I accidentally concisely summarized my position on bike helmets in a Facebook comment: It might be a good idea to wear a helmet, but it’s a waste of passion and effort to try to get other people to do it. Spend the effort and breath you would have spent on helmet debates on making it […]
Category Archives: Cycling
Why I can’t be arsed to support a cycletrack on SW 12th
True to my blogging history, let’s start with a linguistics digression: “can’t be arsed” is my favorite British phrase. It means “can’t be bothered”, but is somewhat less polite. I can’t be arsed to support a cycletrack on SW 12th. I can’t really be arsed to oppose it, either, because who wants to oppose bike […]
Why I’m an Options Ambassador
PBOT’s Transportation Options division is recruiting for new outreach volunteers — Options Ambassadors — for 2012. A few weeks ago Andrew at PBOT asked me if I would be willing to share why I volunteer with Options as part of their recruitment. I think my response is slated for a brochure or email because I […]
All those big square houses
I was on a bike ride this weekend and we were riding down Salmon St in inner SE, between 23rd and 12th. One of the women on the ride was exclaiming about how beautiful the neighborhood was with “all these big square houses”. I listened to her rhapsodize for a few sentences, thinking how funny […]
PSU/PBOT Traffic and Transportation Class: Reflection
What I come back to most whenever the subject of my class last fall comes up is how amazing it is that I was able to learn so much information and meet so many significant figures in the Portland transportation scene in just ten short weeks (Oct 1 – Dec 3). Getting into the class […]
My project on Portland Transport
I didn’t notice this at the time, but Chris Smith posted our presentations from the December 3rd Traffic and Transportation class session on his blog at Portland Transport. If you’ve been waiting for me to get my act together, wait no longer — the PDF is available there. A few entries later is David Sweet’s […]
Other musings on the ‘cyclist’ label
BikePortland this morning pointed to another musing on the ‘cyclist’ label from Streetsblog, which itself links to one from BikeSnob NYC. I like BikeSnob NYC’s definition too: someone who rides a bike when they don’t have to, and owns a floor pump. Though as a commenter points out, if you own a Topeak Road Morph […]
High-mileage week
I don’t think I’ve had a week with this much mileage since I moved to Portland, since so many of my rides now are in-city rides and I usually only ride a few days a week. This week, after taking Monday off (horrid weather and luckily I didn’t need the bike), I rode about 10 […]
SW Broadway cycletrack impressions
I’ve been curious about the cycletrack on SW Broadway since it opened a few weeks ago, and today I decided to go check it out on my way back from SE. My impression of it was overall positive. It’s fairly clearly striped, and most of the left-turn boxes seem to be well-placed, although one of […]
More adventurous than anticipated
This morning I went on the Portland ByCycle Autumn Adventure to Vancouver and back via the two I-Bridges. In a previous entry I described the ByCycle rides thus: These rides are awesome. They start after work and end before dark, are hosted by incredibly friendly and knowledgeable city staff, and explore Portland’s bicycle infrastructure and […]