While many American cities assert tougher laws and even go so far as to ban bicycles altogether, one of the most famous cities in the world, London, has recently begun enacting a program called Cycle-Hire – essentially a city-sponsored bike rental program, with stations at which bikes can be dropped off or picked up.  It works similarly to the Car 2 Go program in Austin, but, in principle, it’s like the Yellow Bike Project in its aim:  to encourage bike commuting amongst citizens, at a cost to the city of $7.8 million dollars.  It’s a risky endeavor, and it’s a wonder that some cities in the world are willing to front that much cash to encourage cycling.

Meanwhile, in America, we have mayors getting doored and refusing to prosecute, and governors striking down 3-foot passing laws without a single justification that makes sense.  I won’t say that all cars hate all cyclists, because for the most part, I am treated with courtesy by the vehicles with which I share the road.  However, the unfortunate fact is that when drivers are aggressive or impatient with me, they tend to be rich people in very fancy cars who are in a hurry to get everywhere.  I can only presume they have compulsory masturbation problems, and they are eager to find the next stop so they can rub one out.  That’s the only reason I can think of that they are always waving their dicks around.

UPDATE:  It was pointed out in the comments that the cities I mentioned in this post haven’t banned bikes from all roads, though they have been banned from many of them, at least in the case of Black Hawk, where many roads through town have cycling bans.  What kind of journalist refuses to accept that he or she is wrong!?  Not this kind.

A lot of people(myself included, just, like, three posts ago) will tell you to go to Sheldon Brown’s website in order to get your bike repair tips.  While I agree that he is quite thorough and covers a vast range of subjects regarding maintenance, he excessively elucidates on all topics, and it’s hard to understand, if you haven’t familiarized yourself with all the applicable terms.  

The problem with most bike repair sites and YouTube videos, I think, is twofold:  there is a complete lack of appropriate simplification in most cases, and the images used are often grainy or too difficult to discern.  Not every derailler looks exactly the same – limit screws(which are used in adjusting cable tension, so you can effectively keep yourself from moving your shifter too far to one side, throwing your chain off the chainring) might be in different places on the front derailler, for instance.  

And so, as a newbie to cycling, but one who is eager to learn how to properly maintain his or her own bike, you can learn these things, but sometimes you feel like a fat kid at the gym – unsure how to use the equipment, but afraid that by asking someone nearby, they’ll realize you’ve never been in a gym in your life(just remember: you’re better off embarrassing yourself in front of one guy than the whole gym).  And so, for the socially timid, I feel the appropriately-named bikewebsite.com is a pretty good solution.  The images used look like they were all generated in MS Paint with the line-drawing tool, but this simplification actually makes it incredibly easy to figure out what’s going on, because you’re not looking at an image of a derailler or brake caliper, and unable to figure it out because, say, a cassette is also in the picture.  It’s ingenious.  

Mostly, though, you’ll never learn about bike repair unless you do it, and if you’re involved in any sort of social biking scene, it’s not too hard to find someone who can help you.  Hell, for a six pack of cheap beer, most anyone would be more than willing to show you what’s going on between your legs(note:  do not us that set of words if you are a woman, or a man talking to a particularly lecherous cougar).  If they only ride a fixed gear, though, and you ride a geared bike, make sure they know what the hell they’re talking about.  A good test might be to ask what the difference is between indexed and friction shifting.

So, check out the website, and feel free to share any other repair sites/videos you think are great for newbies in the comments below!  Happy riding!

Cycling has recently enjoyed quite a great deal of rising popularity amongst adults, but is it becoming a permanent fixture in the American lifestyle?  This is something I’ve wondered about a lot since I started riding again, a year ago, and this blog post from letsgorideabike.com highlights some of those worries with the presentation of a magazine article from the 1940s, which lauds the bicycle as the future of transportation, due to falling gas supplies and popularity amongst America’s youth.  Sound familiar?

Frankly, I believe it likely is a trend.  At least, inasmuch as cycling has proliferated in pop culture in the last couple of years.  However, as opposed to skateboarding or rollerblading, cycling as a trend has actually prompted moves by city planners throughout America to rethink the prioritization of the automobile over alternative forms of transportation.  It’s been proven in the past that when a city makes it easier and safer to get around by bicycle, more people are likely to take up the lifestyle.  

So, I suppose my argument would be that while this is, in fact, a fad, it’s an important one.  Parachute pants never swayed the path of legislation – they just made people look really cool like idiots, for a while(much like all fashion trends), but bikes have affected real, positive change in this country and across the globe.  And the changes brought about will continue to resonate for years to come, hopefully someday making bikes as or more important to the average American individual or family than cars, and in the process making our cities more livable, sustainable and of course, bikeable.

That blog post is an interesting read, though.  Check it out.

From Colorado, we’ve found a perfectly reasonable point of view being pushed by gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes.  Apparently, Mr. Maes is a supporter of the flailing tantrum that is the Tea Party Movement, and he’s recently exposed an evil plot by the U.N. to encourage more and more Americans to ride bikes to work or take public transportation.  According to him, this plot will “rein in” growth in U.S. cities.  This is all based on the fact that the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives has 600 U.S. cities among its 1,200 membership communities.

I mean, the man’s got a point.  My first reaction to the idea of cities encouraging cycling as transportation, pedestrianism, and extensive, efficient public transportation systems is that it sounds like a utopian dream.  But Maes hit the nail square on the head when he said, “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”  I hadn’t considered that point of view.  He further validates his position when he states(and this is backed up with mountains of evidence, I’m sure) that “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to” and he has no more credibility than when he says of city planning initiatives that encourage environmental friendliness and promote the health and happiness of citizens of our fair cities, that “this is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms.”

Nothing sent chills down my spine more, though, than when Dan Maes, Republican goober-natorial candidate of the great state of Colorado and darling of the Tea Party movement, pointed out that the document Mayors sign when they join the ICLEI program “is contradictory to our own Constitution.”  God bless you, Mr. Maes.  You are special.

For additional reading on Dan Maes’ crazy train, check out this writeup from The Colorado Independent on his questionable(and possibly made up) resume!

Once again Urban Velo Magazine breaks an awesome story.  Of course if they lived in Texas, boobies would be totally legal.  Penises, still not okay. Save the boobies!!!!!

Right in our own backyard we have one of the most talented and ingenuitive seamsters around.  Russell Stinnett of Psychlist, Subversive Cycling is contstantly adding to his line, which now includes hats, patches, messenger bags, toob pads, hip pockets, holsters and pants.  I hear whisperings of a backpack soon to come.

So, reckon you have a bike, and reckon you’d like to ride it.  Suppose, now, that you’re riding it, and you have horrible burning knee pain, or back pain, or shoulder/wrist pain.  It’s likely that your bike could use an adjustment!  I imagine this is a pretty common issue for new riders, as it was for me nearly a year ago, after I’d started riding my first bike in something like 10 years.  I bought a road bike with a very small frame, not really knowing anything about frame sizes, and the thing was set up for a small, middle-aged woman.  I am a hairy, long-torso’d man of average height, and riding it as it was caused me a great deal of discomfort, even reminding me, frequently, of a knee injury I’d sustained in 11th grade at a christian ska concert while I was skanking for Jesus.  Alas, I digress.

What I’m here to tell you today, friends and dear readers, is that you can take care of this problem yourself fairly easily!  I’m going to do my best to help you learn how to do it, but realize that this is a sort of blind leading the blind situation.  I’m a mere swaddling babe in the world of cycling, and it’s my hope that you take the following as more of a starting point, doing your own research to determine the best fits.  Good places to go for this information are Sheldon Brown’s website and YouTube.  Anyway, the first obvious culprit is your seat height, so let’s go ahead and start there.

There are just two spots to worry about, here:  your seat post and the bracket holding your seat – hereafter referred to as “saddle” - onto the seat post.  First, your seat post.  There’s a bolt that tightens the seatpost tube around it, and either it has a quick release or you need an allen wrench to loosen the bolt.  This part is pretty simple; if you don’t have a friend, you’ll kind of have to do it by feel, but your main goal if you’re just commuting or cruising for fun is to be comfortable.  So, basically, you’ll want your neck and your back relatively straight and upright, the amount of curve in your spine depending on the type of bike you have, and you want your leg to have a very slight, roughly 25 degree bend at the 6 o’clock position in the rotation.  Conventionally, you should have the bottom of your kneecap above the widest part of your foot on the pedal, but we’ll get to that.  Your first goal is to get that seat up high enough that your knee isn’t bent too far at the upper part of the rotation.  If it is, you’ll wind up putting way too much stress on the joint, which can cause an unnecessary amount of discomfort during and after your bike rides.  Be careful, though, as your seat post has a line on it indicated maximum height.  If this line is visible above the seat post tube, then you’ve raised it too high, and it could bend, or even break, making for a messy, possibly hilarious-for-others accident.  

This is how I currently have my bike setup, with my leg at full extension, at the 6 o’clock position:

I didn’t actually realize before I took this picture, but at this point in the pedal stroke, my knee is actually a bit forward of the ball of my foot.  Looking from above, I thought it was correct, which brings us to the next portion of this clearly very poor lesson:  Saddle adjustments!

There is a bolt that typically requires an allen wrench on the bottom of your saddle, where it attaches to the seat post.  Here, you can make adjustments to ensure your knee is properly positioned over your foot, and that you’re not bending too far forward over your handlebars.  It’s a pretty easy task; simply loosen the bolt and move your saddle forward or backward, and retighten.  If you have a full-length mirror, test the fit out in front of the mirror, checking your leg angle and where your knee sits over your foot at the bottom of the stroke.  

The angle of the saddle determines how upright you sit, and your main goal should be to sit comfortably without putting too much pressure on your wrists, elbows, and shoulder.  You should have a slight bend in your elbows when you ride, allowing them to behave like shock absorbers.  Otherwise, all the energy transferred from the road to your handlebars will go straight to your tender, soft bits, leaving you with sore wrists and shoulders.  I have this problem all the time because I’m too lazy to get longer brake cable housing and raise the bars.  This is my fault, and I accept full responsibility.  If you have the same problem, you can mitigate some of it by rotating your bars back.  I don’t do this, because I like riding in the drops, convinced that I look way cooler that way.  As illustrated by this blurry security camera snapshot, I don’t: 

But at least I got away with the loot.

As for bar adjustments, these are just as easy in most cases.  There will generally be two bolts you have to worry about – both requiring allen wrenches – one for bar angle, and one for height.  If you’re using the 7-shaped quill stem, raising or lowering the bars will also bring them closer or move them further away from you, respectively.  For comfort, a general rule that I’ve heard is that you want the top surface of your saddle to be flush with the top part of your bars, if you’re using regular drop bars.  This means that if you drew a straight line, parallel to the ground, from your seat to the bars, it would touch the top of your bars until they begin to curve downward.  Of course, not everyone has the same body type, and you may have weird ape arms or tiny t-rex arms.  In either case, you should fine-tune your bar height and angle to suit your freakish needs.  Your proportions are already humiliating; you may as well try not to add injury to insult.

In the end, you can save yourself a lot of hassle by getting a bike with a suitable frame size, but not everyone has the millions of dollars it costs to pay those fat cat professional bike fitters for their time, and then another dump truck full of dolla dolla bills to dump on a bike shop for a brand new Masi, so if you end up with a used bike that doesn’t quite fit, but is pretty close, know that you have plenty of wiggle room, so stop panicking.

Milwaukee Bicycle Co. has developed a wonderful new fork for all you polo players out there. Check out more info on their blog here.

Stats from MKE:

This fork will accommodate 3 types of brakes; 55-73mm X-Long Reach Caliper, U-Brake and V-brake.

* Bruiser Polo Fork – Aftermarket
* 400mm Axle to Crown
* 4130 Heat Treated Chromoly
* Weight – 1260g w/300mm Steerer
* 1-1/8″ One-Piece Fully CNC’d Steerer
* 990 Brake Mounts with Removable Studs (plugs included when not using studs)
* V-Brake Compatible
* 55-73mm X-Long Reach Caliper Compatible
* Removable Brake Housing Guide
* Headset Compression Plug Included
* 400mm Axle to Crown
* 32mm Rake
* 6mm Dropouts
* Stainless MKE Badge
* Black ED Coated Inside and Out for Full Rust Proofing
* Your Choice of Solid Color (excluding pearl coats or metalflake)
* Lifetime Warranty

maybe I’m alone in watching “performance” 100 times, probably not. Here’s more bike rap crack for yuz

SRAM OMNIUM CRANK from chariandconyc on Vimeo

I’m sure by this point everyone has seen this, or has heard of these, but this seemed like a good way to kick off the first Techy Tuesday.

Enjoy on this very, very, wet day. Ride safe!