The Car is Becoming Less Important

Posted on May 22, 2012 by mikeshoup

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.

Sturmey Archer Duomatic

Posted on March 17, 2012 by mikeshoup

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.

Grandma’s Saddlebag

Posted on February 19, 2012 by mikeshoup

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.

Making Denver a Cycle Haven pt.1: Colfax Bike Lane

Posted on January 31, 2011 by mikeshoup

Colfax Ave in Denver is a 26 mile long arterial that stretches from the west end of Denver all the way to the east end of Denver. I’m not sure how accurate this is, but it is often thought of as the longest continuous street in Denver.

It serves as an important arterial, with two of RTD’s busiest bus lines running down it (the 15, 16 and respective Ltds). It is also often considered a blight on our fine city. Many sections of Colfax are run down with crime and poverty. The local communities have tried many things in an attempt at urban renewal with mixed results.

I’m not saying this is going to be a panacea for all of Colfax’s problems, but what if, an easy fix were to take away the car traffic and make a 22.6 mile bike lane along Colfax? It could easily become a heavily bike trafficked corridor with safe and easy access to much of Denver’s neighborhoods.

My idea, would be to run a bike lane from where Colfax meets US6 near its west end in Golden to the intersection of Colfax and Tower Rd near its east end in Aurora.

22.6 miles of bike lane

Now of course there would have to be significant re-engineering of Colfax and traffic lanes removed in many sections. Particularly at the viaduct of I-25 and the train tracks. It also gets rather narrow as it passes through the old sections of Capitol Hill.

I’m not saying this would be easy by any stretch of the imagination. I do believe, however, it is possible and would love to see some municipalities start this initiative.

Banning Cyclists Completely on 16th Street

Posted on June 14, 2010 by mikeshoup

The downtown Denver partnership is looking to ban bicycles completely from the 16th street mall after a tragic collision occurred between a mall shuttle and an elderly rider a couple Sundays ago.

From an article in the Denver Daily, the DDP spokeswoman says

“We still feel that bicyclists on the mall, when you combine the pedestrians and all the RTD shuttles, that that’s not a good equation,” she said. “And I think Sunday’s accident illustrates that even though Sunday is a very low traffic day…we need to look at Sundays and our bike policy on the 16th Street Mall.”

Let’s keep in mind the following that comes from the cited Denver Post article above:

The driver has been ticketed for careless driving resulting in serious bodily injury, said John White, a Denver Police Department spokesman.

Some further details from an article on 9News’ website:

RTD Spokesman Scott Reed says the bus driver honked at the cyclist, but instead the noise startled him. Reed says a witness told RTD the cyclist then slammed on his brakes and flew over his handlebars and the bus driver ran over his right leg.

This is clearly the shuttle driver’s fault. The shuttle driver not only could have avoided the accident by hitting his brakes first, before honking his horn. Also, the shuttle driver was even cited by the police for careless driving.

How does this make sense? Instead of taking time to properly train the shuttle drivers, making sure that they drive safely and not carelessly, they’re just going to get rid of cyclists? What if the cyclist was a pedestrian instead? Would the DDP turn around and ban pedestrians as well?

This is a perfect example of the “sacred bull in society’s china shop.”

Instead of focusing on the real problem, the shuttle buses that are potentially deadly machinery, we focus on restricting the road users who are most vulnerable. This is very often the case with road safety campaigns. Ridiculous.

HB 1147 and the Culture of Fear

Posted on May 10, 2010 by mikeshoup

Helmets are all the rage in today’s cycling culture. Many feel that cyclists would be a lot safer if everyone wore these helmets while cycling. We’ve even gone so far as to mandate cyclists wear one in many municipalities.

The issue recently came up in Colorado with HB 1147, which in its original revision would have mandated anyone under 18 to wear a helmet while operating a non-motorized wheeled conveyance. A few people were shocked (such as @AndyMan1) when I called it a win for Colorado that the mandatory helmet law portion of the bill was cut out. After all, isn’t keeping brains inside the skull a good thing?

Continue reading →

Becoming Even More Bicycle Friendly

Posted on April 20, 2010 by mikeshoup

Was sitting on the bus today, watching a cyclist hug the curb of Wewatta St in Denver. Obviously, he was aware that the street was safer for him than the sidewalk, but he still wasn’t positioning himself in the safest position in the lane.

So, I ask the question many vehicular cyclists want to ignore. How do we get ordinary citizens on the road, cycling in a safe manner?

How can we make bicyclists feel comfortable riding on a big span of concrete and asphalt such as the picture below?

Stolen from Google Maps

The answer does not lie in vehicular cycling dogma. You can tell cyclists all you want that the safest position for them is in the center of the lane. You can even tell motorists the same. There will still be conflicts, there will still be cyclists who fear the street. Who can blame them? Roads like these were obviously designed for cars with any other users simply an afterthought.

Let’s turn to Copenhagen and Amsterdam and the other famous cycling friendly cities in Europe. They’re doing something right if 37% of commuters in Copenhagen ride bicycles.

Traffic Skills 101 Impressions

Posted on April 15, 2010 by mikeshoup

Over the last weekend, I took part in the LAB‘s Traffic Skills 101 course. The league describes the course as:

Gives cyclists the confidence they need to ride safely and legally in traffic or on the trail. The course covers bicycle safety checks, fixing a flat, on-bike skills and crash avoidance techniques and includes a student manual. Recommended for adults and children above age fourteen, this fast-paced, nine-hour course prepares cyclists for a full understanding of vehicular cycling.

I found the course quite interesting and useful. It is a rare situation when you get cyclists together from all walks of life. We had a man about my age there who didn’t even own his own bicycle – he borrowed his friend’s Huffy. We also had a few cyclists who had done some amazing road rides such as the Triple Bypass. We had a director from the local bike advocacy group there – as a participant! – as well as other people from various advocacy groups.

As for the actual course content, it was a mix of discussing the local traffic laws, bicycle maintenance and vehicular cycling. Despite the description above, there was very little trail discussion.

The “classroom” discussions were kinda dry and boring. Involved talking about local traffic laws (such as Colorado’s Three Feet law), types of crashes and how to avoid them, and the ever interesting discussion on bicycle clothing (*yawn*).

The fun came with the part where you actually sit on the saddle. We started out in a parking lot where the instructors had placed halves of tennis balls in various configurations.

The first exercise was the quick stop maneuver. Easy enough, simple pull on the brakes, the front harder than the rear, and slide your ass back off the saddle as far as you can.

Second exercise was a quick turn. We approached the turn, and just right before the turn, flipped the handlebars to the left, then punched it to the right. This made for a very high speed right turn. Perfect for avoiding those right hooks.

Third exercise was a rock dodge. Simple, just flick the handlebars in either direction to avoid the rock and with some miracle of physics, the front wheel goes on one side of the rock and the rear goes on the other side.

The final exercise was the funnest. Involved going through a slalom at varying speeds and varying “tightness”. Helps you get a feel for how the bike handles with just leaning. The tough part was to make it through the slalom without turning the handlebars at all. Doable, but very difficult.

Then came the road course. We took off on a few (of like a billion) of Aurora’s high speed arterial roads. Even involved a bit of a six lane road with 45mph speed limit. Using proper Vehicular Cycling techniques, one can easily ride on these roads without too much headache. The one big advantage we had was being a group. Its hard to miss eight cyclists in one big long line.

We maybe spent a total of 15 minutes on a local bike path. This is understandable. IMO, a bike path is easy to ride. The biggest rules are keep it slow and yield to pedestrians. Its also nice if you keep right and announce your passes (please, please, please announce your passes).

Do I think TS101 is a necessary course? Oh god no. However, if you live in neighborhood where your local road opens up to a high speed arterial and you’ve had too many close calls on them sidewalks, you might wanna look into it. It may give you the confidence and necessary knowledge to handle it safely.

(Disclaimer: This does not mean I’ve become one of the John Forester, anti-bicycling facilities maniacs. I’m still all for well designed infrastructure for cyclists, including bike lanes, sharrows, bike paths, separated bike tracks, bike boulevards, etc)

Mike Shoup

Blogging about bicycles, transportation and general stuffiness.

Tag Archives: bicycle