BikeHacks

How to Parallel Park Your Bicycle

This so reminds me of power slides on my Green Machine.

B-cycle: Bike Sharing Expands

I have witnessed bike sharing programs during some of my travels, namely in Paris and Washington, D.C., however I am skeptical if a bike sharing program would make it in NYC.  People generally treat the city in a very crappy fashion by throwing trash on the ground, tagging public spaces with graffiti, spitting gum on the street, tossing cigarette butts anywhere but the trash, etc.  I have a sinking suspicion that a bike sharing program would be like Disneyland for those that have no respect for public spaces or property. It would be taken as a grand opportunity to wantonly destroy something that otherwise is a fabulous concept. 

Overall I think bike sharing is an awesome idea, but I would be interested in statistics related to the condition of the bikes after several months of use.  Maybe I'll poke around when I have some free time, but if others have experience with bike sharing programs or have done their own research, feel free to chime in as we would love to hear from you.  

The text below was sent to us via our Submit Your Hack link and it is a bit of corporate social responsibility promo for an insurance company, but it relates to bikes and an attempt to hack our current transit system so what the heck. Take it away Heather . . .

This is Heather Stephenson from Edelman Public Relations writing on behalf of B-cycle and my client Humana, a sponsor of B-cycle.

If you have a minute, because of your discussion of commuting and perspective on biking in major cities, I thought you would be interested in the country’s first large-scale citywide bike-sharing system being launched on Earth Day, April 22, in Denver.

The program will launch 500 B-cycles located at 40-50 B-stations around the city, which offer not only a green alternative to cars and cabs, but also encourage healthy behavior.

Why does one of the country’s largest health insurers want to get more people on bikes? Because just three hours of pedaling a week can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke by 50 percent, says the League of American Bicyclists. Humana hopes that B-cycle can be one part of many solutions to America’s obesity and environmental problems, making it easier for people to lead healthier, greener lives.

Each bike is equipped with computers to track mileage, calories burned and carbon offsets. The tracking enables riders to monitor their personal fitness and contributions to the city’s green efforts while also helping to connect B-cycle users with one another at www.Bcycle.com.

If you would like to bring B-cycle to your community, go here to vote (http://www.bcycle.com/whowantsitmore.aspx). If you have any questions or are interested in more information, please let me know.

Wet Gloves? The News Solution

I'm pretty much an all weather commuter.  The only time I will generally take the subway is when the roads are sufficiently icy/snowy and I don't feel like tempting fate with vehicles that weigh several tons more than I do on slick roads.  Plus, you never know what lies beneath the layer of snow - metal plates, manhole covers, potholes, and a variety of other obstacles are just waiting to take you down. 

One thing that does not bother me all that much as far as weather is rain - after all I did grow up in Portland, Oregon.  Oregonians are known for having webbed feet with all of the rainfall.  Rain can be a bit of nuisance in terms of wet clothing.  If you commute in the morning and your clothes get soaked it is not all that much fun to put on damp clothing for the commute home. 

One way to fight damp, wet clothing is with newspaper.  Way back in a Bike Hacks Classic entry I talked about how I will stuff my shoes with newspaper after a wet ride to help speed up the drying process.  You can also use a rubber band to wrap the shoe with newspaper. 

Well the same thing works for gloves.  After a recent wet ride I reached for the newspaper and the result is simple and fairly effective.  Even more effective is if you have an air vent in your office that you can place your articles near to help make it so you do not have to put on damp clothing later on. 

 

Do you have any tricks that you employ to fight damp, soggy clothing?  Feel free to comment or to send your hacks to us. 

Rear Rack Basket Hack

A while back reader Elmonica contacted us and shared about the purchase of a bike from Walmart. It seems he is working his way up the food chain because his next whip is a Nashbar bike.  At this rate, he'll be up to a Surly in a few more years =)

Elmonica contacted us again recently about another Walmart hack.  The following text and pictures are credited to Elmonica.

Not an especially interesting or unique hack, but I recently decommissioned my "Walmart hack bike" and built this new bike using a new Nashbar frame and fork salvaging whatever parts I could from the old bike. The old bike had a folding basket permanently attached that weighed 2.6 pounds.  I decided to go with a new basket that I purchased from Walmart for $12.  It only weighs 1.25 pounds and I attached it to my bike using a bungee and some zip ties.  I like it better since it is lighter, centered over the rack, and I can remove it when I want to relatively easy.

Elmonica current lives close to where I grew up in Oregon (burbs of Portland) and wisely has equipped his stead with fenders.

Portland Parking ALERT

If you live/bike in the Portland metro area be aware that thieves have figured out another way to steal your ride.  Your bike may not be fully scure if you park at one of the city's 4000 'staple-style' bicycle racks.  Recently some of these racks in a Goose Hollow parking garage were discovered to be loose.  According to KGW "...the thieves were able to loosen the garage staple with a simple ratchet set".  For proper locking tips and techniques check out Haz Ruzal's video...no matter where you ride, bike safe park safe.

Lucky #13?

The Blog London Cyclist has put together a list of the Top 50 Cycling Blogs and I guess 13 is our lucky number. 

We were actually #24 in the former rankings and considering our site got hacked and we transferred to a different publishing platform this year and are still missing a lot of our content, I consider this good news. 

Thanks of course go out to those that are faithful readers, commenters, and supporters of Bike Hacks.  We certainly have fun writing and appreciate all of the support.  

A Tourist's View of New York City Bikes

In the middle of March Bike Hacks got an email from Matt B. who stated that he would be visiting NYC and was looking for advice.  He asked a few questions, I offered a few answers, and then a light bulb went off in my head.

Each time a friend comes to New York City for the first time and stays with me, it's like I see the city for the first time again.  Since I live here, crazy stuff like 6 foot high piles of stinking trash on the sidewalk seem normal to me.  But when a friend visits, they point at things like the garbage and say something like, "Um, this system is pretty gross."  Or they will ask, "How do you deal with all the noise?"  Like many things in life, you tend to become immune to what surrounds you.

So I fired off an email to Matt B. and roped him into a project.  I encouraged him to snap shots of bikes he saw in NYC and encouraged him t write up some of his thoughts.  He graciously agreed and thus you have this entry.  The black text and photos below are all Matt B. and the red text is me offering some random thoughts.  Thanks Matt B.!

________________

My wife and I are recreational cyclists and I read BikeHacks.com on a daily basis.  We were planning a trip to New Jersey for a wedding.  We had never been to New York so we added a few days to our trip to experience New York City.

Everyone I talked to advised against renting a car for this trip, because driving and parking in New York was so difficult (true that).  I have always lived in Minnesota and because the Midwest is so disperse, I am very reliant on a car to get around (sad but true for most of our society).  The idea of not having access to a vehicle made me very nervous.  I reached out to Matt from BikeHacks.com for advice.  I knew we had to cover a lot of ground and I figured the best way would be by bike.  I asked Matt about renting bikes for multiple days.  Matt was very helpful and suggested to simplify by renting bikes on a daily basis instead.

Our hotel in New Jersey was a 20 minute bus ride to New York.  The route was pretty well traveled by buses and we never had to wait very long to catch a ride.  The New York City Port Authority is where the adventure began (perhaps one of the #1 locations in the world to people watch). 

I was trying to get an idea of the bike scene in New York City.  I hate to admit it but we acted like typical tourists with our camera out most of the time.  That made it easy to snap pictures of the bikes that we found along the way.  Almost all the bikes were locked up with massive chain locks (I am surprised the front wheel was still on this bike). 

I have seen chain locks at bike shops, but in the Midwest they are rarely used.  In New York heavy chain locks were the most common type of lock by far, only a few owners dared use the U-lock (I like a chain lock because you never know what you might want to lock up to, and the chain offers more options).

We also discovered a primitive form of text messaging that utilized the multi functional chain locks.  On a few occasions the chains were used to convey small notes or messages to the owners (strange, never seen something like this - perhaps a love connection?). 

I noticed an unusually large number of bikes with front baskets.  Even though the front basket is functional they are not very common where we are from.  At first I thought this was a trend that the rest of the biking community has yet to catch on to.  Eventually I came to understand most of the front basket bikes were used by stores and restaurants for deliveries.

The bikes of New York City were much more personalized than bikes in our area.  Many of the cyclists went through great effort to disguise and protect their bikes in very creative ways.  We saw bikes frames wrapped with a variety of materials and colors that made each bike very unique (most likely because the bikes were stolen, disguised, and resold).

The majority of people get around New York City on some form of public transportation, bus, subway or taxi.  I did not see any taxis with bike racks (ahahahahahahaha), no bikes in the subway stations, and only one bike in the bus station heading back to New Jersey. We saw some bike lanes, and plenty of people riding around town on the streets, but cyclists had no aid from public transportation (partially because public transit is so well used.  Most systems have room or time for assisting cyclists but our system is already overtaxed so one more thing would likely drive people to the brink).  To keep the bikes safe cyclists have to carry around heavy chain locks that we noticed on most of the bikes.  If you are biking in New York City, you are on your own, there appears to be little help from public transportation.

In my home town most (if not all) of the city buses have bike racks so you can take your bike with you on the bus ride.  Minneapolis has bike lanes, and well maintained bike paths (that are plowed in the winter) that cross the city so getting around by bike is very easy. 

Central Park seems to be THE place to be when the weather is nice. 

We saw cyclists, joggers, rollerskaters and all kinds of folks in Central Park.  The cyclists were primarily using the bike lane to ride around the park.  There were full spandexed roadies to casual riders and everything in between.  The bike demographic was also more diverse than the tourist areas.  There were some very high end bikes being pedaled through the park.  That made me wonder how New Yorkers kept their expensive bikes safe.  It must really be a drag to carry around those heavy chain locks every where you go.  The weight savings of a carbon fiber frame is easily negated by a chain lock (dudes with nice bikes likely stay inside in the winter and spin - "Twinkied Out" cyclists are strangely absent from the city scape when temps drop below 50). 

Due to our busy tourist schedule we were only rented bikes for one day.  Central Park is really big and would be difficult to walk through the entire park.  We pedaled one and one half laps around Central Park using the bike lane.  Cycling was very good way to see all that Central Park had to offer.  You just can not get the same experience being carted around the park in a carriage or cab.

When traveling on the subway everyone must buy a Metro Card to get access to the subway stations.  The Metro Cards are made out of a flexible plastic like material have a magnetic strip but are thinner than a credit card.  Many Metro Cards were discarded and littered all over the subway stations.  We found the best use of Metro Cards that only a BikeHacks audience could appreciate (this dude lives somewhere near me cause I see his bike around my neighborhood a lot).

In our short visit I did not experience much of New York City's bike scene.  I may have missed some bike trails or not noticed some things that only local New Yorkers would know about.  I would have liked to ride with some locals, or taken some longer rides around the city, but our schedule did not allow these options (come back!).  I will be interested in reading comments from locals or other visitor's experiences who have been to the Big Apple.

Riddle Me This - Flash You Thus

Most of those that read the post yesterday and commented were on the right path.  I loved the different directions that people took - especially Tony's idea of the device being a security system.  The product in question is called the Flashbak. The picture below is a GIF from their web site.  I will be taking some pictures and commenting on my experiences sometime soon. 

I guess my first comment is that I am kind of intimidated by the thing.  When I reviewed the Bike Brightz product, it took me like 2 minutes to scope a spot and zip tie the thing on.  The Flashbak is going to take a bit more thought, but I most likely see myself using it just like in the sample picture.  I can't really see myself strapping it onto my back, but time will tell.  If you have experience with the product and want to submit your own reviews, free free to give us a shout out.  And if anyone was inspired by the review of the Bike Brightz product and bought one, we'd love to hear from you too. 

Riddle Me This

Some generous folks seeking to get the word out about their product sent me one to review, and they have also agree to give one away to a reader.  I have yet to come up with a contest for the give away, but I wanted to start with showing you what was sent. 

Take a look below and feel free to comment on what you think it is.  It would be best if those that own or have seen one don't give it a way, but there is freedom of comment on the InterWeb so have at it.  I will have a review up soon, followed by a contest.  And if you have contest ideas, feel free to put those in comments as well. 

Handcuff Bike Lock Hack

I have seen police bikes, ambulance bikes, and Secret Service bikes.  Never once though have I seen them locked up.  They have always had a rider on them or have been within sight distance of the operators.  Reader Ben however has seen a locked police/security whip.  His text and picture follow: 

I took this picture back in 2007, on Michigan State University's campus in East Lansing Michigan.  The bike is one of the ones used by MSU's police, and has the decals to show for it.  If you look closely you will notice that the bike is locked down using some of the officer's own handcuffs, which I thought was quite humorous.

Agreed Ben, nice catch!  "Book'em Danno!"  Second best T.V. intro ever, only Miami Vice beats it.