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Did your father say that he walked to school when he was your age? In the snow? Uphill? Both ways?
Well, that ain't so hardcore. In the Netherlands, kids have to pedal their school bus:
Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.
Read more at Co.Exist: Link
It may not be a guaranteed in for the biker gang of your choice, but at least you don’t have to put gas in it! The BOXX electric bike is the new square way to get around town without negatively impacting the environment, although people may complain that it’s a bit of an eyesore.
It goes up to 35 mph, so you won’t really be hitting the highway on this bad boy, but maybe the light (120 lbs.) and short (36 inches long) body style is what you’re looking for, like when you need to pick it up and run away from that biker gang you tried to join.
National Geographic selected ten amazing people for their Adventurers of the Year. You can read about each one and then vote for your favorite to win the People’s Choice Award (through January 18th). One of those finalists is rider Danny MacAskill, whose stunt videos have gone viral over the past couple of years. Read more about him at NatGeo’s Intelligent Travel blog. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
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You've
seen them (or maybe you are one): holier-than-thou urban bicyclist who
think they're better than their environmentally destructive, car-driving
brethren.
Will Doig of Slate's Dream City blog is a cyclist - and he has written about the image problem of urban bicyclist:
Urban bicyclists have an image problem. They’ve become stereotyped as pretentious, aloof jackasses, and a lot of this has to do with the changes taking place in cities right now. [...]
Railing against bikes, in fact, became a great way to sell papers. A hundred years ago, newspapers ginned up scare stories about the threat that hapless women on bicycles posed to pedestrians. Today, old-school tabloids like the New York Post have found that the bicyclists-versus-everyone narrative still resonates. In Op-Eds with titles like “Bike-Lane Bloodbath,” bicycles are portrayed as weaponized toys, and isolated accidents are held up as proof that bicycles are an urban menace. Last week in San Francisco, a 23-year-old bicyclist was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for striking and killing a pedestrian — a tragic incident, but one that occurred in a city where 800 pedestrians are hit by cars every year. Still, the story was front-page news, sparking an online uproar: “I’m sick of bicycles and their cocky, self-righteous riders,” one commenter wrote on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website. “Bicyclists believe that they are untouchable.”
So 'fess up: are you a bike snob? Link - via Metafilter
MAKO Bike Tool – $47.95
Have you been spinning your wheels trying to come up with the perfect gift for the bicycle enthusiast in your family? You need the MAKO Bike Tool from the NeatoShop. This great little gadget is 12+ tools in one and is made from Titanium. It includes:
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Tools.
Comments Off Starting next summer, a partnership between New York City and Atla Bike Share will set up ten thousand bicycles for public use. Membership cards for the year will be priced lower than a monthly MetroCard, and the first 30 minutes of bike use is free. The video features Atla’s successful bike program in Washington, D.C., the largest in the country.
Chris Unitt was brave enough to become a prop for a bicyclist during a promotion for Cirque Eloize in Boston. He’s got more nerves than I do! Link -via The Daily What
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A bicycle can be an art medium just as much as a canvas or a wall, right? Imagine riding around on this flamingo bicycle, with all eyes upon you! This is just one of Ten Unique Bikes (many of them roadworthy) compiled in a list at Unique Daily. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user David’s digits)
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This lime-green Lego bike was just one of the highlights of the Brickmagic Lego convention in North Carolina earlier in May. Check out their Flickr photostream for tons of other amazing creations.
Link via Geekologie
The design called PIT IN uses a desk or table as a bike rack. The bicycle seat then serves as a chair while you work or take a break. That is, if you are OK with sitting on a bicycle seat while you’re not riding. This could only be comfortable if my bicycle had a tractor seat. Link -via Laughing Squid
Dedication … Perserverance … Tenacity… Pulitzer Prize.
Those are few words that came to my mind when I read this news story from The Palm Beach Post:
That, my friends, is determination: Link -via BuzzFeed
I never bought a wheelie bar, but this ad from 1966 brings back memories of doing stunts on my old spider bike, like standing on the seat… Then my mother instincts kicked in. Hey! These kids aren’t just riding without helmets, they aren’t even wearing shoes! And who encourages their kids to do wheelies, anyway? Things sure have changed in 45 years! -via Nag on the Lake
It’s now called the “special flip” because “Special Greg” Powell was the one who accomplished it. This performance of Nitro Circus was recorded in Gosford, Australia. -via reddit
Believe it or not the lightweight bicycle pictured above was printed out on a computer. Designed by scientists in Bristol, England, it is created by building up layers of nylon powder through a process known as Additive Layer Manufacturing. The computer-aided design is sent to a printer filled with the powdered material.
A computer splits the 3D design into many 2D layers and a laser beam is used to melt the powder material into the first of the layers.This is then covered by a new layer of powder and the process is repeated with the next ‘slice’.The manufacturing process uses about one-tenth of the material required in traditional methods, reducing waste.
Made by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space group this bicycle is as strong as steel but weighs 65% less.
A particularly steep hill caused grief for many competitors at the BUCS Cycling Championships at Moelfre Hall Downhill Track in Wales. If you think the hill doesn’t look all that steep in this video, notice the angle of the spectators. Bonus: Banana Splits music by The Dickies. Link -via Metafilter
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That is a dog riding a bicycle in China. Sure beats running after the bike day after day!
The Presurfer has the video clip (turn down your sound, though): Link
This is something you can honestly call mechanical animation. Tim Wheatley made his own zoetrope out of a bicycle wheel! -via @LettersofNote
New York is proposing a new bicycle law. They want all bikes to have license plates. Bicycle owners would pay $25 for the first year and then $5 each year after that.
The idea is not going over too well upstate.
“Collecting money from parents and from little kids – that would give us their allowance money to be able to ride their bicycle – to pay for a license plate . . . that’s gone too far,” says Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul.
Ed Reilly of WKBW ha more: Link
This helmet-cam video might make you a bit woozy. Filip Polc rides down a steep path in Valparaíso, Chile as the crowd watches. -via The Daily What
What do you get when you cross bicycling with Bauhaus design? Behold the BauBike by Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen:
The BauBike is inspired by Bauhaus design. It is constructed around the geometric shape of the square and the equilateral triangle. The design is stripped down to clean lines and raw material.
Link – via thecoolhunter
Photo: agirlnamedtor [Flickr]
Flickr user Tor Weeks created this clever poster illustrating the various types of bicycles you’d find in San Francisco. The Tenderloin (a sketchy part of the city, for those of you who don’t know) version is quite appropriate!
See the larger version: Link – via Laughing Squid
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Horse with Hands Riding a Bike is a one-subject blog, but it’s not a simple subject. What’s hard to draw? Horses. Hands. Bicycles. Put them all together for a true test of anyone’s drawing skills. Edward Carter did a good job with this one. Hero of Switzerland challenges anyone to draw a horse with hands riding a bike and submit it. Link -via b3ta
Sometimes all you need are some creative words to illustrate your idea. Behold the Bicycle Typogram by Aaron Kuehn for the Los Angeles County
Bicycle Coalition: Link (you’ve got to see at full-screen to capture all the clever details)
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It’s only a concept now, but designer Juri Zaech is working on a real prototype of his "Write a Bike" concept. If it works out, then you’ll be able to special order a bike that spells your own name. Can’t wait to ride the Neatorama bike!
Cubiclebot has more pics: Link
Pictured above is the “Duplex,” which uses a connecting-iron “by means of which the two front wheels of ordinary bicycles of the same make may be coupled together.”
The link goes to a fulltext and extensively illustrated manual from 1876, offering tips on how to get on and off the high-wheeled non-tandem bicycles, how to ride side-saddle, and how to ride without using the hands (or the hands and legs), supplemented by some useful training tips:
The daily use of the cold bath, or tepid if necessary, cannot be too strongly insisted upon; and also early rising and going to rest; and the avoidance of all rich viands, such as pork, veal, duck, salmon, pastry, &c., &c…”
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Sign? This bicycle shop in Atlandsberg, Germany, needed no stinkin’ signs because they’ve got 120 bicycles mounted on the building’s wall – via Flavorwire
Does two wrong make a right? Perhaps not, but two fails do cancel each other out!
Cubiclebot has a video clip of a bicycle rider going the wrong way hitting a pedestrian who was jaywalking. Watch how two "fails" cancel each other out: Link
These scans of an old safety booklet for children called It’s Great to be Alive! are full of gruesome injuries that befall careless bicycle riders, pedestrians, and kids at play.
In fairness, adults didn’t have a lot of options in those days, so using abject fear was a common parenting tool. There were no reflective bicycle helmets or knee-pads for skateboarders, no designated bicycle lanes, many fewer supervised activities, and we didn’t even have seat belts in cars until the mid-1960s. When accidents happened, they were usually pretty grim.
See more mayhem in this article from Gene Gable. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
Last night, author Jami Attenberg returned to the place where she locked her bike and found it gone.
I didn’t cry but I jutted my lower lip out the entire way home. It was a genuine sad face. I tried to stop the sad face but I could not. I really love my yellow bike, and it is summer and riding your bike is the best, and also it is my main form of transportation around town. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to afford a new one, and seriously, I was super bummed. It is a material object, yes, and it can be replaced, but it’s MY BIKE AND I LOVE IT.
I sad-faced myself to sleep.
This morning I woke up around 9 AM and checked Craigslist to see if there were any reasonably priced bikes on there and lo and behold, there was a picture of my bike for sale for $75. They even had a picture of the scratches.
The story gets exciting from that point. Her friend did some detective work, and the police set up a sting operation. Then she had to meet the guy who had her bike. It sounds like a television show that wraps up in an hour, and it all happened just today. Link -via Buzzfeed
