Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Channel My Inner Jens
There are some great cycling interviews/quotes out there and here is one from Jens Voight, from Cycling News online...
That strategy means a large portion of the work in the first four stages fell to riders like Ben King and Voigt, who seemed to go so hard on the first stage Coleman Valley Road climb that he had to go back to the team car and vomit.
"That was on the first day, that was my mistake," Voigt said. "I had to work really hard on the Coleman Valley climb, after that I had too much cold drink in too short amount of time and I had to release all of it, Then I went back to my group and finished the stage. Ever since then I'm feeling better every day.
Read the full article here<http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/voigt-says-sagan-is-in-superior-shape>.
That strategy means a large portion of the work in the first four stages fell to riders like Ben King and Voigt, who seemed to go so hard on the first stage Coleman Valley Road climb that he had to go back to the team car and vomit.
"That was on the first day, that was my mistake," Voigt said. "I had to work really hard on the Coleman Valley climb, after that I had too much cold drink in too short amount of time and I had to release all of it, Then I went back to my group and finished the stage. Ever since then I'm feeling better every day.
Read the full article here<http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/voigt-says-sagan-is-in-superior-shape>.
Down With Training Wheels
From the Slate online...
Down With Training Wheels
They train kids how not to ride a bike! Why balance bikes are better.
By Nicholas Day|Posted Friday, May 11, 2012, at 12:33 PM ET
Gentle reader, let your mind wander back to the day you first learned how to ride a bike. Who can forget such a magnificent moment?
It's an iconic scene: The child is nervous on his shiny new Schwinn, but he trusts his father-and his training wheels. On the sun-dappled day they are finally removed, the child is confident that his training wheels have prepared him to ride a bike-that they have trained him. His father runs beside the bicycle, holding onto the seat, and then lets go. The child triumphantly sails forth-face down, into the pavement.
Oh, the memories!
For generations, training wheels have been the standard way of not teaching children how to ride a bike. It's a time-honored childhood ritual: fumble with wrench, remove tiny wheels, watch child fall on face, repeat.
It doesn't have to be like this.
Compared to the rub-some-dirt-on-it old-timeyness of training wheels, balance bikes-those wooden, pedalless bikes you've definitely seen if you live in Portland or Brooklyn, and you've maybe seen if you live somewhere else-look like a newfangled waste of money, a meta-bike, a parody of the kinds of crap consumer-culture parents will buy. (They will buy a bike that literally doesn't work!) But the balance bike isn't newfangled at all. It is a direct descendant of the first proto-bicycle. And its popularity is growing for very good reason: It corrects the tragic historical error of training wheels.
It's unclear when training wheels became popular, although historians suggest the early 1900s seem most likely. But it's apparent why they became popular. They were an obvious solution to an obvious problem: How do you convince someone to climb onto something that is obviously going to fall over?
It's easy to forget how counterintuitive the act of bicycling is. For starters, to steady a bicycle, you have to turn in the direction that the bike is leaning. This is so unconscious that when you're riding a bike you don't know you're doing it. Children know they're doing it, though, which is why they have such trouble. It just feels wrong. The intellect, as Mark Twain wrote after learning to ride a bicycle, "has to teach the limbs to discard their old education and adopt the new."
To make matters worse, in order to ride a bike, you have to be willing to embrace its precariousness. As Archibald Sharp, an English engineer, wrote in a seminal book on bicycling in 1896, "If the bicycle and rider be at rest, the position is thus one of unstable equilibrium, and no amount of gymnastic dexterity will enable the position to be maintained for more than a few seconds." To lose your nerve is to lose your balance.
So it isn't surprising that aspiring riders wanted some greater stability, especially when bicycles were still a wondrous sight. "We can't imagine today how huge the fear of balancing was among the adult population," the German historian of technology Hans-Erhard Lessing explained in an interview. "People would hardly dare to take their feet off safe ground."
Read on here<http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/05/training_wheels_don_t_work_balance_bikes_teach_children_how_to_ride_.html>.
Down With Training Wheels
They train kids how not to ride a bike! Why balance bikes are better.
By Nicholas Day|Posted Friday, May 11, 2012, at 12:33 PM ET
Gentle reader, let your mind wander back to the day you first learned how to ride a bike. Who can forget such a magnificent moment?
It's an iconic scene: The child is nervous on his shiny new Schwinn, but he trusts his father-and his training wheels. On the sun-dappled day they are finally removed, the child is confident that his training wheels have prepared him to ride a bike-that they have trained him. His father runs beside the bicycle, holding onto the seat, and then lets go. The child triumphantly sails forth-face down, into the pavement.
Oh, the memories!
For generations, training wheels have been the standard way of not teaching children how to ride a bike. It's a time-honored childhood ritual: fumble with wrench, remove tiny wheels, watch child fall on face, repeat.
It doesn't have to be like this.
Compared to the rub-some-dirt-on-it old-timeyness of training wheels, balance bikes-those wooden, pedalless bikes you've definitely seen if you live in Portland or Brooklyn, and you've maybe seen if you live somewhere else-look like a newfangled waste of money, a meta-bike, a parody of the kinds of crap consumer-culture parents will buy. (They will buy a bike that literally doesn't work!) But the balance bike isn't newfangled at all. It is a direct descendant of the first proto-bicycle. And its popularity is growing for very good reason: It corrects the tragic historical error of training wheels.
It's unclear when training wheels became popular, although historians suggest the early 1900s seem most likely. But it's apparent why they became popular. They were an obvious solution to an obvious problem: How do you convince someone to climb onto something that is obviously going to fall over?
It's easy to forget how counterintuitive the act of bicycling is. For starters, to steady a bicycle, you have to turn in the direction that the bike is leaning. This is so unconscious that when you're riding a bike you don't know you're doing it. Children know they're doing it, though, which is why they have such trouble. It just feels wrong. The intellect, as Mark Twain wrote after learning to ride a bicycle, "has to teach the limbs to discard their old education and adopt the new."
To make matters worse, in order to ride a bike, you have to be willing to embrace its precariousness. As Archibald Sharp, an English engineer, wrote in a seminal book on bicycling in 1896, "If the bicycle and rider be at rest, the position is thus one of unstable equilibrium, and no amount of gymnastic dexterity will enable the position to be maintained for more than a few seconds." To lose your nerve is to lose your balance.
So it isn't surprising that aspiring riders wanted some greater stability, especially when bicycles were still a wondrous sight. "We can't imagine today how huge the fear of balancing was among the adult population," the German historian of technology Hans-Erhard Lessing explained in an interview. "People would hardly dare to take their feet off safe ground."
Read on here<http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/05/training_wheels_don_t_work_balance_bikes_teach_children_how_to_ride_.html>.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Atlanta Streets Alive
Atlanta Streets Alive is this weekend. 2 miles of Highland Av will be closed off to traffic so you can go walk, skate, bike, and play in the streets. Come out and have some fun this Sunday!
Also, if you are interested in volunteering for this great event, check it out here.
Bike To Work Day
Actually this week is bike to work week and on Friday May 18th will be Bike to Work Day. Join the bike trains that the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition has put together and bike commute into work with others.
Ghost Bike
From the AJC...
By Ernie Suggs
For nearly 15 months, a mangled bike frame hung in Dave Matthews' garage, a vivid reminder of the day an 86-year-old man plowed his Buick into him, smashing his face.
Then around 7:30 a.m. on April 30, having just finished an 18-mile ride with a bunch of buddies in Decatur, he received an email. A local cyclist had been killed and the group leader wanted to make sure everyone had gotten home safe.
Paul Taylor was not part of their group; nobody even knew him. But for many riders, Taylor’s death is proof of what they have been complaining about for years: few safe bike paths, angry drivers who view them as nuisances and a perceived resistance of local officials to enforce laws, like the recently passed legislation that requires drivers to move over at least three feet when passing cyclists.
So Matthews pulled that mangled frame off the wall, painted it white and prepared a ghost bike, a tribute installed at the site of a fallen rider.
Read on here.
Decatur biking accident mobilizes silent community
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For nearly 15 months, a mangled bike frame hung in Dave Matthews' garage, a vivid reminder of the day an 86-year-old man plowed his Buick into him, smashing his face.
Then around 7:30 a.m. on April 30, having just finished an 18-mile ride with a bunch of buddies in Decatur, he received an email. A local cyclist had been killed and the group leader wanted to make sure everyone had gotten home safe.
Paul Taylor was not part of their group; nobody even knew him. But for many riders, Taylor’s death is proof of what they have been complaining about for years: few safe bike paths, angry drivers who view them as nuisances and a perceived resistance of local officials to enforce laws, like the recently passed legislation that requires drivers to move over at least three feet when passing cyclists.
So Matthews pulled that mangled frame off the wall, painted it white and prepared a ghost bike, a tribute installed at the site of a fallen rider.
Read on here.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
DIY Fender
I had to make another DIY fender for the wet ride home. It worked great and will be used again for a second day. Materials used was just a FedEx shipping box. Tools used was a box cutter. But scissors can also be used. There are some limitations because it can't be used with canti brakes.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Be Safe
And then be safer, sad news for cyclists everywhere. I think as cyclist we do try to ride safe. From the AJC here.
The bicyclist struck by a pickup truck and killed on a Decatur street
Monday morning has been identified as Paul Taylor, 53, of Atlanta.
John Spink, jspink@ajc.com
Emergency workers check the scene.
Taylor was riding in the inside lane of four-lane North Decatur Road
near Willivee Drive when he was hit by a Ford Ranger pickup shortly
before 6:30 a.m., according to Decatur police Capt. Scott Richards.
Richards said Taylor was taken to DeKalb Medical Center, where he died.
A friend of Taylor's, Joe Delgado, said Taylor was a "devoted family man, soccer coach and athlete."
"Paul touched everybody's life he was involved in -- and he was involved in a lot," Delgado said. "He will be missed for a very long time.
Taylor was an assistant soccer coach with the Cobb Futbol Club East organization in DeKalb County.
"Out of respect for Paul, his wife Barbara, daughters Kelley and Grace, as well as our coaches and the teammates of Grace, we closed Pleasantdale Park Monday," the soccer league posted on its website.
A memorial service for Taylor will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at Oak Grove United Methodist Church in Decatur.
Richards said Tuesday that he didn't know yet whether any charges would be filed in the accident, which remains under investigation.
Bicyclist killed in Decatur identified as youth soccer coach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Richards said Taylor was taken to DeKalb Medical Center, where he died.
A friend of Taylor's, Joe Delgado, said Taylor was a "devoted family man, soccer coach and athlete."
"Paul touched everybody's life he was involved in -- and he was involved in a lot," Delgado said. "He will be missed for a very long time.
Taylor was an assistant soccer coach with the Cobb Futbol Club East organization in DeKalb County.
"Out of respect for Paul, his wife Barbara, daughters Kelley and Grace, as well as our coaches and the teammates of Grace, we closed Pleasantdale Park Monday," the soccer league posted on its website.
A memorial service for Taylor will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at Oak Grove United Methodist Church in Decatur.
Richards said Tuesday that he didn't know yet whether any charges would be filed in the accident, which remains under investigation.
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