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Getting caught between the rain and Jack London Square

So I'm back on the bike today. My short term schedule will be Mon, Wed, and Fri with basketball on Tues. Once I'm in better shape, I'll add Thurs to the mix. Bad news was about 15 minutes into the ride, it starts to drizzle. Not a ton of rain but enough to fog up my glasses which was a pain.

Good news though is that I found a new route to work which has fewer cars. I basically hit Webster at 51st and ride it all the way down to about 29th Street where Webster hits Broadway. I then cut over to Telegraph till it ends at about 16th Street. I went down Clay the first time around but that had its issues. Today, I went two streets over to MLK and took that all the way down to 2nd. Far fewer cars but slightly longer. Also there's a nasty little hill on Webster by the hospital. No worries though, in time, I'll be able to power through it.

Critical Mass or Critical Mess

A bycicle was hanging from a tree or pole in Andrassy avenue in Budapest.

PEUGEOT BB1

My first day of bicycling to work

I inherited my brother-in-law's old mountain bike and decided to start biking to work. Our office has a shower to encourage people to bike to work plus I need to start thinking about getting into better shape. My route is basically to go down Telegraph Avenue from Rockridge towards Downtown Oakland and then cutting over to Clay to avoid Broadway which is always packed with cars. The only issue I found was that Clay is a pretty narrow street that runs along City Center and the Federal Building so there's always a fair amount of delivery trucks. Maybe I'll cut over one more street to Jefferson next time. Overall, it felt good to bike in. Since I'm going downhill in the morning, I'm not sure how I'll feel tonight when I have to bike back uphill. Hopefully after a few weeks of doing this, my body will build up the necessary stamina. No pain, no gain, I suppose.

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Paul Domen

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Twitter.com/pauldomen
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Cycles to Support Slum Livelihoods in Kenya

via worldbike.org

Worldbike, in collaboration with UN-HABITAT and a local youth group, is using customised bicycles to explore rubbish-handling enterprises in some of Kenya's most impoverished neighbourhoods. Worldbike is a non-profit that designs, distributes and promotes bicycles as an alleviator of development challenges.

Andrew Hall, Worldbike's project manager in Kenya, describes their goals as 'income generation, livelihood creation and essential service provision, but usually in the model they go hand in hand'...

To accomplish this, they're developing sustainable solid waste management businesses for and in partnership with poor communities. 'People need solid waste management. That's an essential service,' Hall says. 'But we also want to do it in a way that creates livelihoods.'

In turn, the businesses act as incubators, live experiments in which Worldbike can use its expertise in non-motorized transport to customize everything from bicycles and handcarts to business models and community relationships.

'Worldbike wants to scale its impacts,' he says. 'If you want to have big impacts, then you need to come up with a model that is going to be reproducible to a level that impacts a lot of people's lives.' Piloting their work here at a small scale allows them to invest in a more holistic design phase, working closely with communities to assess their needs and develop solutions to problems as they arise.

Read more on The Ecologist and at Worldbike.

Exercise mood-lift can last 12 hours

Is parking key to expanding bicycling?

There is a hidden barrier to cyclists all over the country - where do you park the bike when you get to where you are going?  Some communities provide bike racks, but most places provide no official place to lock up a bike and in many cases have banned securing bicycles to trees, cart return structures, etc.  In general, a cyclist makes their best guess as to the most appropriate place, locks things in place, and prays that the bike is there when they emerge from the store.

File this under "Brilliant or Evil Genius"

I am not quite sure what to make of this one.  Inspired by Johnny Appleseed, two design students have created an add-on to bikes designed to seed cityscapes with flowers.  The idea is a mixture of bubble solution and tiny flower seeds are put in, then the natural motion of the bicycle generates a wind thru the device which blows bubble filled with the seeds.  The bubble drift naturally thru the city streets and land in cracks and crevices where they sprout and produce impromptu gardens to delight the eyes.

Is this a genius idea? Yes.  But one must wonder if it is evil genius, since I am sure city planners will be worried about these impromptu gardens increasing erosion of sidewalks and streets, requiring more frequent repaving projects.  Then again, maybe I am looking a gift horse in the mouth. What do our readers think?

Bike at Night

iphone - East Northport, NY