Last weekend we headed up to Geyserville and I decided it was time to climb Pine Flat Road. The photo above is from the top. I started out way down at the bottom of that valley, around 3000 feet below where I took that photo. The dirt road is actually a fire road. The real… Read More »
One of the things I really love about my Audi is that it has heated seats. While the SF Bay area isn’t the coldest place on the planet, it can still get pretty cold. Well, at least for a couple of weeks out of the year. The surface area of a seat on a bike… Read More »
In September when we were in Bled, Slovenia, I spotted this ramp at the main intersection in town. While I’m, of course, happy to see that the main shopping area is accessible to people in wheelchairs, I was equally happy that bicycle racers are also welcome and accommodated for. Hopefully everyone queues up single file,… Read More »
Over the past few years some universities and colleges have provided incoming freshman with free (well, bunded into tuition and fees) laptops, and even more recently, iPhones. The Times reports that now some schools are making bicycles available for free or inexpensive rental. The University of New England spent $50,000 on bikes, helmets and locks.… Read More »
The $700 billion bailout plan was amazingly extended beyond wealthy bank CEOs to include bike commuting schlubs like myself via the Bicycle Commuter Tax Provision. However, I may be out of the money because I don’t regularly use my bicycle “for a substantial portion of the travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment.”… Read More »
I normally can’t see myself riding a recumbent, but this one would be pretty cool. And going back to my previous post that mentioned wooden bikes, this one looks pretty heavy, and that’s just from all the spokes. And topping the recent discussion here of belt-driven bikes is this cable-driven bike that you have to… Read More »
So after fixing the flat I got biking to work today (fortunately, it was a slow leak, so I could ride in before fixing it), I’m talking to Stephen about bike innovations. After talking about the bike another friend of mine designed and constructed completely, or at least 99%, out of wood, we start talking… Read More »
Some of wife’s and my greatest memories (and stories) come from our travels in Bolivia. Today’s NY Times has a really good article that focuses mostly on the salt flats near Uyuni and “The Death Road” from La Paz to Coroico. The Salar de Uyuni is so bizarre that I have always found it difficult… Read More »
Yesterday I rode the 60-mile route of the 2008 Healdsburg Harvest Century bike tour. Some friends and I did it at a very leisurely pace, finishing in a little over 4 hours, which included 20-30 minutes hanging out at the rest stops shoving down piles of food. Or at least I was doing that. The… Read More »
Maybe this is the year I finally buy a cyclo-cross bike and experience the gut wrenching thrill of shouldering my bike up a steep, muddy hill, bouncing down trails through the trees, and then afterward drinking Belgian beers and eating grilled sausages with the people who lapped me repeatedly. The July issue of Wired has… Read More »