friday fun times: oakland's clitoral mass ride is tomorrow!

and to celebrate the ride (12pm in oakland, details here) we're gonna kick off this three day weekend with a trailer from one of the BADASS inspirations of the event, las ovarian psycos! they are doing community and bikes RIGHT.

The Ovarian Psycos (Official Trailer) - A feature documentary from ovarianpsycosmovie@gmail.com on Vimeo.

have a great weekend everyone. i'm sure i'll take a ton of pics on saturday. hope to see you there!

Arthursday: Bicycle Sounds video

here's a video short that arrived in my inbox via the SF bicycle coalition earlier this week. this particular short is the winner of the Bike Short Film Festival Spring 2012 from NYC.

enjoy!

Bicycle Sounds from Stephen Meierding on Vimeo.

the man who lived on his bike

i came across this video in my RSS feed. my favorite is when he's doing the crossword while riding.

the director, Guillaume Blanchet, writes, "I love being on a bike. It helps me feel free. I get it from my dad."

THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

enjoy!

via laughing squid

here comes the rain again...

falling on my head like a memory....

one of the things i like about riding a bike is the constant challenges it brings. if you are riding loaded, you have to think differently about all the junk in your trunk.

or if you are super late to work because you were looking for your keys AND THEN it wasn't raining when you were looking for them BUT WHEN YOU WERE READY TO LEAVE it was pouring out....and you have steel rims on your older bike...what do you do?

foto by ade, guest starring declan

one of my fears is going down a hill in the rain on joanie because one of the first times i did that, i crashed into a biker at the end of the hill. i was pulling my brake levers as hard as i could for most of the way down. so when i see rain and know i have to head out on my bike, i think i'd rather be doing this:

foto by sibadd

on my new commute, i have a rather large hill i'm sort of nervous to go down when it's not raining. i'm mainly nervous due to the car traffic and because not everyone who drives a car signals when they want to turn, not because of anything else. i love to bomb that hill when i get the chance. WHEEEEEEEEE....

well, today was running late, so no better time than to face that fear. rain + joanie, round one. no time to really ride in a roundabout way, so i took the plunge.

and here i am. i just went slow and steady. per usual. joanie - 1, rain - 0.

for more tips for riding in the rain, please see this video over on vimeo starring KT from velo vogue.

all fotos taken from our flickr pool! we love to see what you guys do with cameras and bikes!!

like a pack of wild coyotes

roaming the streets as cyborgs with ponies.

here's a video someone sent in via chat to the blog. looks like it's a year old, but wow. combines a lot of great things the blog likes to celebrate such as sending kids off on a bike (gonna have to just trust a little bit), and images of native americans riding vintage tour de france bicycles. so awesome. teri, a painter who grew up in los angeles, where she felt like the only biker in LA, now resides in berkeley and talks about her daughter, her grandfather and her painting.

here, take a look.

thanks for sending this in, and remember we love submissions! definitely need to check out more of streetsblog's videos if they made more like these. awesome.

Street Portraits - Terri from charlotte buchen on Vimeo.

dutch bicycle ambulances in malawi and bikes not bombs from boston

in my never ending quest of getting to 999 unread items in my google reader (joking...), i came across a video today i thought i bookmarked. guess i didn't because i couldn't find it again. grrrrrz.

in trying to recreate the search later at home to no avail, i came across these videos instead. first is about bicycle ambulances in malawi and the second is about bikes not bombs sending bikes from boston to africa.

In Malawi there is a shortage of ambulances and many roads are in a bad condition. As a consequence, many pregnant women and their children die because they do not arrive in time at the hospital.

Dutch trader Peter Meyer came up with a solution: the bicycle ambulance. 3 years ago he started Sakaramenta, which now employs 14 people. The Dutchman and his team sell over 60 bikes per month to hospitals and NGOs.

Dutch bicycle ambulances saves lives in Malawi - Episode 13 from Africa Interactive on Vimeo.

and then i saw this one:

In Africa, a bicycle can make all the difference. Riding a bike is four times faster than walking, the only choice for millions of Africans. People with bikes get to schools, markets, farms and health care in one-fourth the time, improving their lives and economic futures. The VBP program supplies bikes, spare parts, tools and training in basic bike maintenance. The program empowers whole communities by including women and girls in bicycle education. These components work together to nurture the use of bikes. Improved mobility is a key to reducing poverty. In Africa, a bicycle can take a person from poverty to prosperity.

Made in 2006 as a short companion to the film Ayamye*. Co-directed & co-produced by Tricia Todd, edited by Austin Meredith.

Village Bicycle Project from Eric Matthies on Vimeo.

am not giving up on the initial search of the video i saw earlier today, but until then, please let us know what you think of those videos.

RE: Market Street's New Bike Boxes: Use them!!

Dear Market Street Commuters:

I, like you, ride Market Street daily to get to work. This has been rather well documented on the blog.

Being that we ride on Market quite a bit, you've probably noticed that there are new bike boxes around the intersections of Van Ness and 9th streets. (btw: THANKS SFMTA!!)

Some of these bike boxes are more useful than others, but one in particular is amazing and very very much needed: the box at the intersection of Van Ness going eastbound. I've talked about the perils of crossing that intersection before. What I have noticed lately is that NO ONE (except yours truly) that I've seen communting around me is actually using the box. There is a bike box on the wiggle at Scott and Oak that people use, so what is it about the new Market Street bike boxes that have people staying out of the box? It's arguably more necessary to use the eastbound Van Ness bike box than any other one on Market Street.

Just in case you don't know what to do with the awesomeness which is our little bikey bright green space on Market Street and Van Ness, here's two StreetFilms videos describing how to use a bike box.





In the immortal words of biggie smalls, "if you don't know, now ya know."

So fellow Market Street bike commuters: use the box! It's ours to use!!

Much Love,
CTX

The Bicycle City: 20,000 bikes help Post-War Nicaraguans

stumbled across this video trailer while perusing the reader for a movie called "the bicycle city" aka Rivas, Nicaragua.

The Bicycle City. Trailer from Greg Sucharew on Vimeo.

from the vimeo description promoting the film:

What happens to an impoverished developing nation town when you flood it with 20,000 bicycles? You lift three times that number of people out of poverty. Pedals for Progress and founder David Schweidenback have been shipping used American bicycles to Rivas, Nicaragua for the last two decades and the transformation has been incredible.

visit the film's website to learn more about it.

in the spirit of this blog, and how we feel about how bikes are transformative and lend towards independence and a renewed sense of self, this project is right up my alley. also sounds like a movie i would love to see.

via treehugger.

Old Town, Shanghai

Recently, a friend of the blog went to Shanghai to visit a friend. He likes riding bikes here, so naturally, it seems, he wanted to ride while abroad. His friend took a video of them riding. Take notice of the road...looks smooth as butta baby, and for quite some time.



Thanks for sharing.

Dance The Bike Away

Found this cute little film a few days ago. Thought you all might like it!

Bicycle Samba from John Hendicott on Vimeo.

sf bike party: short video recap

we ran into one of our butterlap/twitter friends over at the SF bike party this past friday. he made a rad short video of the ride.

thanks dan!

more on SFBP to come. in the meantime, go on and check out the post-ride reflections.

halloween critical mass

last year the three of us who are in SF rode in the halloween critical mass. fun and lots of hijinks ensued post ride. here's a video mikael of CCC and copenhagenize made of his experiences last year, and the yours truly three are in it along w/ KT:

Copenhagenize Rides San Francisco Critical Mass from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

wow. it's been a year? really? crazy.

and here are a few of our pics from that awesome evening:

feather face
ade's flickr set

La pirata y la de cabellera verde
meli's flickr set

the bay bridge had a cable fail last year around this time.
ctx's teenytiny set

tonight it's supposed to rain (& wash away those badbadbad baseball spirits), so turn out might be lighter, but i'm sure no less fun, than last year.

enjoy the CM in your city tonight as well!

home street home

a couple of weeks ago my friend told me about a video i should see. i meant to look for it, but then forgot. i stumbled across it earlier this week. it's made by jesse geller, a MFA student in design at CCA here in san francisco. he submitted to the school's video contest about "bike culture at CCA."

jesse is a recent student transplant to the city, and i like the way he discusses the differences in bike culture from nyc and sf. short, sweet, to the point.

and whaddya know? he was one of the winners.

Home Street Home (CCA R.A.W. Video Student Competition 2010) from JAG on Vimeo.

i liked it, hope you did too.

thanks and congrats jesse.

market street bike lanes, an attractive nuisance?

attractive nuisance: (doctrine; lay definition): [a] landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object or condition.

i ride market street everyday. i don't particularly care to do so, other than it is the main artery of the city, therefore it is the way that leads me from here to there. so in order to get to where i need to go, market street is a necessary part of my commute and other errand type of biking.

as a regular market street rider, i can say that it has gotten better since the installation of separated bike paths, delineated with those green painted spaces or with those "safe hit posts" (oxymoron anyone?). within the past year, personal car traffic has been direct to turn left at two intersections, 10th street and 6th street. traffic earlier in the year was directed to turn right at 8th street and 10th street by traffic cops, but they have since discontinued that practice, presumably there in the first place to get regular drivers used to the new practice.

is this a "safe hit" post? foto by ade

in the past couple of weeks i have noticed a few things on my morning (aka pre-caffeinated) commute, two of which are disturbing to me as a daily commuter, and as a frequent weekend market street rider.

first, at 10th street, bike traffic is directed to the left of the mandatory right turn, with the bike lane sandwiched next to and to the right of to the F rail train. so it's muni tracks, bike lane, mandatory (car) right turn lane. like this (except now the bike lane is painted green):

foto by meli

this does not leave a lot of room for those mandatory right turners to go straight through the light, as they have to cross paths with east-bound bike traffic. which is exactly what has been happening in the mornings in the past couple of weeks, and can be pretty unnerving. apparently the sign saying "LANE CLOSED" has been down. today, thankfully, i noticed it was reinstated and that the mandatory right hand turners were obeying traffic signs.

which brings me to the second, and instigator of this whole post: seeing the below picture of two buses blocking the bike lane at 8th and market:

foto by adam

two wednesdays before this photo appeared in my feed, i noticed something very similar happen, but on a much larger scale, on my way to butterlap. sigh. there were at least 5 large tour buses in that very spot, NO DOUBT related to the big tech company convention that was all over the news. sigh.

a block away i was already busily thinking how to navigate around that nonsense with taxis in front of me, who are able to go straight through on market street until embarcadero. i must have worn the confused look on my face because the other cyclist turned to ask me with a wry smile, "how are we going to get past that?" "i have no idea, was just thinking the same thing myself," i replied.

foto by meli

i show this pic of meli cause i think it illustrates several of the obstacles of which i refer: grates, and those pinche muni tracks on either side of the double yellow line. UGH. i have seen many a competent (and newbie) cyclist get stuck in those tracks, then fall down, go boom, spawning this sticker:

the comments which started in the picture above with the buses were very interesting. adam, whom i know is a parent (thus familiar with the term), mentioned market street being like an attractive nuisance in that market street with its green lanes and "safe hit posts" thus creating the analogy that market street's new sporadic bike infrastructure may make it attractive to cyclists of all levels, including newer and other inexperienced riders, and get them encouraged to ride, despite its obstacles.

that conversation stuck with me for a couple of days, enough to for it to jump without me past the flickr picture and on to spark a lively facebook page discussion and then produce a vimeo video taken just yesterday (as of the writing of this post)

2010-10-04 Blocked, by Clear Channel from TyrellVoightKampff on Vimeo

so, are the newer bike lanes on market street like an "attractive nuisance" to newer riders?

i'm certainly not a new rider. i'm comfortable in trafficky conditions, as a frequent pedestrian (nyc baby) a frequent bike rider and an occasional car driver. i know i'm not the oldest hat at bike commuting, but i'm confident in traveling in urban traffic in my own patient way.

i cannot even fathom to promote what can be done with market street as i am not an engineer nor am i an urban planner. i am, however, a bike rider who commutes daily. i would like to feel safe in my designated and provided separated bike lane, and i would like to know that cars on market street will turn at appropriate intersections because it makes the remaining stretches of the commute for the rest of us (public transporation, taxis and bikes) more bearable and predictable.

but those buses...... those buses really are a problem for muni buses, passengers, taxis and bike riders alike.

for all of the obstacles shown above, market street now really is rather enjoyable, compared to what it could be, during the morning commute.

what about the afternoon commute west-bound on market street you may be asking? well, let's save that for another long post, shall we?