Blogs

There's a great multimedia article on the BBC News Magazine website today about the Avenue Verte (verte means green in English) London to Paris cycle route.

I did the same ride with Ben almost 20 years ago (wow it's been a long time). We took the train to Newhaven on the English south coast, the ferry to Dieppe in Normandy and then rode the bikes the rest of the way.

A rainy wet day in Seattle, so here's a picture from the wonderful Mozabique Bike Culture blog 
 
Besides the sun, the most striking thing is the lack of cars and the preponderance of bikes. Lets hope this country gets it right & continues to support bikes while building out their infrastructure.
 
Plenty more pictures there so go check it out.

 
Sound Transit has just released a  nifty video package demonstrating how to take a bike on Sound Transit buses & rail. 
 
They dont seem to want us to embed the video in the page, but if you click here the video will open up in a new page. Metro's racks are a little different, but the concept is exactly the same.
 

I ran across this video the other day while looking at the Cotic Bikes website. The photography & editing are great, and it's amazing how much Switzerland looks like the Cascades if you take away all the houses. Some fun riding too.
 
Check it out if you have 3½ minutes to waste. 

Mudguards went on my bike last night. It seems so early, especially when I didn't take them off till the 4th of July. The rooster tails of spray coming off my tires was just too much though. It's amazing how much comfier it is to ride in the wet with mudguards on. The bike doesn't look as cool though.

Time to put my mudguards (aka fenders) back on, wash my rain jacket in some Nikwax, and get a new pair of gloves. I dealt with my bike lighting last weekend...

I built a new front wheel that includes a Shimano generator hub. I'm looking forward to the dark mornings so I can see how well the light works. It's been great in the dusk/dawn that I'm riding around in now, but give it another few weeks and we'll be commuting in the dark. Then I'll really know how the light works & if I want to upgrade it to a really cool optically pure light.

Seen outside my office window a few hours ago.

By the time I got outside the car had taken off, but by my count:

• 1 Canoe
• 1 Kayak
• 1 Tandem (with windshield)
• 4 Kiddie bikes
• 3 Adult bikes 

Lets hope it's a diesel.

I rode home from Greenwood this afternoon & noticed the city has re-striped 12th Ave NE removing one car lane and installing a nice bike lane. This project will be great for people going to & from the U-district (and downtown) up towards Northgate.  

We took the dogs to Paradise Valley at 6am today for a run. It was a great morning: cool, but the rain hadn't started yet. It's especially nice at that hour because there's no one there.
 
The trails are in great shape and I bet today's rain will make them even better. It'll dampen down the dust & make them just slightly tacky.
 

Last week, my wife's family had their annual Oregon coast beach week. An upside of being self-employed is that one can take a vacation whenever one wants--or so the theory goes.  Bicycle shops are a seasonal business, and it is not really possible for me to take a whole week off in July.  Since I have the best employees anyone can ask for, however, I was able to take a long weekend and join the family for a couple of days.  This, however,  presented a little problem.  My wife and stepdaughter drove down on Sunday, and I wouldn't be able to join them until Thurs