Headtube Badges of L'Eroica

Another edition of L'Eroica has come and gone, and along with it, so many classic bicycles from eras past. 

While strolling the vintage bike market the day before the event we were struck by the huge variety of bicycle brands, past and present, that were on display.  Some bikes were to be ridden in the event, many were on display, and equally as many were for sale by some of the vendors.

It was impossible to know them all and even more impossible to photograph them due to the hoards of people so here instead is a small sampling of headtube badges of some of the bikes in attendance.

Enjoy! Bellissima!

Interbike 2014

Another September, another trade show season.

Last year we changed it up a little and went to Eurobike to see how they do it on the other side of the Atlantic. This year we decided to stay closer to home and head back to Interbike in Las Vegas after a 2 year hiatus.

It's the first time we've attended the show in it's new location at Mandalay Bay. Overall, the show seemed bigger, busier, and had a very positive vibe - which is interesting since most reports we've read say the industry was "flat" compared to previous years.

Enjoy our photo essay of some of the products and adventures we had while in Sin City.

Sweet ice cream trike located poolside at our hotel.

We brought our Bromptons with us this time which made getting around much more enjoyable, compared to the endless walking that usually accompanies any trip here. Ms. BikeBike looking great on our way to the show on day 1.

We are really excited to now be an Xtracycle dealer. Their bikes are refined, fun to ride, and they have a similar corporate attitude to us! #kindredspirits

Xtracycle coffee bike. If you look close you'll notice this one is equipped with a Bosch electric motor - a new model for 2015 which we are really excited about!

Yuba introduced a kid-sized cargobike called the "FlipFlop". It is a runbike that can be "flipped" from small size to a bigger size increasing the time your children can use the bike. Rear rack included, front rack and bag options available too.

Yup, electrified, fatbike, trike.  If you can dream it up, it's probably here at Interbike.

Portal Bikes from Nepal were showing this longtail cargobike that is designed to help foster small business in Nepal. The bike can be equipped with add-ons, like this coffee grinder, water pumps, seed cleaners, etc. Nice guys with a lot of passion to help people in need.

KHS's fatbikes looked great. They have a new $1000 retail model making fatbike ownership available to many more people.

The KHS 5000 carbon fatbike looked amazing and was crazy light, even with 5" tires. Winter does not mean the end of the cycling season, it's just the start of a new season!

Chrome Industries was on hand with their very cool forged rubber machine that makes soles for shoes. Shown is a special edition shoe they were making at the show, I had to buy a pair :)

Chrome was also showing some new, bike mounted bags including a pannier/shopper, handlebar bag, and 2 sizes of seatbags, all made with their innovative "knurled welded" construction.

We've been clamoring for a heavier-weight kid seat option and Yepp has finally delivered the "Junior". 35kgs/75lbs weight limit, up to about age 9, comes complete as shown and will work great on Yubas, Xtracycles, and most bikes you can mount a rear rack to.

Wee-Hoo was showing their great "trail-a-bike" range including a tandem kid version. Super adjustable for various ages, light offroad capable, and comes with a very nice bike-attachment that offers incredible range of movement.

Brooks has added some new bags to their beautiful and functional range of handmade products including these seatbags in 2 sizes, a new handlebar bag, and redesigned panniers in 2 sizes. Gorgeous!

And a new helmet collaboration with Carrera of Italy. Available in tartan or in solid colours, the helmets is collapsible, fits many head shapes due to its flexible design, meaning wearing a helmet has never been so stylish.

Ortlieb has lots of new products on hand, including these fine looking, printed Back Roller Classics.

A bike made from reclaimed plywood? Yup.

Gazelle is reintroducing a few model designs dating back to the 1950's including this beautiful mixte model. A classic roadster is also on the way.

Papillionaire Cycles have a very nice range of classic city bikes including this stepthrough model, a classic roadster, mixte, and a cafe racer. Lugged, chromoly steel classics!

Imagine what fun we could have with these!

And, finally! The perfect accessory to deal with people who refuse to leash their dogs on the pathways?

With Day 1 of the show in the bag, we rode our bikes (uphill for 1-1/2hrs!) to the Desert Breeze soccer complex to take in the sights and sounds of Cross Vegas - the unofficial beginning of the cyclocross season in North America.  Huge crowds, beer gardens, and a lovely warm evening made for a fun night of lycra watching.



Day 2 ended with the 6th annual Mobile Social presented by Bike Hugger. Seemed like there was 150+ people on the ride, with a huge range of bikes and costumes. I have never seem so many folding bikes in one place - it was awesome!

We basically rode The Strip from Mandalay Bay all the way north to Freemont where free beer and criterium racing awaited.

Following the music trike-party-wagon early in the ride.

No caption needed.

Once we arrived in Freemont we wandered around and found a new development called Container Park.  Inside they had a "movie in the park" in progress on a big screen, restaurants, gift shops, and this amazing fire-breathing mantis. It is operated by 4 people, has been to Burning Man, and is street legal.

Crispy critter.

And, what would a trade show be without seeing something truly far out.

Why!?

With giving away too much here - we are delighted to be coming back with new product offerings, a renewed sense of what is happening in the bike industry, and a real appreciation for the power of bicycles to inspire and unite people. We are truly blessed to be apart of this crazy business and are looking forward to a fantastic 2015 season.

Winterpalooza Is Done, Where Did The Week Go?

What a week! So much winter bike fun was had, I think I am still hung over from all the good vibes!

Huge thanks to Cyclepalooza for organizing the week, the City of Calgary for the great support, and especially to all the individual event organizers for their incredible enthusiasm and dedication.

Looking forward to 2015!

Tweets about "winterpalooza yycbike "
   

Calgary's Downtown Cycletrack Network

Calgary's First Cycletrack - 7 St SW (City of Calgary photo)

A few years back, July 2011 to be exact, Calgary city council made the decision to finally fund a cycle strategy plan.  It was a huge victory for the cycling advocates who've worked so hard, for so many years, to realize not only a comprehensive plan - but millions of dollars of funding to go along with it.

Proposed Cycletrack Network

One of the key action items in the strategy was to address the severe lack of safe cycling routes in the downtown core. Currently, if you look at a map of the bike paths and on street routes in the area, they all stop at the periphery of the core, making access to the biggest business district in the city very difficult for all cyclists except the "strong and fearless" types.  If you are like the majority of cyclists in Calgary, you probably don't feel very safe riding your bike into the downtown core.  If you're like many people I know, you simply won't cycle down there very often.  Hint: unrealized sales for businesses in the core and a loss of potential street life and community vitality.

Calgary's numbers very closely mirror these

The recently released plans for the network look pretty good, considering the limitations "on the ground" (c-train line, CP rail ROW, narrow underpasses, significant number of bus routes, etc) and from what I have seen the initial proposal looks like a great start towards making the downtown more bike friendly and give Calgarians more options for getting into and out of the core. 

Click here for the proposal as well as media reports and a forum discussion at Bike Calgary.

Which brings us to the next step - getting the proposal through City Council in April when the item comes before them for a vote.  Getting the required 8 votes may not be as easy as some might think and will require everyone who wants to see this happen to get involved, even in a small way.

Presently, there are at least 5 councillors who have made it pretty clear through their previous statements that they are not in favour of this and will vote against it, based almost purely on ideology alone.  Damn the facts, even if they show that cycletracks are good for cities and help enhance local economies.  

There are 4 openly pro-cycling councillors who we can very confidently count on to vote in favour of the proposal.  

Which leaves the Mayor, and 5 other council members that are hard to figure out which way they'll vote. 

This is where you come in.  

If you want this proposal to go forward and become reality you need to get involved!  Now!

Here are the ways you can get involved and participate in leading Calgary into a bicycle friendly city:

- attend the Open Houses planned next week.

- write a letter of support for the proposal to your Councillor and the Mayor.  It does not have to be a long or complicated letter, just write something short, from your perspective, on why better and safer bicycling conditions in this city matter to you and your family.  That old rule applies - if a politician gets one letter from someone it means there are scores of people who share the same point of view.

- attend the February 19 meeting of the Transit and Transportation committee in support of the planned 1 St SE cycletrack, and if you have the courage, speak to the committee

- attend the April City Council meeting when the full cycletrack network will go before Council for a crucial vote.  There will be an opportunity for people to speak to council and the more people that appear to speak, the better chance we have of moving forward.

Now, I do not want to come off as alarmist but there is a real danger that this proposal will be voted down and if that happens the entire strategy could be at stake since the cycletrack network is a key piece of the cycle strategy.  

At present, we do not have enough Councillors guaranteed to vote for the proposal so it's imperative that the "fence sitters", including the Mayor, as well as the opposed hear from as many supporters as possible.

Together we can make it happen!  Now's your chance to make a positive impact on your city!

Red Light Running Menace

You hear and read this refrain often from drivers who complain about cyclists and are not in favour of more bike infrastructure -

"As soon as those cyclists start obeying the rules of the road and stop zig-zagging, running red lights, rolling through stop signs, blah blah blah...then I'll give them more respect..."

I got so sick of hearing and reading it that I decided to REALLY  watch other drivers when I was walking, and especially driving.  And what I saw, after looking a lot more closely kinda freaked me out.
 
If you spend any amount of time walking and cycling in Calgary, you know that many drivers blow red lights regularly and roll right hand turns on red lights with abandon.  The Calgary Herald reported on the issue a couple years ago - and to quote the article, "the picture isn't always pretty".

No shit.  There is a pedestrian/cyclists hit by a car almost twice a day in this city.  The total number of bikes + people hit by cars in 2011 was 733 based on Calgary Police Service statistics.

I've also done my own anecdotal study of the issue while walking to work along 17th Ave SW a few times in the last 4 months and my observations are just as scary.

Basically, I walked from 45 St SW to the shop and along the way stopped at the signalized intersections and counted the red light runners over the course of a complete signal cycle.  These are the intersections I stopped at - 37 St, 33 St, 29 St, 26 St, 24 St, and Richmond Rd.

The truly scary part - the vast majority of intersections had at least 1 driver run/roll a red, more often, more than just 1.

Here's what I was able to sort out -

There are close to 1000 signalized intersections in the city

@amf673 @BikeBikeYYC @yyctransport @bikecalgary around 1,000
— Malcolm Logan (@YYCTRGM) January 23, 2014

It takes 2-4 minutes for a full signal cycle

@BikeBikeYYC @yyctransport @bikecalgary @MetroFletch between 60 and 120 seconds. Bigger intersection = longer typically.
— Malcolm Logan (@YYCTRGM) January 23, 2014

In an effort to be conservative, lets use the rush hours as our timeframe - 6:30-8:30am and 4:30-6:30pm - just 4 hours - instead of an entire 24 hour day.  And lets also only use 1/3 of the signalized intersections, again to stay on the conservative side of things.

So, we have...

- observed 1.3 infractions per signal cycle
1.3

- lets use a longer 4 minute signal cycle, giving us 15 cycles per hour
1.3x15=19.5 infractions per hour

- then use the 4 hour time window
19.5x4=78 infractions in 4 hours

- then the 329 (third of the 1000ish signals in the city)
78x329=25662 infractions at 1/3 of Calgary's intersections in 4 hours

- which works out to a conservative estimate of 6415 per hour!

6400+ red light runners and rolling red light right turn infractions are happening every daylight hour - day after day, month after month- you get the idea.  And the real numbers are probably much higher.  Yet, there is no obvious enforcement of this dangerous driver behaviour, no police crackdowns or blitzes - no TV/radio spots encouraging good behaviours, no newspaper articles - it's as if everyone is resigned to believe that the death and mayhem is just a cost of doing business in our car dominated society.

Where is the traffic enforcement?  Where is the awareness campaigns for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists?  Where is the outrage at all the suffering that we don't need to be experiencing or paying for in lost productivity, insurance claims, and lives shortened?

The next time you read or hear someone ranting that cyclists don't deserve safe spaces to travel in, remember these numbers and remember where the true menace lies - often behind the wheel.

Winterpalooza 2014 Photo Booth

What an event!  So much fun and so much excitement surrounding it had those of us that organized it buzzing for days after.  The first Winterpalooza Festival has been a blast - cannot wait for next year.

First off, we'd like to thanks Katherine from the City's bike office for partnering with us on this project - we couldn't have done it without you!

So, without further adieu - click here for the web album

Winterpalooza 2014!

This is going to be so much fun!

Following in the footsteps of the popular Cyclepalooza summer bike festival, its winter sibling aims to show people how easy and fun riding in the winter can be.

There are already events of all kinds on the calendar - ice racing, foodie rides, winter cycling photo booth, biking to tobogganing, winter bike to work day, and even a dance party! But there is room for more events, and just like with the summer festival, more events will make the festival even better.

So, talk to your biking pals, and plan on hosting an event.  It can be really simple or crazy elaborate - it's up to you!