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After many delays, Schwinn's new electric bikes are now available in certain bike stores. The range includes the Campus, the least expensive model at $1,900, the World GSE, which sells for $2,200, and the Continental priced at $2,500. These bikes look just like regular bikes -- the electric motors and batteries are integrated seamlessly into the design.
In Toronto, it is getting as hard to get an appointment with a bicycle mechanic as it is to get one with a doctor. Susan Krashinsky writes in the Globe and Mail:
"Cycling is growing in popularity, and it's not easy to find a good mechanic. But this year, high gas prices, nasty weather and a traffic-choked downtown core meant tune-ups were in high demand. And when the transit strike hit in April, a flood of desperate customers descended on Toronto's bike shops."
Mechanics are working 11 hour days, and booking service appointments a month ahead. The number of cyclists has exploded. "It's gone off the hook," Mr. Kamphof [of curbside cycles] said. "We saw triple-digit growth for the month of April compared to last April."
And why not? "It's more convenient than the bus and it's less expensive than a car." ::Globe and Mail
They actually have a Deputy Minister for Cycling in Hungary's Ministry of Economics and Transport. They are also promoting cycling with this sexy video that Grist calls safe for work if you use headphones. A commenter on osocio translates it:
Earlier this week, I reviewed a $350 electric bike, the E-Zip Trailz. While this bike is a good entry-level bike, if you are seriously considering using an electric bike to replace your car for short trips you should probably invest in a quality electric bike costing $1000 or more. One of the better brands of electric bikes is eZee.
Blogger Andres Restrepo has gone to the trouble of finding online links, images and descriptions of these ten biking trails, chosen as he puts it “for their beauty, length and excitement.” Great work Andres, and I’m personally pleased to see that down under was able to score a mention in the list.
I've been testing the E-Zip 2008 Trailz bike by Currie Technologies. This electric bike is quite inexpensive -- other electric bikes range in price from $700 up to $3000 in the U.S. For half the price, this is a solid bike with good range and power. My bike arrived partly-assembled in a box. It took me about an hour to attach the seat, front wheel and pedals. The lead-acid battery took about 2 to 3 hours to come to full charge. The weight of this battery and the motor make the E-Zip a heavy bike.
Making a city bicycle-friendly (Portland is a good success story, being the first major city in the US to earn Platinum Level) is not easy. There's a vicious cycle where if the city isn't bike-friendly, fewer people will ride, and if fewer people ride, politicians feel less pressure to make the city bike-friendly.
Bike to Work Day in Seattle (May 16, 2008) aims to make counting bicycle commuters easier with an impressive event that brings together about 11,000 cyclists. Such a big group can't be ignored. Strength in numbers!
The Cascade Bicycle Club, the largest in the US, says: "[Bike to Work Day's] dramatic year-over-year increases show transportation engineers and politicians that facilities like bicycle lanes and parking racks are good investments." If you are in the Seattle area and are a cyclist, we encourage you to join the club. If you want to take part in the Bike to Work Day, details can be found here. Even Lance Armstrong wants you to go!
Good news, bad news: no new entries are being accepted, as the event reached its capacity of 30,000 riders on April 4. We knew biking was popular, but wow, cool! And just because you can't join in the ride doesn't mean you can't get out of the house to cheer the bikers along -- you might even catch a glimpse of Graham Hill riding one of these which BTW has but one gear. The course spans 42 miles
crossing 5 major bridges. Route details, good spots to view from and video from last year's event here.
A young Canadian inventor named Ben Gulak has created an innovative new electric motorbike that takes some of the lessons learned from the Segway device, but implements them in cooler package. The bike, called the Uno, looks from its profile like a strange powered unicycle but actually employs two wheels side-by-side. Riders lean forward to accelerate -- a feature used by the Segway, and can hit a top speed of 25 mph in its current configuration. The Uno also makes use of a set of gyros to enhance ease of balance, and the wheels are independently operated making turning much more precise.
...
Great minds think alike ... Here we have two organisations, almost on different sides of a country, doing much the same thing, with the same name.
The Recyclery, in Evanston, Illinois, a non-profit collective, seeks to build community through the restoration of donated and discarded bicycles. “With these bikes we offer a sustainable form of transportation at little to no cost. We wish to further open ourselves and our resources to the community at large with programs that teach bicycle maintenance, safety, and ecological sustainability."...
Congrats Portland! The city just became the first major U.S. city to be designated as a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. The only other city to reach that level in the U.S. is Davis, California, but it only has a population of 63,000, so the challenge wasn't quite the same (not to take anything away from their accomplishment - kudos to them!).
"Portland earned the Gold designation back in 2003 and has been working to achieve Platinum for well over two years. Back in February of 2006, Commissioner Sam Adams launched a nine-part strategy and called together advocates and community leaders to work toward achieving the goal."
Even the Gold level was pretty exclusive: Only six other cities have reached it. 15 have attained Silver, and 49 got Bronze. Five main factors have been evaluated (they call them the 5Es, though there's a 'P' at the end): engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation and planning. Once again, congrats Portland! ::Portland earns Platinum; becomes first major U.S. city to win the award, ::Portland earns a Platinum rating from the League of American Bicyclists...
Eighty years ago the Dutch were building a proper infrastructure for bikes, separating the lanes and making it a safe place to ride. We just built highways and pulled up rail lines. No wonder things turned out the way they did. ::Modern Mechanix
...
Batteries are heavy, and consequently so are many electric bikes. Alex Coulombe demonstrates the BionX, a conversion system that you can add to any bike, that tops out at fifteen pounds....
We’ve already seen plenty of video footage of bike thieves at work, both real and fake. But how about some footage on how to stop thieves in their tracks? Of course, our beloved StreetFilms have come to the rescue once again, updating a hugely popular video they made five years ago in which NYC bike mechanic Hal Ruzal graded New Yorkers’ bike locking abilities. The guy doesn’t pull his punches, but he does dispense plenty of useful bike locking advice in the process - and the improved grades suggest that folks have either learned a thing or two in the intervening years, or Hal has mellowed in his criticisms. Click below the fold for the original episode.
...
The Long John in April’s recent post on Five Cool Cargo Bikes reminded me of the wonderful looking Small Haul. This is an exquisitely detailed, hand-made bike frame that includes a vast cargo-hold right under the handlebars.
Joshua Muir, who crafts them in his workshop in Santa Cruz, Calfornia, describes them as “quick and surprisingly light.” The front basket is rated to carry up to 80lbs (36 kg) as indicated by the above pic of the Labrador. The Frances Cable Steering System is employed to ensure turning is nimble. Should you need to hump 200lbs (90kg) about the place, Joshua can rustle you up the heftier Cycletruck. ...
Pictured is the Danish Kangaroo cargo bike
After a car-free 1.5 years in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, it had become time to reassess the bike set-up, because a wire basket, back rack and single pannier just didn't seem to be cutting for this rider anymore. When you have to carry every liter of milk, stick of butter and pot of paint either by foot or on your own pedal power, cargo bikes had started to look more and more enticing. That recent weekend in Copenhagen also again made it clear that the Danes are a light-year ahead of everyone (except, perhaps, the Dutch) when it comes to all things urban biking.
So it was timely to see a weekend review in Sydsvenskan newspaper of five cargo bikes - four Danish and one Dutch. The test favorite was the Winther Kangaroo, with a perfect five out of five score, for its easy and secure low-riding handling, a plus for beginners. But the Kangaroo also looks like a kid-hauling bike, whereas the second-favorite Nihola, a classic style seen in a dozen variations in Copenhagen's streets, has a square front box that is slightly narrowed but seems to work well for human or other cargo. And then there's (hit the jump for more review plus a pic of the Long John) ...
Folding Bike Innovations (FBI), trading in Australia as Onyerbike, are, by their own admission “designers, importers and retailers of innovative bicycles.” They offer several full size folding bikes, such as their top of the range ‘Hawk’, with its magnesium alloy rim, 6 spoke, 26” wheels. The 7005 aluminium frame folds at a massive hinge in its centre, to make for a fairly compact package. The Hawk weighs15.8 kg and costs just shy of $2,000 AUD....
We whine often that bikes have a right to the road, but often do not have the speed and visibility to move with traffic. Now four students at UQAM École de Design have built a machine that can dominate the road like it does at the Jacques Villeneuve Formula 1 race track in Montreal in the video above. Thomas Lacombe, Nicolas Robitaille-Dubois and Nicolas Rodrigue-Trudel developed a linkage that holds the bikes into a "safe, easy to use and efficient transportation cluster." They built twelve prototypes of the linking element that ties together the front and rear axles. Nobody is going to miss you (or pass you) when you are on this rig. I love the idea of bike pools- biking alone and then ganging up together for the ride to work. Love the tyvek suits too; so aerodynamic and comfortable for biking. Part of ::EXP08, on in Montreal until the 26th of April.
...
A "Moederfiets or Motherbike" in the Netherlands
In North America, putting three kids on a "motherbike" is unheard of, let alone without helmets. It just isn't safe in a culture where bikes are an afterthought. In the Netherlands, it is the other way around, and now the Dutch Cycling Federation is demanding the installation of air bags on the hoods of cars to protect cyclists. "In the past many measures have been taken to protect those sitting inside cars but hardly anything has been done to protect people outside cars," it said in a statement on Monday. "The federation calls on politicians and the car industry to take measures that could limit the chance of serious injury."
...
Carbon composites (mixed material, unrecyclable) remain the materials of choice for high-end racing bikes, but for the rest of us in the biking masses, bamboo may soon come into its own as a better way to cycle. Calfee Design, which already has a bamboo-based mountain bike and road bike, has now come up with a bamboo tandem - wrapped at the joints with hemp fiber.
Calfee founder Craig Calfee earlier this year visited Ghana in order to train local framemakers to construct heavy-duty transport bikes (Calfee wrote a great travelogue of his adventures at the company's site) in bamboo. Bamboo now accounts for 25 percent of the company's total production, and a third of the road frame production. OrganicAthlete, a team of bikers promoting a vegan lifestyle for athletes, has signed up to ride Calfee bikes, and OrganicAthlete founder Bradley Saul had this to say to Bike Biz about his bamboo bike:
“I’ve riden a bamboo bike for over a year. I can honestly say it’s the best riding bike I’ve ever had."
Calfee bikes are high end, but if you've got the bamboo itch, check out this DIY. Via ::Bike Biz and VeloNews...
I dunno about this, I wouldn't want to ride through any puddles, and it might be bumpy going over potholes, although the big radius might be great for jumping them.Dezeen says that it was commissioned for the XXI Century Man exhibition in Tokyo.Designer Ben Wilson is quoted below:...
In North America the best one gets is a few posts and rings or the occasional bike locker in a few big cities; In Tokyo they get this amazing multi-storey computerized structure. We need these over here, but can only dream of a city where bikes get treated so well. via ::Spacing...
1.5 million people take transit in Toronto, and are frantically lining up alternatives in the face of a strike by transit workers threatened for Monday. It was nice of the unions to wait until the perfect biking weather, no snow and not too hot; now every bike shop in town is sold out, and local bike activists are using it as an opportunity to increase awareness of biking and pick up a few converts.
Biking Toronto has put up a special website for n00bs to learn how to prepare for an urban commute, including what to wear, how to light your bike, how to carry stuff and how to change at work- useful tips for any city under any circumstance. Find it at ::BikingToronto...
Bikie Introduces a Web Platform for New and Used Bicycles and Accessories in Germany
Well, this ad certainly gives a twist to bike rack scarcity, or finding the right new or used bike when you need one. The tag line at the end of the video translates roughly to "The right bike for every bum." We stumbled across it quite by accident, and clicked over to Bikie.de to see what it's all about. ...
[UPDATED: The original embedded YouTube link we first had is, alas, now kaput, but you can still watch the video here.]
Here’s a story that’s sat in my in-box for an embarrassing nine months! (Sorry, Lynette.) Fortunately, watching our glorious leader quickly fold his Strida 5 into his wardrobe jogged my wayward memory.
The Fast Fold Showdown was a feature of last year’s Trophy Bikes ‘Round Up’ Folding Bike Festival. Contestants had to Ride, Fold, Carry, Sit, Cross Legs, Unfold, and Ride their respective brands of bike. See the likes of Xootr, Moulton, Bike Friday, Brompton, Dahon (as I recall) and others, duke it out for line honours. The speed that some can fold, and size they can compact to, is impressive. ...
If you click on the Youtube video above, what happens? That's right. Not available. Because of a lot of negative feedback from blogs such as StreetsBlog, Grist, and of course, TreeHugger.
What you used to be able to see in that ad was a ridiculously dressed guy who feels humiliated because high gas prices forced him to... cycle to work. The subtext from State Farm is that biking to work is something you are reduced to, not a valid option on its own. It can't possibly be a choice!...
Jules Bassong his wooden bike and the Cameroon flag he hangs under the handlebars
We've written about enterprising DIYers such as Marco Facciola who built his own all-wooden bike, as well as chronicled the award-winning Waldmeister wooden bike.
But in the case of Cameroonian sculptor Jules Fils Otong Bassong, necessity was the prompt for him fashioning a handmade bike from native acacia, bobinga and dosier woods. Bassong, a father of eight, is taking a tour on his handcrafted bike through Cameroon to find a sponsor to help him set up small-scale manufacture of wood-based bikes, which he hopes to turn into a "Camaroonian specialty." While Bassong described his long-haul bike trip as not entirely smooth - he had one minor accident on the 13-day trek thus far between Cameroonian towns of Bamenda to Buea, he told Africa News he believes the bikes could be an excellent cottage industry for his nation. Though his chain is metal and his seat is softened by foam, the majority of Bassong's cycle is a local renewable resouce. And he never needs to worry about a flat tire. Via ::Africa News...
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Making a city bicycle-friendly (Portland is a good success story, being the 
A young Canadian inventor named Ben Gulak has created an innovative new electric motorbike that takes some of the lessons learned from the Segway device, but implements them in cooler package. The bike, called 
Great minds think alike ... Here we have two organisations, almost on different sides of a country, doing much the same thing, with the same name.
The 
Congrats 
Eighty years ago the Dutch were building a proper infrastructure for bikes, separating the lanes and making it a safe place to ride. We just built highways and pulled up rail lines. No wonder things turned out the way they did. 
Batteries are heavy, and consequently so are many electric bikes. Alex Coulombe demonstrates the BionX, a conversion system that you can add to any bike, that tops out at fifteen pounds....
The Long John in April’s recent post on 
Pictured is the Danish Kangaroo cargo bike
After a car-free 1.5 years in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, it had become time to reassess the bike set-up, because a wire basket, back rack and single pannier just didn't seem to be cutting for this rider anymore. When you have to carry every liter of milk, stick of butter and pot of paint either by foot or on your own pedal power, cargo bikes had started to look more and more enticing. That recent weekend in Copenhagen also again made it clear that the Danes are a light-year ahead of everyone (except, perhaps, the Dutch) when it comes to all things urban biking.
So it was timely to see a weekend review in 
Folding Bike Innovations (FBI), trading in Australia as Onyerbike, are, by their own admission “designers, importers and retailers of innovative bicycles.” They offer several full size folding bikes, such as their top of the range ‘Hawk’, with its magnesium alloy rim, 6 spoke, 26” wheels. The 7005 aluminium frame folds at a massive hinge in its centre, to make for a fairly compact package. The Hawk weighs15.8 kg and costs just shy of $2,000 AUD....
A "
Carbon composites (mixed material, unrecyclable) remain the materials of choice for high-end racing bikes, but for the rest of us in the biking masses, bamboo may soon come into its own as a better way to cycle. Calfee Design, which already has a 
I dunno about this, I wouldn't want to ride through any puddles, and it might be bumpy going over potholes, although the big radius might be great for jumping them.
1.5 million people take transit in Toronto, and are frantically lining up alternatives in the face of a strike by transit workers threatened for Monday. It was nice of the unions to wait until the perfect biking weather, no snow and not too hot; now every bike shop in town is sold out, and local bike activists are using it as an opportunity to increase awareness of biking and pick up a few converts.
Biking Toronto has put up a special website for n00bs to learn how to prepare for an urban commute, including what to wear, how to light your bike, how to carry stuff and how to change at work- useful tips for any city under any circumstance. Find it at 
[UPDATED: The original embedded YouTube link we first had is, alas, now kaput, but you can still 
Jules Bassong his wooden bike and the Cameroon flag he hangs under the handlebars
We've written about enterprising DIYers such as Marco Facciola who built 
