B-Cycle

Another company has finally gotten together what looks to be the right amount of money to do what I've wanted to do for quite some time. This one looks like one of the best implementations of this style system outside of some of the ones deployed in Europe. Very well-done B-cycle! Now let's just get it to come to SLC, ask for it here: http://bcycle.com/who_wants_it_more/

Want to double your fuel economy?

Without a doubt, there are many gimmicks and suggestions for improving your fuel economy, more-so now than ever due to the recent increase in US fuel prices. Some of the gimmicks and suggestions work great, some work only marginally, and others don't work at all. One that is guaranteed to double your fuel economy is carpooling (when compared to driving alone).



Roughly 99% of the cars I see on the freeway or on the road in general have only one person in the car. If you put another person in the car, you double the efficiency of the car, thus doubling your fuel economy. For example, let's take your average Toyota Corolla. We'll pick that car because right now I'm sitting on the bus in the express lane passing one that only has one driver in it. (Yes, that's right, I'm posting this using the free wi-fi that's available on the bus). If you have one person in that Toyota Corolla, the car is getting around 30 p-mpg (passenger-miles per gallon). Meaning you have one passenger multiplied by the miles per gallon. If you put just one more person in that car, the fuel economy jumps to 60 p-mpg because you now have 2 people multiplied by the miles per gallon (2x30 = 60). Put a third person in the car and you get 90 p-mpg, and so forth. Carpooling is the best thing you can do right now to lighten your wallet when it comes to fuel costs. And it's guaranteed to work, no gimmicks or tricks.

Now on to the reason for this post. The reason is that I found this awesome website that connects you to people that are traveling your same commute so you can easily find them and start cutting your fuel costs in half. It's called eRideShare. Go to www.erideshare.com for more information. Best of all, it's free! Happy motoring.

ps, pics of our trip back east are coming soon!

Bakfiets

I couldn't help but post this when I saw it on the news tonight. We've posted about the "bakfiets" (cargo bike) before: See here, and here. But this takes the cake because it's an Orem family doing it. They stopped driving their car for short errands and just take the bike instead... complete with child seats, seat belts, and a convertible roof for the rainy days! See here for the complete story.



They're a bit pricey, but Mad Dog Cycles in Orem can get them in apparently. Now I want one even more!

Have your cake and eat it too

'Nuff Said:

And here they are... t-shirts!

Eddy Merckx (From G)



The "Made by Michelle" Special



The commuter special (Thanks Rich!)



And of course... From Gina

Bike Lane Changes

I have seen this in pictures of Amsterdam and other cities on that side of the pond, but this is the first I have seen of it here in the US (although I'd like to know if it exists anywhere else in the US). Portland recently announced that they are going to revamp an intersection that has been notoriously dangerous for cyclists. See pic below for the proposal.

If you have ever ridden a bike on a road where the right hand lane can either turn right or go straight, you know how dangerous it can be. The main thing that makes it dangerous is motorists not using their turn signals. I will NEVER pass a car on the right if they have their turn signal on. If they have their turn signal off, I will pass them VERY cautiously if there is a bike lane. The "very cautiously" part is what most cyclists forget about. Motorists frequently don't use turn signals and they will dart right into the bike lane without giving a second thought that there might be a cyclist there coming from behind. Obviously, this happens more often than not at an intersection and the situation becomes more confusing if the cars are allowed to either turn or go straight (as opposed to only being able to do one of the two). I don't know why UDOT doesn't build every new intersection like this. There's not much of a reason not to. If you make the center median skinnier, then there will be enough room for the bike lane, that's all it would take.

The blue color is to allow motorists to easier visualize where a cyclist may be riding. If the motorist knows where to look for cyclists, they are more likely to see them.


***UPDATE***
I emailed the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committe (MBAC) chairman about the cycling lane design. He was very quick in getting me information and also forwarded my email on to the S.L.C. transportation engineer who also left a very good impression on me. He said that between State St. and Main St. on 2nd South in SLC, one of the possibilities that they are planning is making the right hand lane (going Eastbound) a shared lane. This would entail possibly painting it blue and letting motorists know that cyclists are welcome in that lane also. Way to go SLC!

Welcome Old Man Winter!

I am so excited that it snowed today! It has been too long since we've had any snow, so it was about time. The resorts need it, the valley needed it to blow out the inversion, we all needed it! I got so excited I just had to snap some pics on the way home today. So enjoy...

What I should and shouldn't do...

I know I should be working on my essays for medical school, but I couldn't help myself when I watched this video.

How cool is that?! And yes, it's a bike ala cargobike

Thanks to The Bakfeits Cargobike blog for the video. So go over there and poke around a bit, it's a great blog.

Reincarnation

My late 60's model Bottecchia steel-framed bike has been through a number of incarnations. I'm sure that since the late 60's until the latest few incarnations, there are even some that I don't know about. Judging from the way I found the bike, I'm sure it has quite the history. It is named after Ottavio Bottecchia, the first Italian winner of the Tour de France clear back in 1924. His death is still mysterious and his legendary status was preserved into the last half of the 20th Century by the bicycle company bearing his name. The model that I have is the model that was ridden by the 1966 "Campione del Mondo" (World Champion). So, back in the heyday, it was quite the bike... Nice polished chrome lugs, lightweight steel frame tubes, and classic geometry. Regarding the time between the year it was built and 2005 (when I found it), who knows the stories that it could tell. Even Greg Lemond won one of his Tours de France on a Bottecchia bike in 1989. What more can I say, it's got heritage!

Despite it's proud heritage and not unlike many other 60's-70's era bikes, I found the bike in my Uncle Stu's garage one day when we were over there for a family get-together. Another bike, a Gitane, also caught my eye, but it was too small for me. The Bottecchia was dust covered with faded paint and some of the chrome was pitted and had a rust sheen to it. Most of that cleaned right up with a little TLC and some elbow grease. When I found the bike, it didn't have anything exept the frame, fork, handlebar/stem, and a crank. I figured it would be the perfect bike to reincarnate as a fixed gear. (see here for the bike in "fixte form")

The fixie worked great and was a blast to ride, but I ran into some problems. The main one is that I live 1,000 feet above the valley floor and there are some brutally steep hills that I have to ride to get home. Sometime I would need to ride it a couple of times a day. With a geared bike this is no problem, but with a fixie, it gets a bit tiresome. Not to mention going back down you have to keep pedaling the whole way because you can't coast on a fixie. I did gain a love for fixed gear bikes and really wish there was a velodrome around here to race on. If we ever live somewhere flat, I'll definitely be riding a fixie around again.

Velodrome

Continuing on, I decided the life of the Bottecchia as a fixie was over. I needed some gears and a freewheel (to coast). I didn't like the look of a deraileur and all the clutter that comes along with it, and I didn't want a single speed because that would still only leave me with one gear going up and the same gear coming down. So, for me, I fell in love with the planetary gears of an internally geared hub. This allowed me to keep the clean chainline of a fixed gear or single speed but still have 7 speeds to choose from. I decided on the Shimano Nexus 7-speed and Cyclesmith happened to have one. I picked it up and started the task of reincarnation. This included adding brakes, re-lacing the rear wheel, and installing the shifter mechanism. Today was the re-inaugural ride and she rode and handled like a champ! Now enjoy some pics of her in the current state.

Car-free day

Bottom line, Gina wanted to ride to work today, so we rode together. What a great wife! Click here for the full story.

That crazy track bike disease...

No matter if you're a cyclist or not, if you look around Salt Lake City lately you will see many more bikes than you used to. They are becoming a very popular mode of transportation as residents discover the well defined bike lanes and bicycle-friendly roads of Salt Lake City, not to mention the added benefit of losing a few extra pounds. (and I'm not talking about making your bike lighter...) It is likely that a good number of the bicycles that you see are fixed gear bikes, commonly called track bikes. People choose these types of bikes for a number of reasons: less maintenance, no dérailleurs to break or go out of tune (and thus no griding gears), extra leg strength from riding only one gear... the list goes on. Most importantly, they're a lot of fun to ride and people have compared it to almost "walking" on your bike because when you pedal forward, you go forward. Pedal backward, and you go backward. Pedal slow, you go slow. Pedal fast... you get the idea.


Ahhh, the Raleigh One-Way, mmmmm (Cyclesmith sells it, need I say more?!)

Now, if you're looking for more fun on your commute than you normally have eating that "footlong" and coffee from Maverick in your car while stuck in traffic (probably on Foothill Drive), then commuting on a fixed gear bicycle is for you. Believe it or not, you'll actually have fun getting from point A to point B! (not to worry all you "geared-bicycle commuters," there will be a post in the near future for you too)

As mentioned on Cyclesmith's website, Salsa's new line-up also includes a hot new pre-built fixie that would make a great commuter bicycle somewhat "on-the-cheap." If you're truly looking for a fixie to commute with, pay special attention to the rear drop-out area to look for eyelets that will allow you to mount fenders. (see photo at left, eyelets are the little round loops on top) Because having a nice "pin-stripe" up the back on a rainy day may be considered cool while you're actually ON the bike, when you're off the bike it doesn't do so much for attracting the opposite ... well, let's just say that it's a pretty good wife repellant. So get those fenders on for a rainy (or snowy) day and ride worry free.

No bus route

I've heard many excuses for not riding mass transit, but the one I hear the most is that there is not a convenient bus route that matches where the person wants to go. I thought this was the case for me personally for a long time until I discovered deadheading buses. Imagine the typical US city with a downtown in the center (generally) surrounded by suburbs. Buses run in the morning carrying the throng of people from the suburbs to the city center. Because there are fewer people going away from the city center in the morning, they run empty (what is called a "dead head run") from the city center back to the suburbs to then pick up another load of passengers. Any bus scheduler will tell you that it is almost impossible to avoid some dead head runs, but the good news is that most bus companies will still let riders travel on the dead heading buses. In my example, I travel from near the city center against the majority of traffic. I never thought there was a fast bus that traveled in that direction so I would either drive or wake up obscenely early to ride my bike or take the combination of TRAX and the 811.

If anyone is familiar with the 811, you know what it's like. It's a 93 series bus generally, which means that it tops out at 55 mph on the freeway and wasn't even built for the freeway to begin with. It's generally packed with people (most of which wouldn't be riding it if they knew of other options) and stops every few yards as it lumbers along it's route. Not to mention that air seems to seep right through the windows as well as through the floor and doors... and roof and everywhere. This provides the opportunity to get the sauna feeling in the summer and the ice cream isle feeling in the winter. I thought the above were my only options that I could ride until I saw a dead heading bus one day completely empty. You can imagine the situation... me, standing on the 811 (because there's no where to sit) huddled next to the most pleasant people in the world and as I gaze out the window at the mountains, I see a nice commuter bus (see pic below) cruising by completely empty! So I said to myself, "Self, I REALLY need to be on that bus!" I emailed UTA that day and they informed me that I could ride those dead heading buses. The next day I caught one.

I was hooked! It was just as fast as driving because the bus makes no stops until it gets back out to the suburbs (or Orem in my case). It's a straight shot at 75 MPH from Salt Lake City to Orem and it is amazing. It affords me about 40 minutes extra studying time, reading time, or SLEEPING time. Hello, who wouldn't want to catch an extra 40 minute nap to and from work? So I ride a dead heading bus (there are many of them) nearly every day and going to work is so much more enjoyable now!

If you think you can't ride the bus because there is no route available to you, it may be worth contacting your local transit authority and asking them if there is a dead heading bus that may fit your schedule. I have been emailing UTA once every few months asking them to advertise the dead heading buses, so I hope they do one day. I hope they don't change the route that they run, but at least advertise them!

Most people however can ride the normal express buses (VERY fast options=Bus# 801-810) easily. In addition, many large companies will offer cheap bus passes to their employees which makes the commute drastically cheaper than driving and just as fast with nearly front door service in downtown SLC. Even if your company doesn't give you a cheap pass, a monthly express bus pass (including TRAX and all other buses) is $107. With just a little arithmetic and gas at $3/gallon, that means you would only need to make about 11 trips from Orem to SLC and back to break even on a monthly pass (assuming you get 25mpg). Many people make more than 11 trips to SLC and back in a month, so it's quite cheap. Not to mention less wear and tear on the car and the ability to arrive at work much more relaxed.

oh yeah, and if you're looking for pics of our Bald Mountain hike (cause I know you are...), they can be found at The Bradlee Duncans

Flat tires all around

Flat tires on a bike suck. Synopsis:

Slept in = missed 3 earlier buses
Fast shower = not clean enough (hoo-wee!)
no breakfast = cranky
Utah roads and watching traffic instead of the road = two pinch flats = missed last bus too

Rode to Gina's work to get the car to drive to work, but my fast patch job didn't hold so the front slowly started losing air and I barely limped it in to Gina's work. Then she says that she's going to get off early (yay!) so I can't drive the car to work. That means I work from home today. A day in the life of me.

Another snowy ride at 9:30 am

Today the same snowstorm that has been wreaking havoc on the West coast hit us here in Utah. When I left for school, it had just started to snow (at 8:00 am) and when I was going home at 9:30am, it was snowing pretty good. It kept up all day and now we have a good solid 6" of snow. It's supposed to keep snowing through tomorrow and Saturday too. Should be a good time!

Snowy Bike Ride

Riding home from lab today was interesting. What more can I say, I wish I would have had the camera with me during the ride, but pictures right when I got home will suffice! There were plenty of witnesses though, haha. It was coming down fast and hard, I looked like a snowman when I got home!

Click on the thumbnails for more detail.

One Less Car

The short phrase above is a common phrase among cyclists the world over. It's our own (sometimes arrogant sounding) way of saying how much better bikes can be compared to cars. Well, I don't always agree with that notion, but in many cases, the bike will get you around faster and more efficiently than a car would. Those that live in large, dense cities know this much better than the rest of us!

For me at the particular time, "One Less Car" literally means one less car, i.e. we sold the Audi and now have "one less car" than we did before. We are now down to a grand total of 1 automobile in our household and even with winter storms and long distances traveled (I work 40 miles from home) we haven't had any major problems with only having one car. On top of that, the one car that we do have is a VW TDI so it gets near 50 MPG regularly and costs under $50/month for insurance. AND it's more fun to drive than the Audi was! Because of the longevity and reliability of the diesel engine, I don't plan on having to fix it near as much as a gasoline car either!

Winter Commuting

We finally had the first storm and really cold weather hit us this year. Temperatures haven't gotten above freezing for the past 3 or 4 days. The mornings have been roughly -11°C (12°F) but right now (10:00 am) it's a balmy -3°C (26°F) so the ride to school this morning should be nice, cough.

Due to the snow and cold, I decided it was time to put away the slick tires for the winter and switch over to the cyclocross knobbies.

They've been working great and the commute has been good on them so far. I also couldn't live without the fenders, they keep me dry and also keep the salt off me. Now for some pics of the dirty yet efficient rig.

UTA Frontrunner - Commuter Rail

After way too long, Salt Lake City and the adjoining areas of the Wasatch Front are finally getting a commuter rail line. When all is said and done, it will run from Davis County (up North) to Provo (and maybe even further South). After Salt Lake City killed the two amazing train stations that it had to it's name, it was time for another one to take the place of the other two (Rio Grande and Union Pacific).
The new inter-modal hub is just the ticket and is pretty cool although if somebody was thinking straight they would have converted one of the existing train stations in all their glory and turned it into the inter-modal hub. Oh well, I can always dream that someone might think in the long-term, right?

Anyway, I was riding out to eat lunch with Gina out at Franklin-Covey and as I was riding over the 400 railway overpass, I looked to my right towards the inter-modal hub and saw a gathering of people around a new Frontrunner train car! They weren't supposed to have those cars for another year! I quickly turned around (dodging traffic of course) and headed over to "investimagate" with the trusty point and shoot camera in tow.

Once I got there I saw that it was a small press conference for the Proposition #3 "Rails and Roads." It was exciting to see and I got to go inside and take a look around the two story rail car. It was quite comfortable and will even be equipped with Wi-Fi capability! It's planned that it will travel at about 85 MPH, so that will help lure people to it because it will be faster than driving. The section from Davis County should be done sometime next year from what I hear with the SLC to Provo section being completed by 2010 or so. Proposition #3 will help speed this along.











Finally, I gotta throw in a couple of pics of the bike and the ride.

Finally got a VW TDI!!

Gina and I finally got a Volkswagen TDI. To be more specific, we got a black Jetta GLS 1.9L TDI. We have been looking for one that we could afford for quite some time now. The problem is the TDI engined cars are hard to find around here, so I mostly looked on ebay, autotrader, and some automotive forums. Finally I decided to just look around on a few of the Craigslist sites for the larger cities. When I checked Dallas I found one that had just been posted only minutes earlier. We quickly called on it and the guy couldn't believe we were so fast! We took the necessary precautions and finally sent him the money, then we had to figure out how to get it home. Shipping it would have cost quite a bit, and after we looked into plane tickets, we found that they were about the same price as shipping it. Gina and I needed a good excuse for a getaway for our 3rd year anniversary too, so that's what we did. We flew to Dallas, picked up the car and drove it 1266 miles home to Salt Lake City. When we got there, I checked the car out with my VAG-COM and laptop and everything checked out. The seller split the cost on a timing belt change with me, so that saved us a bunch in repair costs because it hadn't been done until I told him to do it. I checked the timing with the computer and it was perfect and there were no fault codes. We got in the car and drove away after the final inspection. Filled up at the nearest station and we were on our way.

We drove immediately to the other side (West) of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and got a hotel. At 5am the next morning we were off to visit Polly (Gina's Aunt) who lives in Lubbock, TX. After the roughly 300 miles to Lubbock, we still had half a tank left, but I was just dying to see what kind of gas mileage we were getting. First half tank was 44MPG. After lunch and a visit with Polly and JoAnn, we were off to Santa Fe. We got to Santa Fe with just a little daylight left so we went into the old town and ate and window shopped a bit, then it was off to our B&B outside the city. It was called Hacienda las Barrancas and it was absolutely beautiful. The stars were amazing as it was a clear night so we sat outside for a bit, then built a fire in our room and went to bed. The next morning we weren't to eager to leave after the wonderful breakfast and great hospitality. We hung out on the property for a while which has amazing views at the end of some short walks. Then it was back in the car to go home. We didn't need to fill up again until Cortez, Colorado. Checking the MPG there, it turns out we averaged about 47 MPG for that tank (mostly 80-85mph).

We hit some crazy hailstorm in Moab but after that it was smooth sailing. The car drove great and feels really solid. It should cut our fuel bill in half, so we are pretty excited. Ahh, the beauty and engineering of a diesel engine! Oh yeah, and it's more fun to drive than the Audi!

Bicycle Commuting

Today when I was riding to Sandy to pick up my car and finish the commute to work it was a beautiful morning and as I was riding along watching the gorgeous sunrise I thought how great bicycle commuting is. I saw quite a few other bicycle commuters making the trek into work, school, etc. and as each passed, we exchanged friendly waves of understanding and comraderie. It was a nice feeling. Yesterday when I was sitting waiting for the train at the TRAX station I saw quite a few people cruising around on bikes in Downtown. This may seem like a normal thing in other cities, but Salt Lake still needs to grow up and seeing a handful of cyclists in a 10 minute time span is pretty good. It's nice to see more now than I used to.

Most trips that people make are under a mile or two long which means that at just 14mph you could travel 2 miles in just 8.5 minutes and you get to ride straight to the front at traffic lights. Now think about how long it takes you to pull your car out of the garage, drive through traffic (sometimes the worst part), and then you still have to find a parking space. While the parking space issue might be quickly resolved just outside the city, it can get much more difficult (not to mention expensive) in and around Downtown. The bicycle is the perfect solution for most of these short trips. If you haven't started using a bike for transportation, you should try it, you just might remember those early days of freedom that came from learning how to ride.