20 mph+ rides from Evanston / Wilmette

There's a new blog covering the routine 20+ mph rides from the Panera at Wilmette Avenue and Green Bay Rd.

http://ebc20mph.blogspot.com



These are connected to the Evanston Bike Club, but are open to all -- well, all who are fast enough.



These are also on the EBC schedule here: http://evanstonbikeclub.org/ASP/Schedule.asp?club=evbike

Seems like a good idea

Sign found in the Snake River Brewing pub in Jackson, WY.

How some people make it through the winter.

(No, this isn't a picture of me.)

So how about those readers of Golf Digest?

Ever watch those Cialis or Viagra ads on TV? Notice they often say "see our ad in Golf Digest".

Notice they say "Golf Digest". They don't say "Bicycling" or "Adventure Cycling" or "Velonews" or "Cycling News".

Think about it.

Carbon fiber bridge

Carbon fiber: it's not just for bicycles anymore! This bridge in Maine is mostly carbon fiber. See this NYT article.  The bridge is lighter and resists corrosion.

The World's Smartest Human on the Chicago Olympic Bid

Cecil Adams, nom-de-plume of a columnist for the Chicago Reader and "The World's Smartest Human", on Chicago's Olympic bid:

"... we face the prospect of hosting a giant world athletic competition involving billions of dollars of expenditure that nonetheless poses no financial risk. Perhaps 50 people in town can honestly claim to understand this. These individuals are operators. Chicago is their natural home."

It almost seems as if there is a local conspiracy to forget 1976 -- no, not the Bicentennial of American Independence, but the financial debacle of the Montreal Olympics.

"The Olympics were a financial disaster for Montreal, as the city faced debts for 30 years after the Games had finished. The Quebec provincial government took over construction when it became evident in 1975 that work had fallen far behind schedule; work was still under way just weeks before the opening date, and the tower was not built. Mayor Jean Drapeau had confidently predicted in 1970 that "the Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby", but the debt racked up to a billion dollars that the Quebec government mandated the city pay in full."

Aunt Bertha's a Cyclist?

from I Can Has Cheezburger

September 13: North Shore Century Bike Ride

This is our 25th North Shore Century, which each year raises over $10,000 for bike related causes: we've donated dozens of bikes for AIDS support workers in Africa, supported CBF, ATA, LIB, LAB and Rails to Trails, bought handcycles for rehabilitation programs, and supported bicycle education programs in many area communities.

Plus it's fun! Come on out. More info here.

Bike Parking?

Actually, it's an Independence Day celebration in Indonesia.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,643333,00.html

How long do bike decorations last?

As a practical joke, my daughter Abby wrapped my road bike in celery green crepe paper.



We started to wonder how long it would last. Kids' bikes on July 4th have lots of decorations, but these are ridden slowly. How would this stuff stand up to normal commuting speeds of 15-16 miles per hour?

Here we are after 7 miles. The stuff around the wheels is going (had to take a threatening piece out of the rear derailleur). Stuff on the body is in good shape.



After 14 miles, the wheels are about bare, but most of the decoration is still on the body.



At this point, I called the experiment over and removed the rest.

Cool job: Google tricycle mapper

Courtesy of Joe Ferguson, I was informed of this job:

Google is mapping the paths on and around college campuses and is doing so with a tricycle equipped with their sophisticated camera technology. The mapped colleges will allow new students a way to familiarize themselves with campus before they ever arrive at campus. It will also allow parents to see what the campus is like by allowing the parents to take a “virtual tour” of the college campus...

The major benefit of mapping the paths with the tricycle is it will allow mapping and photographing of areas that can not be done with Google Mapping cars. The Google tricycle will eventually allow for some amazing “streetviews” of bicycle trails around the world.. This will allow you to be able to look at a trail before you ride it.

Story here with nice picture.

Who puts up these signs?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/signlanguage/4603140/Sign-language-week-36.html

From Everglades National Park

Blow Your Nose the Cyclist's Way

A true cyclist can generate nasal congestion. A true cyclist checks behind them for other riders, turns their head to one side, puts a finger on one nostril, and blows out the other. This produces what's called "snot rockets", although there is only primitive rocket science involved.

Now studies shows that this is actually the healthier way to do it. According to research reported in the New York Times,

"Dr. J. Owen Hendley and other pediatric infectious disease researchers at the University of Virginia conducted CT scans and other measurements as subjects coughed, sneezed and blew their noses. In some cases, the subjects had an opaque dye dripped into their rear nasal cavities.
"Nose blowing generated enormous pressure — 'equivalent to a person’s diastolic blood pressure reading,' Dr. Hendley said — and propelled mucus into the sinuses every time. Dr. Hendley said it was unclear whether this was harmful, but added that during sickness it could shoot viruses or bacteria into the sinuses, and possibly cause further infection.

"'The proper method is to blow one nostril at a time and to take decongestants', said Dr. Anil Kumar Lalwani, chairman of the department of otolaryngology at the New York University Langone Medical Center. 'This prevents a buildup of excess pressure.'"

One nostril at a time is, of course, the only sensible way to do it on a bicycle. Who knew we were so smart?

Bike Commuting with Fat Tire Ale

Winter Cycling article in Evanston Review

Here's a link to the article, which includes two photos taken at the Evanston Bicycle Club meeting in November.

 

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/lifestyles/currents/1375157,on-winterbikeWEB-011509-s1.article

 

The interview and photo session was so long ago I'd practically forgotten about it.

Boy, is this the wrong e-mail list!

RAAM (the Race Across AMerica) is one of the most grueling sports events imaginable. In long bike races like the Tour de France, you race a specific distance each day and then sleep in a hotel at night. RAAM runs the width of the US with no rest stops -- you sleep when you want/need to.

I have a certain fascination with this race, and I'm on their "fan" mailing list. But either they sent this out to the wrong list or they have a very optimistic view of my capabilities:

Dear RAAM Racer, Team Manager,
We are excited to bring back the RAAM Clinics for 2009. We held two last year, one in London and one in Texas, with both being very well attended. This year it's 3 - Sacramento, CA; London, England; and our finish - Annapolis, MD. You can find more details on dates, price, and more here -
http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/subwebraam/raam.php?N_webcat_id=97.
The clinics are a great way to dive into RAAM logistics and preparation, ask your questions, and interact with the RAAM team and other team managers/crew chiefs. There are no secrets to RAAM, just lots of questions that we delve into to further your changes of a successful RAAM.
Register now at the RAAM Store (https://www.raceacrossamerica.org/subwebraam/store.php?N_webcat_id=9) under RAAM Clinics.

What does "Transportation Alliance" mean?

The term "Transportation Alliance" shows up quite a bit in organization names. Google has 78,100 hits. But these groups don't seem to be unified in any way other than the use of these two buzzwords next to each other.

Let's look at the top page of Google search results

The Minnesota Transportation Alliance mostly looks like people who favor more highway spending.
http://www.transportationalliance.com/sponsors.htm

The Transportation Alliance Bank is part of Flying J (the truck stop people)
https://www.tabbank.com/home/index.jsp

There's a Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Oregon -- looks like an alliance of bicycling groups.
http://www.bta4bikes.org/

"The Pennsylvania Transportation Alliance (PTA) was formed to bring together all people with disabilities and their allies in a unified, statewide organized effort to ensure that "accessible, affordable transportation is available to all PA citizens with disabilities." http://www.cilcp.org/transportation_alliance/index.php

The Central Maryland Transportation Alliance is all about transit -- regional rail.
http://cmtalliance.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

The New North Transportation Alliance (Tampa) is also about transit, transit, transit, although they do offer a free bike rack program for businesses.
http://www.newnorthalliance.org/Bike%20Racks%20for%20Businesses.html
There's also some superficial bicycling information -- e.g. "you might think about biking to work". The maps page (which is a good indicator) has a map of bike racks on the USF campus, but otherwise is all transit.
http://www.newnorthalliance.org/maps%26pubs.htm
The advisory board doesn't list any organizations I recognize, upon quick glance, as cycling organizations.

The Regional Transportation Alliance (Raleigh) http://www.letsgetmoving.org/
is "The regional business leadership group that focuses on relieving traffic congestion and enhancing mobility." That says "build roads" to me. The project page http://www.letsgetmoving.org/Projects_&_Priorities/index.html lists road projects and the construction of a regional rail system. Well down the list (11th, 2nd from last) is "Completion of American Tobacco Trail and improved pedestrian-bicycle access to transit." [Biking on the American Tobacco Trail??] But it does have a pedestrian and bike page http://www.letsgetmoving.org/Projects_&_Priorities/Pedestrian_bicycle.html and links to bike maps on the NC DOT web site.

The Westside Transportation Alliance http://www.wta-tma.org/ [Washington County, Oregon]
OK, now we hit pay dirt. The executive directors are wearing bicycle helmets. They are big supporters of the new commuter rail line that opens next year.

Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance http://www.nvta.org/
The third paragraph of their mission statement says it all: "The debate is not roads and bridges versus buses and trains, but which strategies move the most people most effectively in most corridors." Then there's the last two paragraphs: "More than half of all transportation resources available over the next 25 years are assigned to public transit to move less than 10% of daily trips.
Road projects that will carry 90% of future vehicular – auto, truck and bus -- trips remain un-prioritized and un-funded." Doing a search on "bicycle" turns up one table showing bicycles are used on only 1-2% of daily trips, nothing else.

I don't see much of a thread here other than a general advocacy for some form of transportation (hence the word "transportation" in the name. Only the Westside group seems, at first glance, to be the type of organization ATA (formerly the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation) would want to turn into, although on a bigger scale.

Logo comparison

Here's the old CBF logo and the new ATA logo.







Note:
1. The CBF logo is no thing of beauty.
2. The CBF logo is pretty Chicago centric and bicycle centric.
So, it's a fair statement that if CBF was going to expand their mission, the logo needed to go.

But
3. The new logo is pretty much as generic as you can get. There are buildings, not not recognizable ones. There's a slash -- is that supposed to be a sidewalk, separating buildings from parkway? There's an unfortunate shade of green in the lower right.
4. The logo shows the determination of ATA to get as far away from its CBF roots as possible. This could be the logo for anything that might occur in or near a gray building, which is most things.

I was taken to task on the earlier posting by someone who noted:

The name is Active Transportation Alliance, not ATA. I have not seen ATA on any communication from the organization. The abbreviation used in the website name is "Active Trans".

Right, and the name is Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, not CBF.

What's your point? ATA is particularly the moniker that will stick because "Active Transportation Allliance" is just 3 generic buzzwords thrown together and "ActiveTrans" sounds like a laxative.

But my whole point has nothing to do with either ATA, ActiveTrans, or Active Transportation Alliance. My point -- which you completely ignored, thank you very much -- is that CBF threw away all the equity in their existing name. They took a name that meant something, and substituted buzzword gibberish.

It's not the specific buzzwords chosen -- although I think these are poor ones -- it's the fact that they are turning their back on their equity. It's like when Philip Morris renamed itself "Altria". At least Philip Morris had the excuse that they were trying to hide the fact that they made cigarettes.

CBF throws away its name equity.

The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation -- CBF for short -- wants to expand its mission.

While I support the expanded mission, it was STUPID to throw away all the equity in the CBF name. It's now called the Active Transportation Alliance, or ATA.

Are we ashamed of being Chicagoans?

Are we ashamed of being bicyclists?

Does ATA mean anything except a failed airline?

Could you not find some name that hearkened back to the CBF equity, rather than turn your back on it so completely and ashamedly?