike Blaze. The Blaze is slightly larger than the Beamer 3, seems similarly well-built and comes with both a handlebar and a helmet bracket. Like the Beamer 3, it also runs on 2 AA batteries.

Planet Bike lists both lights have having run times of "up to 100 hours". In practice, I've been running both lights with NiMH rechargeable AA batteries and I usually remember to charge them up about once a week or so. Depending on when I go to work, that means I may have logged a dozen hours of night riding in that week. For me, any light that can get me through a solid night of riding has a long enough battery life.

Basically the difference in the two lights comes down to beam pattern and price. I'd expected to prefer the pricier Blaze. As you can see from the above photo (shot in normal office light BTW) the Blaze has a stronger, more focused beam. The Beamer 3, which has three lower-powered LEDs compared to the Blaze's single 1/2 watt LED, has a more dispersed beam. The Blaze lets me see further down the road, while the Beamer 3 gives a broader view.

Now here is where I should put in the disclaimer that I have very good night vision. Some of my friends claim that I can see in the dark and while that isn't strictly true, I am comfortable with lower powered lights than what many of my rando buddies use.

I'm happy to navigate my commute with either of the two lights above, but my favorite set-up is what I have on my green bike right now: I have both a Blaze and Beamer 3 on that bike. On my little red Dahon, I've ridden the commute with a just Beamer 3 but I think I prefer the further reaching Blaze. Compared to my other favorite light, the Princeton Tec EOS, the light output of the Planet Bike lights is right on par. The beam of the EOS is probably about halfway between that of the Beamer 3 and the Blaze. The EOS has various power settings and more sophisticated circuitry,but the later generation LEDs and good optics of the Planet Bike lights seem to make very good use of the power they have. The EOS is super weather-proof, but the fact that it takes an odd number of AAA cells is still a little bothersome. The EOS and the Planet Bike lights can both be set to either flash or solid modes, but I find the faster flash rate of the Planet Bike lights to be better for riding.

Planet Bike has sent me fenders and nifty beanie in the past and they gave the Bicycle Alliance a good deal on Beamer 3 and Blinky 3 lights for our "Get Lit" program, but I've spent my own hard-earned bucks on the lights in this review. But I guess I am kind of pre-disposed to think favorably of a company like Planet Bike that not only makes good stuff, but also gives 25% of their profits to causes that promote and facilitate bicycle usage.

Busted Reelight

Awhile back I wrote about Reelights. While they pretty much work as advertised, I've discovered one interesting incompatibility; the front Reelight conflicts with the bike racks at the Seattle Bike Station where I work.

At first I noticed that the light would bonk into the rack when I'd park. Sometimes it would get knocked out of alignment enough that it would be moved too far away from the wheel magnets to blink. Later, I noticed that the light started making a ticking noise every time the magnets would move past it. I surmised that the jarring knocked the inner coil loose. The ticking was the coil shifting each time the magnets tugged at it.

Eventually I parked one too many times and I broke the front light. The case popped open and the internal parts fell out. The good news is that I got some pictures.


The coil attaches to the circuit board with incredibly tiny wires. I don't think I'm going to bother with reassembling the circuit and I'm going back to using a front LED light powered by rechargeable NiMH batteries.

Kent Peterson's Diet Haiku

Digging around in my pre-blog archives, I came across this. I thought you folks might enjoy it.

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As I have said many times, I am not a nutritional role model. Nonetheless, it seems these days that almost everyone has written a diet book or is pushing some low-something lifestyle and I got to thinking I should cash in on the action.

But cashing in on things has never been one of my strong suits.

People ask me how I manage to eat all kinds of stuff and stay thin, so I wrote my diet book. It came out a bit on the short side. The seventeen syllable short side to be precise about it.

Hmm, that hardly seems worth shopping around to a publisher.

So here, in the spirit of freewheeling disregard for the basic tenets of western capitalism that has made me the eccentric non-millionaire that I am today, I hereby give out to the Internet and the world at large:

Kent Peterson's Diet Haiku

Eat what you enjoy

Ride twelve thousand miles per year

You will not get fat


There you go. If the plan doesn't work for you, gee that's too bad but you can't say you didn't get your money's worth. And in the haiku where it says "ride" it means "ride your bike" but you folks know that.

Keep 'em rolling.

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Sun, Snakes and Salmon

As a resident of the Pacific Northwest one of my duties is to perpetuate the myth that it rains all the time here. This story was invented to keep everyone from California from moving up here driving up the costs of housing and clogging our roads with SUVs. That tactic doesn't seem to have worked, so I'm adopting another technique; pointing out how darn nice it can be some days in this part of the world and showing how lovely it can be to get around here by bicycle. I'm pretty much figuring readers of this blog include a lot of people I wouldn't mind having for neighbors, so if you want to load up your Xtracycle or Bob trailer and move here, drop a note to:

kentp (at) bicyclealliance (dot) org

and I'll fill you in on the ins and outs of getting around this part of the world by foot and bike.

On Saturday, October 13th, 2007, my friend Mark Canizaro loads his bike on a bus in the Seattle morning fog and rolls east to find Issaquah bathed in warm sunlight. The pines and the cedars are still green, of course, but the cold nights and shortening days have cued the maples, dogwoods, oaks and others to color their leaves in shades of red and gold.

Our nominal goal today is the Black Diamond Bakery but our route is more meander than mission. Our bike tires ultimately spin out fifty-two miles on mostly quiet roads and leaf-strewn trails. Snakes enjoy the sun and salmon work their way up the Cedar river. Mark and I explore and eat and eventually wander home.

Soon the rains winter rains will begin in earnest. The salmon carcases and leaves will wash downstream, the snakes will sleep away the winter. Bike commuters, like Mark and myself, will layer wool under yellow rain jackets, turn on our lights for both the morning and evening commutes and tell lies like "there is no bad weather, only bad clothing."

But we'll remember there are days, days in October when the air is crisp and the light is golden, when it is hard to imagine why anyone would ever want to live anywhere else.

Walking and Biking: Better For People and the Planet

Today is Blog Action Day and bloggers all over the world are posting things about the environment. I often write about big bike trips or bike safety or the latest bikey gadget I've found but today I'm going to talk about short trips. Trips less than 2 miles.

40% of US urban travel is two miles or less. Now I'm fond of saying that "any distance is biking distance" but not everybody goes out for 50 mile rides for fun or thinks 18 miles is just about the perfect distance for a bike commute. But two miles? Lots of folks can walk or bike two miles.

And the folks at Clif Bar are trying to get more folks to use their own power to go on those short trips. Their site here:

http://2milechallenge.com/home.html

and the Walk Score folks here:

http://www.walkscore.com/

have tools that help you see what's within a short walk or bike ride of a given address.

Since Christine and I gave up our cars over 20 years ago, we've always been very conscious of the walkability of the places we've lived. We used to plot out circles on paper maps but these days the web puts that kind of info at your finger tips.

Some times we do big things that make a big difference. But often it's the little things we do, over and over, that make a big difference. Maybe one of those things can be using our own power to go to the market or the library or the post office. Small steps can make a big difference.

Avoid The Suicide Slot

On September 7th 2007, cyclist Bryce Lewis collided fatally with a right-turning dump truck in Seattle, Washington.

On October 11th 2007, cyclist Tracey Sparling was struck and killed in Portland, Oregon by a right-turning cement truck.

Two collisions, two young riders dead. Two cycling communities mourning and questioning.

I can wish for a world where trucks don't have blind spots, drivers and riders are always attentive, lane markings save lives, and human beings don't make mistakes. But that is not the world in which I live and ride.

Trucks and cars do have blind spots. Human beings, myself included, are not perfectly attentive. And some bike lanes, some times and some places, send cyclists to exactly the wrong spot on the road.

My friend Alex Wetmore doesn't mince words. He posted this in response to the crash which took the life of Bryce Lewis:

http://blogs.phred.org/blogs/alex_wetmore/archive/2007/09/15/bike-lanes-kill.aspx
Down in Portland my friends Michael and Beth posted their reactions to the death of Tracey Sparling here:

http://www.jamhome.us/2007/10/thoughts-on-riding-safely/


and here:

http://bikelovejones.livejournal.com/56185.html


I can wish for the ability to turn back time, to make something different for Bryce and Tracey and two truck drivers. I can even work, slowly (I wish it wasn't slowly but unfortunately it is) to change lane markings and habits.

Folks like the Effective Cycling people and the League of American Bicyclists point to the need for more education but I think they have a problem with packaging. Both groups have good information but it's locked in big books and multi-day classes. They package their message in long sermons delivered to the choir and then they wonder why their message isn't reaching the wider world.

I think Michael Bluejay has done a better job in presenting vital bicycle safety information in his website, How Not to Get Hit by Cars here:

http://www.bicyclesafe.com/

Michael very compactly describes the ten most common car/bicycle collisions and gives practical advice for avoiding them. He also has a good, sensible reprint and linking policy that lets folks like me do things like use a graphic from his site to illustrate this blog post.

I'm taking Michael's advice and condensing it even further. In my job I wind up having a lot of three-minute conversations with people about bike safety. Yeah, I wish I had more time but when you are handing someone a map at a transit fair or helping them figure out a bike route, often three minutes is all you have. So if they know what a bike lane is, I make sure they also know about the door zone. And lately I've added another term to my discussions:

Suicide Slot

If you look at Michael Bluejay's spot (and I really hope I've convinced you to take the time to look at it), you'll see that several of those ten common crashes involve the cyclist being where the driver isn't looking and/or being in the driver's blind spot. I call this the "suicide slot", being to the right of a right turning car.

Now you may say "suicide slot" is a loaded term, that I'm blaming the victim, that the driver should see the cyclist. Well, we can talk about what drivers should do, but as near as I can tell not everybody does what they "should" do. So even even they "should" look to the right, I'm thinking some won't. And if I'm off to their right anyway, well that strikes me as suicidal. But maybe it is a loaded term. Loaded like a gun. And like a gun, it can kill you.

So I'm trying to plant the meme of the "Suicide Slot" and get more cyclists avoiding the slot. If a bike lane puts me in the suicide slot at an intersection, then I'd argue that the bike lane is wrong. If I am going straight through an intersection, I will be where the other straight heading vehicles are. In the lane, taking my turn.

Finally, I'd like to say that cars are not the enemy. The two biggest enemies to all users of the roadways are inattention and impatience.

Be careful out there. Take the lane when you need to. Take your turn at intersections. And stay out of the suicide slot.

Dahon Curve D3 -- Folding and Luggage

I continue to be very pleased with my Dahon Curve D3. I've pretty much got the bike dialed in now. The pictures show how the bike folds and what I'm using for luggage. I also added bar-ends, lights and a bell to the bike and for better wet-weather braking, I upgraded the brakes with Koolstop Salmon brake pads.

The bike rides really well. Having the bag up front doesn't seem to bother the handling but like most folders, the D3 is not a bike I can ride no-handed. Single-handed riding is fine, however. The Schwalbe Big Apple tires are great, I've ridden them on rough roads and gravel paths and they are plenty comfy.

Speaking of comfy, the stock saddle is cushier than what I usually ride but it seems right for this bike. I'm quite upright on the bike but I've already logged some fifty mile days on the bike and I still like the saddle. The Dahon is such a kick to ride, I'll probably ride a century on it before too long.

I have done a few multi-modal trips with the Dahon, things like taking the bike on the bus from Seattle to Federal Way and then riding the last few miles to a corporate commute seminar. But some folks are doing really adventurous multi-modal trips, like this guy:

http://www.mezzobikes.com/wp-mezzo/?p=37

Yet Another Nerd Mirror

A while back I found a little mirror on the shoulder of the Sammamish Parkway. The stick-on helmet mount had obviously not been up to the job so I got to thinking about a way to put my road find to use. I clipped off the faulty mount and replaced it with an office binder clip and a couple of rubber bands.

I always wear a cap under my helmet so I clip the mirror to my cap brim whenever I go for a ride. BTW, the cap in this picture is an REI runner's cap and the trim is very reflective. You can see the cap reflecting the flash from Tarik's camera here.

And yeah, I know it looks dorky. I made my peace with being a dork a long time ago.

Alex, Mark and Kent Compare Folding Bikes

Yesterday morning I met up with my friends Alex Wetmore and Mark Vande Kamp for a bit of riding and conversation. Alex and I are both tinkerers who like folding bikes and the day's excuse for a ride was to compare our respective machines. Alex's Bike Friday Tikit features a front rack that he'd just finished brazing up a few hours before our ride.

It only takes about ten seconds to fold the Tikit, which is even faster than the 30 seconds or so it takes me to fold my Dahon. Folded, the Tikit is a bigger package. If Alex used flat bars, the bike would fold into a smaller package but it would still be bigger than the Dahon D3. I was surprised at how flexy the front end of the Tikit felt something both Alex and Mark commented on as well. Pretty much every folding bike I've ever owned or ridden has had some degree of front end flex, but the Dahon feels much more solid than the Tikit.

The Tikit has an astoundingly clever folding mechanism -- folding the rear triangle untensions cables that release the stem locking mechanism. The bike has a little handle that lets it roll when folded.

Both Alex and Mark were impressed (as I continue to be) at the quality of the Dahon D3. It's a very nice bike, quite amazing considering it sells for just a bit under $400. A made-in-Oregon Tikit costs about 3 times what the made-in-China Dahon does. The Tikit has many more fitting options than the D3. At 5'6" and 140 lbs, I fit fine on the D3 but I don't think it's the right bike for larger folks, although Dahon makes a wide range of bigger bikes as well.

The rear tire on Alex's Tikit was low on air, so he got to use the Dahon's seatpost pump to top out his tire. The pump works surprisingly well although Alex did say that it was "the weirdest pump I've ever used."

After breakfast at Pert's Deli, we rode north along Lake Washington, through the Arboretum and into Freemont to visit Folding Bikes West, the place in Seattle where you can see Birdy. Brompton, Dahon, Giant Halfway and Tikits all side by side. They all have a certain appeal but the Bromptons still seem to be the most evolved. If you have way more money than Alex, Mark or I do, you can even get a Brompton with lots of clever and light bits of titanium.

Alex's take on the day is here.

Undriving Ballard

I've been an undriver for years, and thanks to the folks at Sustainable Ballard, now I'm official!

Junk Miles To Monte Cristo

Last month, in his review of The Cyclist's Training Bible, Piaw Na questioned the book's emphasis on avoiding "junk miles" (the miles that don't move you toward your fitness goal). Piaw wrote:

"...where is the enjoyment? Where is the part where you ride up a mountain with friends, looking forward to another beautiful day? Where is the place where you hang out with your friends at dinner, reminiscing with your companions? The book has no place for them. You are encouraged to ride alone as much as possible, lest your competitive instincts take over and you work too hard. Or perhaps your companionable instincts take over and you work too little. No wonder the serious cyclists I meet never ask if I want to go for a ride!"

I guess I'm lucky to have friends like Mark Vande Kamp and Matt Newlin, guys who think getting up before the sun is a good idea, who load up on a fatty breakfast at 7:00 AM when the Twin Eagles Cafe opens up in Snohomish and then roll north into the mountains. Our plan is vague, as is our custom, and Mark's hand-drawn map is only a suggestion.

The ranger station at Verlot has more details -- a map and photos of the various washed-out roads. Matt has never been to the ghost town of Monte Cristo and that turns out to be the deciding factor.

So it's 183 junk miles spread over a couple of days. A little bit of hike-a-bike around some rock slides, the fording of a small river, a hike around the ruins and up into the glacial basin, dinners cooked back at camp and solving the problems of the world until darkness reminds us all it's time to sleep. Sunday's investment in slow climbing returns miles of coasting on Monday.

It's important to have goals and one of my goals is to make sure I always have time for junk miles.

Keep 'em rolling.

Kent

Seattle Climate Action Now Event at Bike Works

The City of Seattle's Climate Protection Initiative was born in February 2005 when Mayor Greg Nickels pledged that Seattle -- the entire community not just City government -- would meet or beat the United States' target of the Kyoto Treaty: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Unlike some other politicians, Mayor Nickels and his crew recognize that bicycles are a valid and valuable component of our transportation system. On Saturday, September 22, 2007, folks from Seattle CAN, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, the Bikery, Bike Works, and the Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation all got together in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle to provide some hands-on help and information to aid people in their efforts to reduce their carbon footprints and increase their use of bicycles. Tutta Bella, a very environmentally-conscious local restaurant, provided coffee and pastries and one of their people talked about environmental initiatives within their business. Dara Ayres, Bike Works Executive Director spoke briefly and introduced me and I, in turn, spoke briefly and introduced Mayor Nichols. The mayor spoke about how Seattle as a city and how Seattle-ites as individuals are making a difference. The most impressive thing to me was not just that the mayor spoke, he listened. He didn't just stay for a photo-op, he chatted with various bike commuters and volunteers.

We didn't have a lot of lead time to put this event together or to get the word out. Dara and her crew were literally making signs the day of the event but it all came together nicely. It was a fun day and maybe we made a little bit of a difference.

Screwed!

Last month I wrote about my amazing luck involving a nail in my tire. Yesterday morning, I had a similar, yet different experience on my ride in to work.

Now, I'd been meaning to get a spare tube for my new little Dahon, but I hadn't actually gotten to the point of purchasing a 16" tube. Now I wasn't totally tempting fate, I was carrying a patch kit. But sometimes that's not enough.

So, in the small hours of Thursday morning I'm headed to work and Blammo!, I run over something. A drywall screw to be precise. My rear tire is instantly flatter than an Edward A. Abbot novel. I coast to a stop and survey the damage.

Rather than fix the flat there on the roadside, I roll the bike over to the nearest bus stop, fold up the bike and hop the next bus into Seattle. I figured I'd patch the tube at the office.



Now here is how the world works. If one time, you get away with running over a nail and your tire does not go flat, sometime, within the next month, things will balance out. That stupid little screw punched a couple of holes in my tube, shredded the rim-strip. In my brief little roll to a stop at least a dozen little micro-pinch-flats formed in the tube. I used 11 patches and still had air leaking out of some tiny holes. And we were out of patches at the Bikestation and we didn't have any 16 inch tubes in stock.

Luckily my buddy Brad stopped by and he said he was heading by a bike shop anyway and he'd be happy to pick me up a tube or two and some patches. I gave Brad the cash for 3 tubes and a patch kit. It pays to be prepared. And even when you're not prepared, it sure helps to have friends. Without Brad, I would've been really screwed.

Things You Should Know About the Dahon D3

If you own a Dahon D3 (or pretty much any other folding bike) you will have strangers talk to you about it at the bus stop. And on the bus. And when you get off the bus. And when you are stopped at stop lights. And at other random places. People you don't know will stop and take pictures. Do not get a Dahon D3 if you are shy.

If you buy a Dahon D3 and you are married, your wife will roll her eyes and say "not another bike!" When she sees it, she will say, "well, it is pretty cute" and "at least it doesn't take up much space."

It's almost impossible not to feel like a circus bear when you ride a Dahon D3. It's also almost impossible to keep a silly grin off your face as you ride it.

If you have a folding bike, your buddies will say "so how fast does it fold?", click the stopwatch function on their watches and say "go!" You will get faster with practice. I've had the bike a couple of days and I've got the fold speed down to about thirty seconds. I think 15 seconds is possible.

The Dahon D3 is surprisingly zippy. Well, zippy enough for a guy who isn't that zippy. My normal 18 mile each way commute takes me about an hour and half on my green bike. On the Dahon, the commute times have been about an hour twenty six. BTW, I don't have a speedometer on the D3 but I've had it up to plentysix miles per hour on some steep descents.

John Laidlaw: Teach Your Children Well

Sometimes I feel like I waste too much time on the internet, reading forums and browsing blogs. And then sometimes I come across a really good rant, like this one from John Laidlaw. The original topic was chain lube but John points out that understanding how to maintain a bicycle is not just about a bunch of gears and chain.

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Archive-URL: http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.asp?Filename=internet-bob.10709.1104.eml
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:07:54 -0700
From: John Laidlaw
Subject: Re: [BOB] Chain lube.

Well, speaking from experience - it was my own bike, and if I wanted to ride it, I either had to pay to get it fixed, or fix it myself. Given the state of my exchequer, the latter was the preferred option. I managed to get through into my twenties, before i had a prang that damaged my frame (a "door-prize"), and into my forties before I started bending wheels occasionally. I'd say that a teenager, given the incentive CAN learn to fix things himself. Too often what happens is that a parent will come along, and say:"That's too difficult for him to do." and take over, or give it to an "expert" (Possibly the same age, but paid to do it). What does the youth learn? That the only way to get something done is to hire an expert. That, never, but never, is he or she to learn to do the job himself. It's a recipe for over-weight, under-achieving, dissatisfied, immature adults - just what we see all around us. It leads (just look at the statistics) to treating everything as "replaceable" - if your marriage, your job, your friendships are getting too hard to deal with - just junk 'em, and get new ones. They are bound to be perfect. On the other hand, if you've learned to do your own maintenance, then you think in terms of maintenance in all things, including relationships. You learn to ask if it is possible that you are doing something wrong, yourself. When that happens, then there is a chance of getting things properly fixed, for you are starting at the right end.

Oops - that rant got away on me.

But fixing your own bike, and teaching our youth to do the same thing, is a powerful paradigm for living a life.

John Laidlaw, and his old oil-can in
Victoria, BC

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Folding Bikes West

Seattle is a pretty darn nice town for cycling and it's got some pretty cool bike shops. This week, I stopped by Folding Bikes West in the Freemont neighborhood to take a look around and test ride a Dahon Curve. Folding Bikes West shares store space, staff and DNA with Electric Bikes Northwest but I didn't really spend any time looking at or taking pictures of the electric bikes. I probably should go back and take some pictures of those and also ask the question that's been bugging me: why does one company have the modifier "West" and the other "Northwest"?

Folding Bikes West has a lot of bikes in a pretty small space. I guess this makes sense, one of the neat things about folding bikes is that they don't take up much space. In one small storefront (half of which is occupied by electric bikes) I got to see Giant, Brompton, Dahon, Bike Friday and Birdy folding bikes.



The various bikes are available for test riding. I've ridden (and owned) various folding bikes over the years and I was short on time, so I only test rode the one bike I'd really come to see, the Dahon D3. The demo D3 pictured below has an optional front basket but the rest of the accessories (fenders, kickstand, rear rack and seatpost pump) are stock on the $395 Curve D3.



Since I have a pretty good background with folders, I was used to the zippy feel of the little wheels. The 2" wide Schwalbe Big Apple tires seem to really hit the sweet-spot in terms of speed and comfort, tough enough to soak up the rough pavement without feeling sluggish. A lot of folks might wish for more gears or a wider range than what is provided by the D3's Sturmey Archer hub, but since I come from the "do more with less" school of thought, I found the 3 gear ratios (42"/56"/77") totally adequate.

The D3 folds quickly into a pretty compact package. Even fumbling around the first time, I was able to fold it in about a minute and the folded package is compact and well-balanced. A little package that would fit easily onto the bus. I returned from my 20 minute test ride with the words "I'll take one."

Seattle Climate Action Now

Columbia City CAN Kick-Off Event

Saturday, September 22nd 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Mayor Nickels to present at 10:00 am

Bike Works, Cascade Bicycle Club, the Bicycle Alliance, the Bikery and Tutta Bella Restaurant are pleased to announce a new collaboration with the City of Seattle and over seventy community partners and local businesses who are coming together to inspire concrete action on climate change. The community-wide effort, called Seattle Climate Action Now (Seattle CAN!), invites all Seattle residents to become part of the solution to climate change by taking concrete steps to increase home energy efficiency and transportation efficiency. The campaign also provides avenues for civic engagement and collective action. The practical steps promoted in the campaign will help build a stronger, healthier community for our families today and will also help ensure a brighter tomorrow for our children and grandchildren.

Come learn about climate pollution reduction and how biking more and driving less can be better for you and the planet. You can learn about bike maintenance, find out about how to get started in bike commuting, how to fit a bike and a helmet, figure out the best routes to ride, get local bike maps, learn about combined bike & bus commutes, and much more.

Join us for food, fun and refreshments and enter a raffle to win a free bike!

Seattle Climate Action Now! offers three tools:

1. Climate Action & Resource Web Portal www.SeattleCAN.org is a one-stop-shop designed to help you take climate action. The site includes:

• Get Started Guide for Climate Action in Seattle
• Zerofootprint Climate Action Planner - Tool to help residents calculate their carbon footprint, create an action plan for reducing it, track progress over time, and connect with others taking action
• Partners & Resources - Information about campaign partners and resources to help you take climate action
• Community Events Calendar

2. Climate Action Partnerships

The diverse network of community-based, nonprofit, and business partners who are collaborating to get the word out about climate action each bring a unique area of expertise and perspective. To learn more about who is participating in the campaign and why - or for information about how to join as an organizational partner - visit www.SeattleCAN.org

3. Community Action Days

Community events designed to help Seattle residents increase home energy efficiency (fall-winter emphasis) and reduce transportation emissions (spring-summer emphasis). Home energy and transportation are Seattle's two largest sources of climate pollution. The events will emphasize collective action, where possible, and will provide opportunities for partners to co-promote their activities and resources.

Bike Works, Cascade Bicycle Club, the Bicycle Alliance and the Bikery will continue to look for ways to engage our members throughout this year-long campaign and your input is vital. Contact us if you would like to help plan future events and activities. Working together, Seattle CAN make a difference!

Dahon Curve D3

I really like the looks of this little bike. First off, it's red. Second, it folds into a pretty tiny package. Not quite as tiny as a Brompton, but pretty tiny. And at $400, it costs a lot less than a Brompton.
It looks like it folds quite quickly (15 seconds) and would work well for multi-modal trips (bike + bus, bike + train, or bike + plane). The specs here:

http://electricvehiclesnw.com/fbw/d-curve-specs.htm

look really good. I've always liked Sturmey Archer 3-speed hubs and Schwalbe Big Apple tires. And even though the pictures don't show it, the bike comes with fenders and a rear rack. And a final bit of niftiness is that the seatpost contains a built-in tire pump. Cool, eh?

Now, I've done a pretty good job of paring my bike stable down. In fact right now, my only bike is my 1987 green Gary Fisher. I don't need another bike now, do I? But maybe I'll stop by Folding Bikes West this week just to check out the shop. What could it hurt?