The Book Bike

From Joe Ferguson on the BCHI list comes this gem:

Once upon a time, there was a bibliophile named Gabe Levinson who
wanted to spread the word about his passion for books.
So he did the obvious: ordered a custom-built tricycle with a 200-
pound capacity and wrote to dozens of publishers asking for book
donations. The hook: He’d ride around in his Book Bike and give away
free books to the masses.

The responses flooded in — from McSweeney’s, Dark Horse Comics, Not
for Tourists, Drawn & Quarterly, and Washington Square Press, to name
a few.

Levinson now spends his Saturdays pedaling around Chicago parks giving
away free reads. Cops have tried to stop him, but he woos them with
his bounty.

This Saturday, you, too, can be wooed (check his website for location).

Pretty cool in our book.


For locations, go to <somethingtoread.net>

Beijing by bike

There's a nice photo essay on riding a bike in Beijing in the New York Times today.

Jason McCartney of the U.S. Olympic cycling team rents a commuter bike and goes for a ride. It's a bit different than being in the peleton.

What's wrong with this picture?

from Mike Jacoubowsky at Chain Reaction Bicycles comes this picture. The full page at ToysRUs is here.

Sharp-eyed readers at rec.bicycles.misc noted the following:

The ad species a 26 inch frame, which would be huge (for someone about 6'5"). What they mean is 26 inch wheels.

On the rear, the plastic thingy that protects the hub in shipping is still on.

The fork has been installed backwards.

Robert Novak, columnist, involved in "Hit and Run"

He trots out the old, tired, incredible excuse of “I didn’t know I hit him. ... I feel terrible,”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11985.html

The bicyclist [who chased Novak down] was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said "a black Corvette convertible with top closed plows into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed into the windshield.”...“This car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.

Update 7/29/2008: Robert Novak has written he has a brain tumor and will, at least temporarily, retire

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/business/media/29novak.html?_r=1&8au&emc=au&oref=slogin

This is a famous person on a bike. Who is it?

The bike seems to be a Rivendell. What does it mean if you recognized the bike before the famous person?

Hint: born in 1924. The picture is from 2008.

Answer

What's your neighborhood's Walk Score?

Here a site that let's you look at the "walkability" of a
neighborhood.

http://walkscore.com/

There's a lot of variability in the scores. I typed in addresses I was personally familiar with and got a "0" in one case and a "98" in another.

The 98 is downtown Evanston, IL, near the Northwestern University campus where pretty much everything is within walking distance.

Two of my sisters live at places rated "5" and "0" -- I think the 5 is a bit harsh, but the 0 is pretty much correct since there's not a school, or a park, or a store of any kind within 2 miles. This is a 1970's suburb, by the way, not a ranch in Montana.

Not surprisingly, it works with available data, which is Google maps locations of stores, schools, and parks. Nothing in there right now about sidewalks or crime.

It works in the UK as well. "10 Downing St" scores an 87 -- very walkable.

My new bike: Xootr Swift

Did I NEED a new bike?

For some values of need, yes. I'd gone from 8 bikes to four.

Two road bikes were stolen.
My younger daughter took the tandem to Philadelphia (and now that I just own a Prius I'll never get it back!)
I loaned my mountain bike to my daughter's boyfriend. He has to return it if they break up. So far, so good, although I'm not sure the bike is the major thing holding their relationship together.

In addition the old folder I bought -- a Raleigh Twenty -- just isn't big enough. I can get the seat height OK, but can't easily change the proprietary handlebars.

So, I replaced that with a Xootr Swift. I put it together last night (pictures here), but it's rained all day today so I haven't ridden it. I'm figuring this will be a lot easier to pop in the back of the car when my wife wants to go to Michigan. I can take the train out to the country without gambling on whether the conductors will let the bike on. And, in addition, I'd gotten a nice bonus and wanted to spoil myself a bit.