Dangerous water bottles?

After listening to some zealot explain the dangers of plastic water bottles to me, I looked up some information here.

The net of this is that this is a problem with the expensive, Nalgene-type water bottles. These have a "7" in the recycling triangle.

I checked the water bottles cluttering up my bicycle area. I got them all free because they advertise Amlings Cycle, the North Shore Century, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, REI, Village Cyclery and other similarly fine institutions. They are evidently free of harmful BPA as well. They have either "4" or "2" in the recycling triangle.

The BPA problem does not apply to all Nalgene bottles currently sold. I threw out the older Nalgene I used for foreign travel.

Be a bike race official?

Here's an interesting way to get involved in bicycle racing (or re-involved):

If you would like to get involved in the exciting world of bike racing from the sidelines our officials program is for you. You take a class, pay $35 for your license, and then can help
officiate at the races. Everything from criteriums to time trials, to road races, to cyclocross and track too.

What is nice is you get paid for your time and travel expenses. You can also move up through the ranks and become a National Commissar and officiate bigger regional races.

Please spread the word to your club members and if they are interested, have them sign up. The details and registration procedure is here:
http://illinoiscycling.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=73 If you have any more questions before you sign up, please send an email.

Thanks!!
Steve Hansen steveh AT illinoiscycling DOT org
President
Illinois Cycling Association

A way to clear out traffic jams

Above picture from http://www.axonoid.com/images/axonoid/posts/signs/carinwater.jpg

Bank Bailout: How many bikes would it buy?

BEFORE this weekend's bailout plan, I figured the potential liability of what the U.S. Treasury Department had already done amounted to $8200 per household.

[assumptions laid out here: http://mikekr.blogspot.com/2008/09/wall-street-bailout-so-far-8200-per.html ]

Now, with an additional $700 billion proposed this weekend, that's another $6300 per household, for a total potential financial loss of $1.6 trillion, or $14,500 per household.

I see REI currently has a Cannondale road bike on sale for $800. So, for what this bailout might end up costing US taxpayers, we could get 18 Cannondale bicycles for every household in the US.

http://www.worldbicyclerelief.org/ provides new bicycles in poor third world countries at $134 each. (I've seen these -- these are very sturdy bikes with strong racks). That works out to 11.9 billion bicycles. Yes, friends, with what this might cost US taxpayers we could buy nearly everyone in the entire world two sturdy bicycles.

North Shore Century Sunday Sept 21

Our club charity ride is coming up Sunday, September 21! There's a nice article on it in the Evanston Review:

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/news/1168629,ev-centuryride-091808-s1.article

For more info, go to our website:

http://evanstonbikeclub.org/nsc/index.asp

Scraper bikes

From Clare on rec.bicycles.misc:

Intersection of hip-hop and cycling:

You can see some slides here:
http://www.californiareport.org/slideshows/scraperbikes/index.jsp

A video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geIsWq5xOSE

Lance is back

Just a small notice on the front page of the paper today:

Lance Armstrong said he would return to professional cycling and compete in the Tour de France next year.

It's a bold move. Lance's domination of cycling at a time a rampant doping has looked increasingly suspicious. If he comes back he will be tested relentlessly -- particularly at the TdF.

So, if he could get a top-10 finish, TT or mountain stage win, a King of the Mountains jersey, or do similarly well this would put a lot of the doubts to rest. It's too much to expect a guy who's years older to win the thing, however cool that would be.

But it's risky as well. If he's actually doping and gets caught he will be trashed forever. If he limps along in the back of the pack, wheezing as he goes, he will only give fuel to his enemies. If it's all a publicity stunt and he drops out before actually entering the TdF (or another big stage races), he will be regarded with further suspicion.

We'd all like to believe in Lance. Go, Lance, go!

Generators for Bikes

From a thread on r.b.m. comes this information about finding bike dynamo generators in the U.S. [thanks to Frank Krygowski, and Steve at http://bicyclelighting.com)

Bike dynamos or generators are a bit hard to find in the US, but not
impossible. Here are some American sources:

http://www.yellowjersey.org/dynamos.html
and http://www.yellowjersey.org/lolite.html

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/dymotec.asp
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/shimano3n70.asp
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/schmidt.asp

I've ordered stuff from this British firm and been well satisfied.
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/category-DYNAMOS-880.htm
Shipping seemed as fast as from most American companies, and with a
valid credit card, location doesn't matter much.

=============================

Hub Dynamos
-----------
Joule, $65: "http://www.gaerlan.com/dahon/wheel.htm"
Shimano, $90 "http://harriscyclery.net/itemdetails.cfm?ID=1547" or
"http://www.yellowjersey.org/dynamos.html"
Schmidt SON, $275: "http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/schmidt-ordering.asp"

Tire
----
Dymotec, $60, "http://harriscyclery.net/itemdetails.cfm?ID=1580"
Union,
"http://www.amazon.com/Union-Bicycle-Generator-Light-Set/dp/B000AO7E64"
or "http://store.bicyclerevolution.com/unbicliggens.html"

Also see "http://www.yellowjersey.org/lolite.html" for a 12V/6W dynamo
(all of the above are 6V/3W).

Also search on Amazon U.S. for "bicycle dynamo".

Sign up for free Bike Bits

Bike Bits, the free newsletter from Adventure Cycling (the US bike tour people) is an interesting read. They recently published their 200th issue, and asked me to pass this along:

BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE!

We may have stretched the truth a bit in the opening quote, but
we're not fibbing when we tell you this is the 200th edition of Bike
Bits. Since we started sending out this e-newsletter in 1999, we've
grown the reader list to an astonishing 33,792 current subscribers.
What's more, they are distributed among more than 100 different
countries, representing every letter of the alphabet except Q and X.

Now, will you take the official Bike Bits 200th Edition Challenge?
We would like to ask every current reader to invite a friend or an
acquaintance to receive the newsletter. (We're hoping this will net
at least one subscriber from Qatar, but unfortunately there are no
countries beginning with the letter X.) If just half of all readers
rise to the challenge, our subscription list will instantly zip past
the 50,000 mark. Wouldn't that be marvelous? Forward this entire
Bike Bits (or this section) to all your cycling friends and ask
them to join with you in receiving this quick, fun cycling
e-newsletter. You do the convincing and we'll come up with the
creative cyclo-news.

Sign up for Bike Bits here:
http://www.adventurecycling.org/bikebits/index.cfm

Cosmic bicycle wheel

Astronomy Picture of the Day, which is a marvelous site that I very highly recommend, today features a cosmic bicycle wheel.

Making myself useful

Yesterday I did my first century of the year. This is a far cry from earlier years when I did a century a month, but maybe this is a start of another century streak.

We went up to the Jelly Belly plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. The pace was substantially higher than the 15-16 mph advertised, and I was often challenged on the way back, when we had a headwind. I'm a big drag in a headwind. But the ride was great fun.

I got to be useful, too. One rider had a flat, and 3 of us stayed back with him to help fix it and to follow the route. Unfortunately he couldn't get his back wheel off because it was not a quick-release wheel. But I had a wrench, which saved the day (a passing local cyclist would also have saved the day, but he lived a mile or so back).

Later, the same rider's derailleur broke/ I led him to the Lake Forest train station so he could take a train back. It was not a good day for him. As a result of this, I ended up with 120 miles for the day and was pretty tired.

Riding to interesting places

Jobst Brandt wrote on the rec.bicycles.misc newsgroup about the importance of interesting places. If you haven't browsed through at least a couple of Jobst's tours, this would be a good time to do so.
>
> I think riding to interesting places supercedes any interest in
> setting records and I have been riding in that manner for more than 50
> years. A collection of some of these summer tours is at:
>
> http://www.trentobike.org/Countries/Europe/Tour_Reports/Tour_of_the_Alps/
>
> That longer rides are also practical for someone in good physical
> condition is reported here:
>
> http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Recreation/SierraSpring.htm
>
> When an unusual happening occurs, such as the big freeze of 1963, you
> should take advatage of it and savor the event for a long time:
>
> http://www.trentobike.org/Countries/Switzerland/Tour_Reports/Ice_Princess_1963/

Thoreau speed of cars, bikes and walking

There's an interesting discussion here about Thoreau speed:

In Walden, Thoreau proposed a modification of the traditional formula for calculating speed. Instead of merely dividing the distance traveled by the time it took to cross it, Thoreau proposed reckoning also the cost of the ticket.

So, after some assumptions and calculations, where are we left?

Kifer has also assessed the costs and the Thoreau speed of bicycles, into the bargain. He estimates the Thoreau speed of cars as between 4.8 and 14.4 miles per hour, and the Thoreau speed of bicycles as between 8.9 and 14.8 miles per hour. Though beaten to the punch, I'm posting anyway, because my sources and method are different yet I end up confirming Kifer's conclusion: When costs are factored in, cars are not faster than bikes and only twice as fast as walking.

Paging Dr. Triathalon

The Trib reports on somebody who didn't follow doctor's orders:

After a swollen right knee caused the Englishman [Stuart Hayes] to take a $1,300, two-hour trip to the emergency room Saturday evening, the pain and swelling mysteriously subsided and Hayes became Sunday's improbable winner in 1 hour 48 minutes 9.2 seconds, earning $10,000.

"The doctor told me to take off two weeks," Hayes said. "I guess he's not going to like that I didn't listen."

Hayes, 29, considers the victory a breakthrough after 10 years of competing in triathlons with few major victories. His last major win came in 2005 in his hometown of London.

I guess if you've come all this way you might as well give it a go.

Bike the Dog

In imitation of the Evanston Bicycle Club's Hot Dog Ride and CBF's Bike the Drive, next month features Bike the Dog, which is a bike tour of 9 hot dog places in Chicago on September 13.

The EBC's hot dog ride was yesterday. We visited 3 places this year (sometimes we do 4). I had an encased meat product at all 3 -- the Thai sausage with peanut sauce and coconut at Hot Doug's wasn't exactly a hot dog -- and fries at 1 place. I didn't eat again until today.

I can't imagine visiting all 9 places and eating at all of them. Maybe going with 3 other people and having .25 of a hot dog at each would work.

Real Estate bike tours

Today's WSJ reports that some realtors are leading bike tours around to show houses. This is a good way to show off some of the features of the neighborhood as well as show several houses to multiple people.

I'd like to think of it that way, rather than a sign of desperation in the housing market ;)

One of the things it illustrates is that access to bike paths is something you want to show off. All those NIMBY people who slow down bike path construction turn out to be wrong -- it doesn't lower property values.

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