Posted On Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 By David Veatch
Commuting to Work March was a fantastic month for commuting to work by bicycle. The best so far, in fact. Since there are so many months in the running right now for Best Month, that’s saying a ton. Of the 21 work days, I rode 20, resorting to driving only once. The weather was much nicer. Though there were plenty of days below freezing, none got down to the tear-freezing negatives of January. It got misty a couple of times, and out and out rained on me once, but since I love that weather, it was a Good ThingTM. Training It was a terrible month for training rides. 28.07 on the first day of the month, and 56.2 the last weekend. The weather, oddly enough, was better for riding in January! I logged 147.39 miles on the weekends then. Not a fantastic number, but better than 84.27, certainly. Bah. Errands There were no errands run by bicycle for the month of March. This is probably the toughest part of cycling for me. Making a switch from recreational to utilitarian cyclist is difficult, and frankly, aside from commuting to work and back, I’m not sure I want to. I’m on the more »
Posted On Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 By David Veatch
I’ve signed up for the Trek Go By Bike Challenge. So what if I drove to work today? It was cold out, and I didn’t feel like fighting either it, or the wind. Cut me some slack, this flu thing has been rough. Aside from my obvious lack of commitment and an overwhelming laziness, I think I would be a fantastic choice for the challenge, and here’s why: Applicants must complete submission form before midnight March 24, 2008 That’s an easy one. Must be 18 years or older to participate I’ve got that beat by an order of two to one! (or something). Applicants should be interested in riding bikes regularly for short, practical trips (current avid cyclists don’t qualify, instead just enjoy watching others learn) This… might be a problem. I’m kinda avid. Winners agree to bike 6 short trips per week (under 2 miles) during the month of May (National Bike Month) Easy! Done! Winners agree to provide a minimum of 4 blog entries with photos, 1 per week during May, about going by bike (participants forfeit copywrite for anything they contribute for blog and/or website use related to the Challenge) I can blog. I can blog a more »
Posted On Friday, January 4th, 2008 By David Veatch
StreetsBlog has a piece called “To Obey or Not to Obey,” regarding whether cyclists should be held accountable, the same as motorized vehicles, to all traffic laws. The piece itself is rather sparse in it’s information. It’s basically the first few note cards as it were, in a much wider and deeper debate and comes clearly on the side of leniency when it comes to observance of traffic laws and regulations. It touches on the idea that traffic regulation was instituted at the advent of the motorcar, for the benefit of the motorcar, ignoring horse drawn carriages, pedestrians, cyclists and all others. Without doing a great deal of research into it myself, I can’t speak for that, except to think that it makes sense. Additionally, it touches on the idea of “Vehicular” or “Integrated” cycling, which is a theory/belief/behavioral system stating that bicycles should obey all the laws of the road as if they were cars. I fall somewhere to the outside of that. While I do believe that it is important to behave as if you were a car in most situations, I recognize, for both safety and convenience reasons, that sometimes it is either impossible to adhere to more »