From the New York Times:

By JAN ELLEN SPIEGEL
Published: December 31, 2008

Photo: Wendy Carlson for The New York Times

After a summer of their dreams, bicycle store owners are facing a grim reality this winter.

Big increases in business this year led some shop owners to think that they were largely insulated from a slowing economy. But the economy has continued to spiral downward, taking bicycle sales and much else with it.

The question now is whether all the bicyclists who appeared last summer will be back next summer.

Read the rest of the article at the NYT site.

Today’s “neato” link is this one, from BikeHacks. It demonstrates how to recycle an old peanut butter jar and turn it into a waterproof, crushproof saddlebag.

Pretty cool. Check it out. Via Cyclelicious.

Great to read about Ethan’s first ride in the snow. It’s an experience no one should deny him- or herself. I’ve been making my usual commute to RIT on the Lehigh Valley Trail (N Branch, which runs between the UR South Campus and Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road very close to intersection of Jefferson Rd., Rt. 252). As long as the snow doesn’t get more than a few inches deep, the trail is quite passable. Of course, it helps to have good lugged tires to churn through the heavier accumulation – and I recommend a good set of studded tires for serious winter riding in this climate. I splurged on a pair of Nokian 26×1.75’s a couple years ago; each tire has 160 carbide-steel studs, the kind that you can put on a lot of mileage on (even on bare pavement) without noticeable wear. Well worth the investment. The perfect set-up is to have more than one machine in operation: keep one bike equipped with studded tires for the more challenging conditions, and another with regular rubber for the clear days.

Last night, as our regional blizzard hit – and to my mind, the snow is a beautiful thing, indeed, at least till the ambient crud turns it to a crappy shade of brown – I went for a two-wheeled spin around the neighborhood. It was at the beginning of what was to become an extended rush hour, and over at Goodman and Clinton, as I’m sure at other major intersections, the fume-belching traffic was stop and go – mostly the former. Even with my Nokians, I slid a few times; the detestable brown “pancake” (a.k.a. “car snot”) was beginning to semi-solidify. This stuff prevents your lugs/studs from getting purchase, so you shimmy a little or a lot. But all in the all, such conditions make for a fun ride; just watch out for fishtailing or rotating SUVs, etc. Rides like this are also work, so you might not click off many miles. My little excursion was more easily measured in yards. But this is a matter of principle. I try to never let a blizzard go unanswered. I mean, isn’t it every RocBiker’s duty to demonstrate that there’s no such thing as “unrideable conditions”? Hey, I also mean within limits. But what limits, exactly? As with jazz, if you’ve got to ask, you’ll never know.

(Footnote: I’ve been away from RocBike for a while because of some health concerns that luckily didn’t turn into anything major, but did throw me off my game temporarily. Great to be back!)

I rode my bike to work yesterday knowing there was going to be a big storm, because I wanted to ride in the snow. I’ve never done it before and I wanted to know what it was like. I will think twice about doing it again.

I lucked out, because they sent us home early. This meant there was not as much snow at 2:30 as there’d be at 5, and there was also some daylight.

My bike doesn’t have studded tires yet.

The ride up Orange Street taught me a lot. I could not ride in the tracks cars made because the packed snow would just break away, and I was sliding all over the place. Lark Street was so messy I actually got off my bike and pushed it to a side street. Which I couldn’t ride on either.

Washington Park was a dream! There was nobody there. The snow was unbroken and I just cruised through it. It was beautiful.

From there I rolled through the snow at the edges of streets down to New Scotland. New Scotland was a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting. I cut down to Helderberg and rolled through that.

It took me an hour to get home, and the trip usually takes 20 something minutes. I knew it would be slow, I didn’t know it would be that slow. It was exhausting work. And then I had to shovel when I got home. I am glad I did it, but it is not the sort of thing I want to make a habit of. I could’ve walked home in a little more than an hour and I wouldn’t have been as beaten, nor as near to traffic.

Some people would say the biggest mistake I made was doing this at all. I say the biggest mistake I made was not wearing waterproof pants of some kind. My pants were soak through by the time I got to the park, and then the water in them began to freeze.

This looks super cool (and classy too): Bike Burrito

From today’s New York Times:

After a pilot run in 2007, United Parcel Service is once again adding bicycle carriers to meet its holiday demand. It’s a tack that, like alternative fuel vehicles and other measures the company has historically taken to reduce operational costs, provides an attending environmental benefit in the form of reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.

According to Norman Black, a company spokesman, the bikes simply make sense at this time of year. “You and I are having this conversation on the peak day of the peak season when all the volumes come together and hit us at once,” Mr. Black said. “You can imagine what a challenge it is to be able to dramatically increase your network’s capacity to reliably deliver packages,” he added.

The company typically delivers nearly 15.8 million packages a day. During one five-day stretch of the pre-Christmas peak last year, that jumped to over 20 million a day.

Read the rest of the story at the Times site.

In early December, I spent a few days in New Orleans. I saw a lot of bikes, which was surprising to me. They have a different mentality about their bikes down there- it was eye-opening.

I saw a lot of trikes with rear baskets. Bright, fun colors. Most of the bikes I saw were cruiser types. People don’t ride around all kitted up. I saw no spandex, no bike jerseys. I didn’t see many helmets and almost no day glo. At night, the streets are so well lit, and wide, that you don’t have to disguise yourself as a Christmas tree to ride around. I was shocked. I kept thinking “that is NOT safe” and my brain threw red flags all over the place. But then I started to realize that all of the defensive measures are not really necessary in The Big Easy. It didn’t seem to me that anybody was going to be hit by a car there.

I saw a lot of really nice bikes locked up in less than perfect ways, but at least reasonable ways, which meant to me that people know how to lock their bikes and are not worried about having their nice bike stolen. This is a far cry from our little town, where people break into your house to steal your beat up piece of crap bike.

A neat thing was the Canal Streetcar. It goes up and down the center of Canal Street. Reasonable public transportation, for sure, but I saw a lot of bikes riding up and down the streetcar lane. I don’t know if it was “legal” but the cops didn’t mind. I thought it was a really clever use of public transportation space.

(Oh, yeah, yay RocBike is back up!)

Here’s an article from AlterNet featuring an excerpt from Chris Carlsson’s book:

Bikes Point the Way to a Sustainable Future

Courtest of Fossil Fool at Rock The Bike:

At the risk of making bike shop advertising my primary contribution to RocBike, here’s part of a promotional e-mail from RocBike’s friends at Full Moon Vista. It includes info on some bike clinics this month. All these specials make me wonder why I shopped at Towners today, yet it’s good to spread the bike shop love around:

Happy Holidays from Full Moon Vista!

The crew at FMV hopes that all of our customers are enjoying this holiday season and we’d like to give you a little present to celebrate. Now through December 18th, if you spend $20, we’ll give you free bicycle inner tube (your choice of standard sizes – a $4.99 value). So stop in and get your free gift and be prepared should a flat should befall you! 

Keep in mind, this is in addition to our holiday sale that goes through December 18th! With everything in the store on sale, you can stuff your stockings full! More details are below on our sale and Customer Clinics throughout the month so keep reading! 

Customer Clinics – Saturdays in December!

Mishaps are never fun and we’ve all been disappointed when our ride gets cut short by an unfortunate incident. Whether it’s a flat tire, or a broken chain, it’s no fun walking home. Come to our Field Repair Clinic this Saturday, December 6th at 3 p.m. and learn how to avoid a ruined ride. 

Then, on Saturday, December 13th at 3 p.m., come to our most-popular clinic – our Flat Tire Clinic. We’ll teach you some insider tricks of the trade and have you changing tires like a pro in no time!

Finally, just in time for Christmas, we’re holding our Shifting Clinicon Saturday, December 20th at 3 p.m. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – every person who attends this clinic walks away having learned something. So take a break from the holiday rush and learn something new!

This morning I saw this photo on Cyclelicious and I realized something about myself. I am just jealous of all the cool things Lance Armstrong gets to do.

I went out to Bathtub Billy’s this weekend to meet up with some friends I used to work with. This particular sports bar is out in Greece, a sprawling suburb of Rochester with limited cyclist accommodations. Here’s a map of my ride there:

 

I have a handy ride-mapping application for my phone that sends this data over the internet. You can see on this map where I tried to cross the river at the RG&E station, but they have it all closed down for construction, so I had to make my way across Driving Park bridge instead.

Also, once I made it out to Greece I had to do what I could to avoid the shoulder-free highways. It was quite an adventure.

On the way back I was on a two-lane road with no shoulder, and some kids in a van decided to “tailgate” me (what would one call that when you have a vehicle that has no tailgate?). It got pretty scary – they were laying on their horn, and I had no idea what they were going to do. A police car passed and did absolutely nothing about it, which was surreal, but the kids seemed to be spooked enough by the cop to stop what they were doing and leave me alone.

I decided, after putting her through such a harrowing experience, that The Chicken Avenger deserved a good wash-down. I disassembled her for the first time since she was “born,” hosed her down with hot water, and put her bags through the wash. Gosh, she’s a beauty when she’s got her bags off:

This was in The Independent this weekend:

• James Daley: ‘Another cyclist raced up alongside me and started hurling abuse’