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Author Archives: mikeshoup
The Car is Becoming Less Important
I read an interesting article from Denver Urbanism today. It is part of a common conversation lately. Many young folks simply don’t see cars the same way the older generations see them.
My wife and I, for example, own one car between the two of us. Even with a son on the way, we just don’t see the need for another car. Our car isn’t even used for commuting to and from work. We have planned our lives around the idea that one car is enough for a family. Not that we don’t recognize the utility of cars. We use ours for various errands and to visit friends and family. Most days though, it just sits in our driveway.
The fact is, many major cities make it easy to get around without a car. Our lovely mile high city of Denver has excellent bicycle infrastructure, a large public transportation system, and the first large scale bike share system in the USA. I hope in the future, many families and individuals will find it easy to go car-lite or even car-free.
Container Garden
When you rent, sometimes you have to make do with growing veggies in containers.
Baby Ultrasounds
Baby Ultrasounds, a set on Flickr.
Its a boy!
Sturmey Archer Duomatic
Hipsters who ride bicycles do have one good idea. You don’t always need more gears.
It is a Sturmey Archer S2C, two-speed kick shift hub with coaster brake. I picked red because it would look hot.
I’m waiting for a rim to arrive so I can lace it up. This is going on my ’70 Hercules. Rim is a silver Sun CR-18 in the standard 26″ x 1 3/8″ (BSD 590mm) size.
Dress Up
How does that saying go? Dress for the job you want, not the job you have?
Of course, I don’t normally wear a tie. I have to consider that on any given day, the likely hood of me crawling underneath a desk to pull cables is pretty high, I don’t want my nice clothes to get all dusty.
Grandma’s Saddlebag
I picked up one of these at the Bike Depot. It was actually a gift for Niki, but I thought I would try it out. One of the Bike Depot’s mechanics’ grandmother knitted a few of these for them to sell. It is quite awesome and quite versatile.
It comes with a pair of leather toe clip straps to hold it onto your saddle. You’ll need a saddle with bag loops like a Brooks or similar. It has a rope on the one end to seal it up. I found it was easy to make a bow with the rope and shove it into the tiny opening in the saddlebag.
If you want one, you’ll have to walk into the Bike Depot and purchase one. Alternatively, if you know someone that is crafty and good with a pair of knitting needles, I bet they could make one for you.
NoPa: The Next Hip Neighborhood!
I was perusing the local home listings, always on the lookout for an affordable house in a good neighborhood. We came across a cool house in what I would call the Baker neighborhood. Isn’t really something we would buy (not a big fan of the schools in the neighborhood), however, I found something interesting the house’s listing.
Super Popular Sobo (South Broadway) Area, Close To All The Hip Shops, Fun Bars, The Mayan, Hornet, Cool Restaurants, Yoga, Sante Fe Arts District and Downtown!
Super popular “SoBo” neighborhood? Seriously? Where the hell did they get the idea that someone wants to live in a neighborhood called SoBo? Just how do you arrive at SoBo from South Broadway? Must have sounded better than the SoBr (as apposed to Drunk?) area. Another thing, can you even call something that is north of Ellsworth Ave in the South Broadway area? (For those not familiar with Denver, Ellsworth is the horizontal axis on Denver’s street grid.)
I think it is just real estate agents trying to attract the young hipster crowd. LoDo has been the long standing nickname for the neighborhood known as Lower Downtown. Then came LoHi, RiNo, SoDo, NoCo, etc.
So, I propose a new neighborhood. We’ll call it, “NoPa.” Its the cool, hip neighborhood of North Park Hill. Its the cool place full of 50s era brick ranch homes. Easy access to commuter rail in 2016. A few miles from downtown and right next to Stapleton (StaTo?).
You just wait, all the cool kids will be wanting to move to NoPa in ten years from now.
Parking Lot Madness
I know I don’t post here often (honestly, do people even read this?), but thought I would share this video that came through my brother on Facebook:
The video is commentary of a typical day at a Whole Foods parking lot next to the Cherry Creek Mall here in Denver.
Where else could this happen but in a culture where car is king?
Bannock Cycle Track
So Denver has a new cycle track. It was build as part of the Better Denver Bond Program. You can read a little bit about the history of the cycle track on the Denver Urbanism blog.
Here’s the final product:
Let’s look at the above picture a moment. Bannock St is one way, heading south. It has been redone with a nice bike lane heading south with the rest of traffic. The cycle track is contra-flow, goes against the rest of traffic. Of interest, is the pedestrian queue at the crosswalk where the cycle track makes that curve.
Unfortunately, here is a great example of Denver half-assing the project:
What do you notice? The cycle track abruptly ends in the opposite direction on a one-way street. There are two problems here:
- There’s no directions for cyclists to go from here. They have have the choice of riding on sidewalks and crosswalks or turning off onto the busy Colfax Avenue.
- Going with number one, it is mostly illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in Denver.
Seeing as both Bannock St and 14th St are one way in the opposite direction of the track, cyclists have little choice but to go one Colfax Ave. Now here’s the thing, there is another cycle track if you want to go East on Colfax. It is however nothing more than a narrow sidewalk for two directions of cycle traffic. Despite the signange prohibiting peds, they’ll still use it. (It doesn’t help a bus stop is right along the track.)
Overall, I applaud the city of Denver for trying something newish. In my opinion, it has a lot of work to do. The cycle track could be a great addition – if it ended in a useful manner and provided cyclists some safe direction to go from there.
