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Gah. I’m never going to get this song out of my head! On my scraper bike, on my scraper bike… (via)

Filed Under: culture, modification 

Local cyclist and friend, Matt Haughey, will be riding in Cycle Oregon this summer and wondered whether upgrading his roadbike would make much of a difference in his performance.

Matt rented a high-end road bike just to see if the marketing hype surrounding such bikes had any grounding in reality. He was hoping for some performance increases, but wasn’t holding his breath:

As much as I love reading about all the latest gadgets in the cycling world, I’ve long been skeptical about their actual utility and I wanted some data to back it up. In this test I expected to see negligible gains, I expected a rough ride on a stiff frame, and I expected to conclude that $5,000 bikes are generally a waste of money for all but the top athletes. I wanted to free myself from the feeling that I had to constantly upgrade every year to the latest, lightest parts available.

His expectations weren’t met, and the bike performed nicely:

In the end, I’ll admit the $5,000 bike won me over on feel more than performance, though the gains weren’t too shabby. I attained speeds I’ve never ridden at before and I suspect if I owned a similar bike that I’d continue to improve and attain levels I couldn’t do with my old bike. But more importantly everything about riding felt better on the high end machine.

There’s a level of marketing hype that permeates most sports. As a surfer, I always figured the next wetsuit would keep me warmer while being more flexible than my old wettie. Or that a new board would be faster and last longer. As a climber I remember believing that new shoes would make me a better climber, or that ‘biners with (then new) bent gates would keep me from falling farther since I could clip faster. There’s usually a grain of truth in the hype, but it’s nice to see an objective review that finds the gear can do more than promised.

(photo by mathowie)

Filed Under: gear 

How cool would it be to bike across China? Hmmm . . . how long would that take anyway?

One dude did China, plus a little more. He rode from China to England and you can find his blog, with some very cool pictures by the way at, 2wheels.org. He goes into greater detail (map route and such) on this companion site. Dude road 25,000 kilometers! For us stubborn Americans who refuse to use the vastly superior metric system, that is 15,534 miles. Man I wish I could take that much time off and have that kind of adventure.

Picture from 2wheels.org.uk/blog/

Well, if you don’t have that kinda time, there is a site geared toward more short term bike adventures in China. The Bike China web site is full of good information and they even has this little promotional video.

Thus concludes the first country focus week on Bikehacks. If you have a recommendation for us for a future country, send it along. And if you are willing to contribute some information want to help put together an entry on the country, state, or providence you reside in, feel free to contact us!

Filed Under: admin 

A gentleman who traveled to China back in 2002 posted a bunch of pictures of bikes that he took on his trip. Many of the pictures reminded me of sights I saw while I was in Kenya, especially this one:

While in Kenya I remember passing several roadside repairs shops. A quote from the page is also classic:

In June 2002 I traveled to China to bring home our adopted daughter, Mona. Along the way I saw many, many people bicycling, and not a one of them wore lycra.

Somewhat related, I heard an NPR Interview on Tuesday night with the author of the book, The Long Emergency. It’s definitely going on my “to read” list. It’s all about how an oil shortage will cripple transportation as we know it today. There was a classic back and forth in the interview about the thought of Americans having to bicycle to get around.

The basic thought was that Americans are simply too “advanced” to rely on the bicycle for transportation but with oil possibly reaching $200 a barrel, we might return to a time when air transport and daily driving were only for the ultra rich.

Perhaps we need to start learning from China now - the bicycle can be realistic form a daily transit . . . and fun too!

Filed Under: culture 

A story from CNN today follows the China theme for this week. The article is about a couple who have spent the last four years cycling around the world. The inspiration for the trip came from a trip to China. Here is a quote from the CNN article:

In 1985, Pat Patterson got his first taste of freedom behind the handlebars of a bicycle when he went on a short tour through China. The trip changed his perspective. “I was beginning to see things differently,” he says.

I’d say so! They sold everything and hopped on their bikes for a jaunt around world. That is what I would call hacking your lifestyle.

Photo from CNN article

Filed Under: culture 

I went on a quest for Chinese bike blogs and guess I hit a digital divide. I just know there have to be some China bike blogs out there, but after searching in vain, I assume you need to be able to type Chinese to find them. I did find one translated version of a Chinese bike blog that perhaps lost something in translation. The translated title of the blog reads “Long mane goat feeding grass will Shelves.” I will leave it up to you readers out there to try to make sense of that translation.

After bumping around the site it turns out that my quest seems to have been even more of a bust in terms of trying to find blogs from mainland China. I believe the blogger lives in Taiwan actually and this just might be a picture of the author.

The quote from the picture reads:

Standard bicycle commuting equipment, helmets and masks are necessary.

Man, having to ride with a mask is a real bummer. I surely am doing harm to my lungs riding in NYC, but I prefer to play dumb.

Filed Under: culture 

I kinda like the Olympics. Enjoyment of the Olympics started to go downhill for me when the basketball “Dream Team” was formed. Professional athletes already have enough fame and money if you ask me, why not let some amateurs get some attention for two weeks every four years?

I was super stoked when NYC did not get the 2012 Olympics. NYC is crazy enough as it is and I can’t imagine hundreds of more thousands of people descending on NYC for two weeks in the middle of a hot, dank month in the summer.

You always end up hearing stories about how excited local denizens get when their city is chosen to host the games. One Beijing cyclist decided to hack his bike to show his enthusiasm for the upcoming Olympics. Via the blog Asian Pop With YeinJee comes this exuberant hacker. I’m not sure I’d be super excited about that top middle ring.

Photo Courtesy Xinhuanet

Filed Under: culture 

Photo from China News Service.

It seems like everywhere I turn these days there is news about China. I guess 1.3 billion people and a rapidly growing economy is news worthy huh? None of the news I have heard has much to do with bikes. So I decided to venture across that crazy Internet and search for bike stuff related to China.

Thus I announce the first “country week” on Bike Hacks. This week I’ll post some stuff I have found and hope that others might be able to chime in with their own insights. If anyone has been to China and has comments about bike stuff, we’d love to hear from you. If you live in China, even better!

The first news I bumped into was unfortunately kind of depressing. This quote comes from a Time Magazine web article:

It seems impossible that Beijing traffic could actually get worse–and crazier–than it already is but now we’ve shifted from something like 1000 new cars on the streets every day to 1500, believe me, it is getting worse by the week.

Holy moley! 1,500 new cars per day? I can hear the atmosphere screaming now. I then ran into an article on the history of the bicycle in China via a site called All About China. I am no scholar of Chinese history but I can say that “The Party” did at least do one thing right. Check out this quote:

The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was a turning point for the bicycle industry. The Party decided to promote the bicycle as the people’s vehicle and started a massive production drive. Bicycles were taken into account in city planning and those who used bicycles to travel to and from work were given benefits. The lack of a public transport system was solved! China’s first Five-Year Plan included the growth of the bicycle industry by 60 percent, and by 1958, China was producing more than a million bicycles annually.

Benefits for riding a bike? Now that’s a revolutionary idea I can get behind!

Filed Under: culture 

I hated the Transformers movie. Maybe it had something do with watching it on a plane on a business trip that featured six separate flights in the span of eleven days, but I doubt it. Even if I had seen the DVD while sipping a cold one in my apartment I think I would have wished that I could have that two hours of my life back.

I discovered a much shorter version of the Transformers movie via the site Ride This Bike. This movie clocks in at just over one minute and features some of the same sounds effects I remember hearing in the movie. So, rather than spending two hours watching a special effects show, spend one minute watching this suitcase transform into a bike and back and then go spend one hour and fifty nine minutes on your bike.

Filed Under: commuting, culture 

Local ad agency W&K did a cool little project called Teams Of Portland (via). When you visit the page, be sure and check the upper right corner where it says ‘Photo Booth Images.’ Watch the flip book of all the funky people and their funky bikes!

From BikePortland:

The idea was to pay homage to the distinctive bike teams, clubs, and people that make our cycling scene so colorful and then present it to the thousands of people that came to town for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show that was held in Portland in early February.

Filed Under: culture