Random health assessment: Resting heart rate

Just for shits and giggles, I decided to check my resting heart rate. I had been riding my bike as a daily commute, averaging 25kph to work and 22kph from work, and I wanted to see if there was a benefit to all this bike commuting.

According to topendsports, an average resting heart rate of someone 35-40 years old is 71-75 bpm.

My resting heart rate prior to re-starting my bike commute was about 70bpm (and I was 37 at the
time), which put me right around average, maybe slightly on the border with "above average." As a point of reference, my resting heart rate when I was a vasity swimmer in high school - at 16 years of age - was 47 bpm, which put me well within the athlete level.

Now, it's not surprising that resting heart rate will increase with age, but moving from an athlete level to average means that I knew what it was like, and 70 bpm seemed really fast. But now, my resting heart rate is roughly 55 bpm, which works out to being on the upper end of "athlete" for a man in my age category.

And that feels nice.

Maybe it is also time to check my BMI (with recognition of problems of height and muscle density) and my blood pressure?

More bike companies need to make these kinds of bikes

If even Bianchi is making "City" commuter bikes like this:



then maybe we can have even more people choosing to become daily bike commuters. From The Urban Country, we are offered a different way to think about urban commuter cycling... It's for lazy people!

I arrive on time, I’m not sweaty, and I rode my bike not for a workout, but rather au contraire, I rode my bicycle because I am lazy.

I step outside my front door and hop on my bike because I’m too lazy to go downstairs in the parking garage to get the car. I pull my bike up to the front door at my destination because I’m too lazy to drive around looking for a parking spot then having to walk from the car to the building.

I ride my bike instead of taking public transit because I’m too lazy to go to the store to buy bus tickets, and I am far too lazy to dig for loose change under my couch. I am also too lazy to transfer from the bus to the subway to the streetcar, preferring to ride directly to my destination without transfers.

Instead of walking 15 minutes to my destination, I ride my bicycle there in 5. Yes, I ride there because I am too lazy to walk.

I ride my bicycle past dozens of cars at rush hour because I’m too lazy to be stressed out sitting in traffic and too lazy to explain why I’m late all the time.

Brilliant. I also ride my bike because I'm lazy. Too lazy to go to a gym to work out. Too lazy to go park a car. Too lazy to wait for the car to get cool enough in the summer or warm enough in the winter. Too lazy to go and pump gas.

I love it that I'm too lazy for all that.

And I thought I had a big bike

Well, it's not so much a LONG bike as a friggin' TALL bike:

Richie Trimble’s 14.5 ft. Tall Bike


I read about L.A.'s CicLAvia a few years back, and I've thought that it was a great idea to encourage cycling in the city as something more than a recreational hobby for men in lycra. Of course, this sort of event tends to bring out everyone (except maybe the road-racers) for a nice and easy ride through the streets.

...including a man on a 14.5 foot bike. :D

Craziness!

Reasons to Ride a Bike

Now that Ann Arbor is gripped in real winter weather again, it's interesting to see how many people are still cycling.

Back on September 8, 2011, Intelligence Squared posted their "Cycling Festival" podcast that went into the many reasons why people start (and continue) cycling. (You might not really appreciate the "high-falutin'" argumentation of the lead presenter, though.) I felt it a perfect fit to where my mind is currently: thinking about what I would have done if I didn't start riding my bike:

Two wheels, a frame, and two pedals. Nothing could be simpler than a bicycle. People start cycling for practical reasons or for fun but before they know it, it's become a passion, an obsession, a career, an instrument of self-torture.

It's an antiquated mode of transport, and yet hundreds of thousands take it up every year in Britain. Clean, green and cheap, it can turn your journey from A to B into a flight of inspiration, give you a sense of speed, grace and limitless potential, and add a frisson of danger to your otherwise humdrum existence.

Intelligence² are bringing together the most articulate amateurs and professionals from the world of cycling to celebrate the endeavour and endurance, the risk and reward of this extraordinary partnership between man and machine.

Taking part will be:

Bella Bathurst, author of "The Bicycle Book", who will introduce us to the diverse and unpredictable world of the bicycle with stories from the past and quirky anecdotes from her more recent observations.

Vin Cox, record holder for circumnavigating the globe by bike, will argue that the bicycle is the fastest and slowest form of transport you'll ever need.

Geoff Dyer, novelist and keen amateur cyclist, will discuss how photography can capture the romantic allure of two-wheeled bliss – and nowhere is that bliss more ecstatically displayed than at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

Patrick Field, founder of the London School of Cycling who’ll be proposing a city cycling manifesto for the 21st century.

Graeme Obree, Scottish cyclist who twice broke the world hour record on a home-made bicycle who'll be talking about design and innovation.

Will Self, writer and keen amateur cyclist who’ll expand on his love of the bicycle’s purity and simplicity.

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I really like the advice that Patrick Field gives, especially starting around 29 minutes, basically stating that there is no "correct" way to go about bicycling. Looking at all the rusting bikes that appear abandoned in the winter snows around campus, this lesson from Patrick Field is important to bear in mind:

If you treat a modern, aviation-grade bike, designed primarily for Americans to ride about in the sunshine, like the bike your great-grandfather rode to the mine, it will fail. Feed a racehorse on thistles, and it doesn't turn into a donkey. It dies. It's not a moral question. Nobody goes to heaven for having a clean bike, but the people who invented and perfected the derailleur would be with anyone starting a journey on a dirty bike. You don't have to use a machine exactly as its users intended, but you do need to understand what it was designed for.

In short: don't treat your bike like crap, based on the ideas of what you grew up thinking a bike to be.

Sunday Thoughts: Pedalling a bus? Potentially, yes!

This is just kinda cool, from Brazil, an idea for having a pedal-power assisted bus. Via Inhabitat, we learn that there is a design from "Rever Design Studio for a cycling double decker bus. On the second level, there are 24-27 active passenger cycles to assist in generating the power reserve of the electric bus. The lower level of the bus is for passive passengers and a bus driver. The double decker bus also comes with a back room for more than 30 folding or non-folding bicycles."

I think that this could be an interesting way to travel around Rio. (The question is, though, whether people would prefer to pedal on a bus or pedal alongside and between them...)

Monday Musings: Cooler morning conundrums

I live in a forest. Perhaps this isn't too much of a surprise for people, but it's a statement of fact. Usually, this means that the temperatures are a few degrees lower than what I'd encounter in town. (Thanks to the urban heat island effect - yes, Ann Arbor has it, even with its trees.)

Sometimes, though, you misjudge the difference between in-town temperatures and what you feel like when you walk outside in a morning.

... and so I now find myself in a long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and shoes (instead of shorts, t-shirt, and sandals)...

Finally cooled off, but it took a while.

On the plus side, though, my commute this morning only took 16 minutes, and I wasn't the only cyclist that I encountered, either. (There were 2 from Wagner, and an additional 2 in town as I cycled along Washington.)

Saturday Omphaloskepsis: What stuff encourages bike commuting?

I have been seeing many studies and surveys about the importance of cycling infrastructure, such as having enough bike lanes and having enough bike parking. Other studies have cited the need for making bike lanes protected from cars or to provide bike "highways" through cities. Further studies have made recommendations about signage (e.g., why do cyclists run STOP signs?), and still others have made recommendations about training (for drivers, cyclists, and enforcement).

Fewer have made comments about addressing the local cycling culture, probably taking a "if you built it they will come approach", but I argue that providing a variety of easy-and-comfortable-to-ride bikes will be a necessity for encouraging people to ride a bike instead of taking the often far-more-comfortable car. Indeed, if you go to most bike shops in the US, you'd be hard pressed to find a commuter bike that doesn't look like a more upright mountain bike. Where are the electric bikes? Where are the classical "everyday bikes" that are so common almost everywhere else in the world, save for North America? Furthermore, with so few "everyday bikes" around, the majority of what people see on the roads are either road bikes or mountain bikes (or things that look like either of these, but tend to be set up for the rider to sit more upright). ... or folding bikes.

I also wrote about the need to condition people into thinking that cycling is an equivalent option, which is a behavioral approach to complement the calls for adding public biking infrastructure (bike lanes, bike parking, changing speed limits, cycling highways, etc.) as well as a behavioral approach among cyclists to incorporate cycling into their normal daily routine (from choosing where to live to what to ride and when to ride). As a person who specifically chose not to have a bike and not to ride the bus (except when necessary), I have conditioned myself to the normalcy of riding.

However, in a recent blog post over at Scientific American, Scott Huler reviews a survey article about the importance of including showers as part of the "if you build it they will come" mentality:

The research is good and sensible — Buehler sampled the commuting behavior of several thousand D.C. residents and found that if you have free parking and other driving amenities at your place of work you’re 70 percent less likely to commute by bike. And what would make you almost FIVE TIMES as likely to commute by bike? A place to park the bike, a locker — and a shower.

Huler also describes how the incentives to increase bicycle commuting should not be thought of as a single thing, but as a series of multi-layered choices. The presence of free car parking should not be taken as granted; requiring payment for parking will also contribute to cycling (especially if bike parking is free). Furthermore, parking is another thing that an employer might be able to control (along with the availability of showers at work):

Remember that bike lanes also make a difference — and that employers making the counterintuitive move of NOT providing free parking also helps. And you can see, as Jaffe sums up: “Bicycle commuting is a complex behavior that needs multiple layers of policy encouragement to thrive.” And remember — that’s just like all commuting, which is complex behavior affected by multiple layers of policy. All our policies for the past half-century have favored automobile commuting, so we shouldn’t be surprised that’s what most of us do. And changing policies and priorities doesn’t mean cars are wrong or that cycling requires public subsidy or management to thrive. Just that if we want different results, we have to take different actions.

Pretty useful to remember.

"Condition the People"

Three things started to get me back to wondering about how to get people to become more energy efficient, more eco-aware, more sustainable, more Earth-friendly, more "green", the first was the following webcomic from Kickstand Comics:

The second was a radio piece on NPR yesterday morning: An Alaska Company Losing The Obesity Game Calls In Health Coaches:

Health coaches are a new kind of health professional, and it's their job to help people make those easy-to-say, hard-to-do behavioral changes that promote good health — getting enough exercise, eating a balanced diet, and managing stress.

At first, the lifestyle changes Orley made were very small.

"We started out where my goal was to take the stairs instead of the elevator once a day. Not even more than that but just really manageable," she said.

Soon Orley was drinking more water and less soda. She began walking regularly and attending Pilates classes. She kicked her fast food habit. She lost 50 pounds.

The third was a piece from yesterday's Treehugger: "Beat The Heat: Original Green Architect Steve Mouzon Says, 'Condition People First'":

Briefly, the idea is that if you entice people outside, they get more acclimated to the local environment, needing less heating or cooling when they return indoors.

These three examples provide the case that lines up with the recognition that humans - like many animals - prefer to take the easiest option available to them. This is why pedestrians will cut through grassy areas, why drivers pull their car through to the forward parking space, and even how animal trails develop. It's not surprising that many people will chose the option that is faster and requires less body-energy use to accomplish the same action. If we have a car, we're more likely to use it than to get about on our own energy. If we have the option of parking close and using elevators, we're more likely to do them rather than walking across an expansive parking lot and climbing the stairs (even to the point where this becomes possible). If we have the option of green gadgets to achieve sustainable design, we'll use those instead of thinking about how to integrate people's behaviors into the design of the building (let alone designing the building to minimize energy use to begin with).

It's not a doubt that cycling will burn more of your body's calories than driving your car the same distance, and walking briskly will likely burn more than cycling. Of course, both cycling and brisk walking will take a longer amount of time and will leave you a little bit more sweaty and tired at the destination, which are both good reasons for not wanting walk or bike when you have a car. Similar arguments can be made for parking close to your destination, taking elevators and escalators, and designing buildings to show off green gadgets. However, what all of these actions do is to solidify norms and then amplify them. It's why bike-commuting in much of the United States is considered to be an undesired alternative: car ownership provides so many benefits of transportation ease (both time and distance) that one doesn't need to live near work or rely upon public transit, therefore suburbs (and now exurbs) grew (and are growing), public transit networks shrank (or became reliant upon cheaper and less competitive means, like buses), and satellite towns grew from self-sustaining hamlets and villages into sprawling residential cities with little to no/insufficient downtown amenities for a community so large.

Compare this to the situation in many European cities, where a conscious effort was made to shape policy that would discourage American-levels of sprawl and maintain cycling as a valued option for public commuting. Here, the government made the decision to "condition the people" to the idea that cycling was a valid option through the provision of bike lanes (either shared with traffic or separated from it) and increasing the pedestrianized areas in cities (which often allow bikes while banning all cars and trucks, save for early morning deliveries).

In the US, meanwhile, riding a bike is - apart from a specific segment of the population (dense-city dwellers and university students) - a daily conscious decision, which is (largely) predicated on the initial decision of where to live in relation to work. Of course, although I live 4 miles from where I work, my only viable option is to ride my bike (since I don't own a motor vehicle and live about 20 minutes from the nearest bust stop). I know that - for me - given the choice of cycling or driving, I would likely drive, even though it would take just as much time (assuming that I park at or on the university campus) or more (if I parked in the residential areas where parking is free... if you can find a spot).

A friend's blog: Uphill Both Ways

A friend and former classmate of mine has started a blog - Uphill Both Ways - about becoming a better commuter cyclist (and commuter driver, too):

I am a bicycle commuter. I don’t ride a bike recreationally, or for exercise. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy sweating buckets on my way to work – I do! – but primarily, I ride to get places. And as a commuter, I want to be able to use the roads in my community safely and responsibly. Plenty of drivers drive like assholes, and plenty of cyclists ride like idiots, and I know I’ve fallen into both those categories, accidentally/ignorantly/unattentively. So I’m committing, first, to learning to abide by the rules of the road and take the steps I can to protect myself as a cyclist (helmet and chartreuse jacket? check!). And second, I’m going to learn to drive properly when there are bikes around.

As is written: "I always wanted to live somewhere where I could ride my bike to work. Then, one day, I started riding my bike to work. Now I live somewhere I can ride my bike to work." and as a fellow bike commuter, I have to say good continued luck with this project!

Why do I bike (part 43)

There's nothing like the feeling of wind on your face as you go sweeping through the landscape.

Today, I wake up in Toronto, in a neighborhood near to the university, and - looking out the window - I see literally LOADS of cyclists riding along the main avenue. Yesterday - Mother's Day - I also saw many people cycling along the roadways throughout the areas of the downtown that my friend and I walked through.

Happily, my friend, BD, has a second bike - a folding bike - that he lent me for my stay these few days, and we took a 13-mile trip out to Toronto's High Park, along the lake shore, and back along the avenues of the city. In some ways, it was more easy to ride the roads of the big city of Toronto than it is to ride the streets of Ann Arbor. I cannot imagine that a major part of it is not due (in large part) to the sheer number of bikes on the roads in Toronto compared to Ann Arbor. (And I thought that Ann Arbor was a relatively bike-friendly city.) Also (and this might be due to the location where I'm staying), there are MANY bike stores in the region, thus feeding the number of bikes and the bike interest. Also, there is cycling infrastructure at street crossings, even further giving a greater (and obvious) nod to cyclists.

Fifty-mile bike ride

Yesterday, I took a ride to Hell, MI and then on to Pinkney, Whitmore Lake, and back to Ann Arbor.



Hell, the unincorprated community in Putnam Township, is about 21 miles northwest from Ann Arbor, but - due to unpaved roads - it's not so easy to bike to it, and the route we took was about 23 miles. This little community was all owned by a man named George Reeves, who set up a bunch of mills in the 1830s on what was known - at the time - as Hell Creek. The name for the area was (according to Wikipedia) based on an exclamation in German ("So schön hell!") or from Reeves himself who said - what the town should be called - "I don't care, you can name it Hell for all I care." (These, according to Wikipedia.) Anywho... the settlement was officially called Hell in 1841.

From Hell, we went onward to Pinkney - about a four-mile trip - via the Lakeland Trails State Park.

We stopped in at the Zukey Lake Tavern for some lunch (and mini tacos, in "celebration" of cinco de mayo), and spent a little too much time there. However, as we were leaving the Tavern, I saw a guy looking at my bike. Low and behold, it was one of the guys from Great Lakes Cycling who normally does maintenance on it (and suggested that I get the NuVinci hub). He had recognized my bike immediately and it was just serendipitous that we ran into each other at that time. He was finishing up a ride of his own, going back the other way down the Lakelands Trail. Anyway, after that short encounter, we were off: back to Ann Arbor (but with slightly more-full-than-necessary bellies, which made cycling more of a chore than it was than before we stopped for lunch).

Unfortunately, the Lakelands Trail doesn't go all the way to Whitmore Lake (or even to 9-mile, which is what Google Maps currently shows). The last mile isn't completed, so after cycling along the trail for 9.2 miles, it was a detour off to Hall Road, along Hamburg Lake on a dirt road, and then jumped over the highway to Whitmore Lake (taking 8-mile). Not the worst dirt road, and not horrible to cycle along 8-mile to get to Whitmore Lake, but not the most fun thing, either.

Once at Whitmore Lake, following Whitmore Lake Road all the way back to Bandermer Park was easy, and - thanks to the proximity of the highway - lightly traveled by cars. The final leg - all 16 miles - was relatively quiet, and the fatigue was starting to set in. My wrists were sore, my but was sore, and my legs were tired.

In total, including the cycling from home and back home, the trip was 58.24 miles.

Spring cycling

Last Sunday - Earth Day - I cycled up to Hudson Mills Metro Park and trundled about over there. On the way up, I went through Dexter, and I found that the re-building from the tornado is going apace. Also, the stream bank restoration along the mouth of Mill Creek (thanks to the removal of the dam and replacement of the bridge a few years ago).


I think that in a few years, the boardwalk along the bank will look really quite cool. Perhaps, too, this pathway will be a spur to the B2B trail, and it could - eventually - be connected to Hudson Mills MetroPark, too... and then up to the Lakelands Trail State Park. That would make it really easy to trail ride from Ann Arbor to Pinkney to Whitmore Lake and then back south to Ann Arbor.

But looking at this, photo, that's going to be at least a few years out. Right now it's just dirt and a partial boardwalk. Hopefully there won't be a lot of invasive species that take over the banks. We'll see, though...

I also took the following photo of a river-stone house, which is somewhat typical of the traditional building method of the region. (Hey, if you don't have ought but riverstone, then you gotta make do.)




The spring weather was still a little cool, good for not getting overheated. At the beginning of the filming of the video, I thought that it would be probably be cool if I got a helmet camera. It would make the filming of such videos a lot less dangerous.

Oh, and I also saw a turquoise frog... Strange looking frog...

... not at all what I was thinking would be in Michigan.

Why do I bike (part 42)

I think that perhaps Andrew Sullivan is thinking about taking up bicycling. He is - after all - writing many blurb posts about the subject of what makes people ride bikes?

In his latest blurb, he points to evidence that it's the number of bike lanes, and not so much about the weather:

Indeed, depending on how you judge what makes a city best for cycling, it’s often the colder ones that win out: Frozen Minneapolis is one of the best biking cities, thanks to well-built infrastructure and a bike share system. Rainy Portland continues to have the largest percentage of its population commuting by bike, a fact that should continue to shame city managers whose polities stay pleasant all year round.

I've got to agree with this block quote from GOOD.IS; I much prefer biking in colder weather than in hot. Not only do you get to work without all the sweat (or less sweaty at least), but you also build up a good amount of heat. I have even I had to stop to take off my jacket in -10C degree (or colder) weather because I was sweating (and I didn't want the sweat to freeze). However, once that jacket was off, the low temperatures helped keep me cool and sweat-free for the rest of the trip.

Oh, yeah: also the bike lanes that exist in Ann Arbor (at least along the section of city that I cycle along) really make the trip a lot less daunting than on similarly busy roads that don't have them. I shudder when I think about people who actually cycle on Washtenaw Ave...

And Sullivan draws the good link between needing bike lanes to increase cycling in a city with the future need for more bike lanes:

By 2050, we’re going to see 3-4 times more global passenger mobility and we’re going to have to accommodate the transport needs of more than 9 billion citizens. Mass urbanization presents an amazing opportunity to get more people cycling: 30% of urban trips are less than 3km (1.86 miles) and more than half of all trips are less than 5km (3.1 miles).

Personally, I'd not like to see all that population growth get into cars, try to find parking in the same downtown areas, and try to all get going on the roads. It will need a major re-think about how we - as a society - approach transportation. Perhaps those of us living in the United States will come to understand that not everyone can rationally (nor should anyone really feel obligated to) drive several tens of miles in one direction to get to work. Maybe - as we get evermore crowded - we will come to recognize that this individual car ownership thing isn't really all that it's cracked up to be ... and that it's okay.

Until that time, though, I'll be saving money that would otherwise go to buying gas (~$1,000/year), car insurance (~$750/year), registration (~$100), maintenance (~$500/year) -- assuming that it's a 2007 Ford Focus (just pulling a car out of the air which happens to be the same as this car-ownership assessment) -- and parking (~$200/year). At those numbers, with the savings, I can buy a new fully-kitted-out bicycle ever year. (And that's assuming that I own the car, and I'm not also making interest payments on the sucker.) In contrast, over the last year, I normally spend $300-$400/year on maintaining my bike (this last year I also spent about $800 for a complete replace and rebuilt of my rear wheel, including a new internal hub).

A part of me wants this bike trailer...

When I first had my bike put together, I had thought that I wanted to have a cargo-bike, or at least a sturdy bike that would do all the things that I would want from a bike-as-sole-mode-of-transportation. Therefore, I got the one that I currently own. It's a good bike - don't get me wrong - but it suffers from a major weight problem, due (in no small part) to the study design. Ah well: it's my own fault, I suppose. Still, a part of me thinks that I might change the bike racks for a bike trailer, and I've been looking at several fro some time now. None of them really make me want to go: yes! So I guess that it's just mental spit-balling at this point.

Well, there's another bike trailer that is catching my eye, and for completely different reasons: the Midget Bushtrekka:

Just what a part of me thinks about when I am thinking, "trailer." What's so special about this trailer is that (discounting whatever you might be thinking due to the colors on the bike) it is a camping trailer for bikes!

It's got all the things that one person would need to go camping, including a single-person tent. Still, seeing as the amount of camping that I've done out in Michigan has been.... none, I don't really see me using this contraption, so at least I know that I won't be spending the $900.00 on the thing. Still, it looks like it would be fun (provided I actually did camp). And it couldn't get too heavy, since there's not a huge amount of space to put things.

Cycling to work

 I can understand the desire to drive as quickly as you can to get somewhere. However, there are situations in which driving as fast as you can is impractical (and which can end up with the driver getting extremely frustrated for being unable to travel continuously at speed). One of these is driving in a city.

Although not a huge city, Ann Arbor's traffic pattern changes in three ways from where I live (just west of town) to where I work (at the University of Michigan's central campus):

1. 45mph, little traffic (almost always moving at speed), 1 stop/2 miles
2. 30mph, moderate traffic (usually getting up to speed limit), 1 stop/1 mile
3. 25mph, moderate traffic (usually flowing at <25mph), 1 stop/block

In stage 1, drivers are cruising easily... until they reach the edge of town (stage 2), marked by a stop light that usually catches about 4 or 5 cars during my morning commute. The drivers are not done thinking about driving casually, however, usually speeding to the next stop light, and then the next. When the drivers reach the town center, they have either calmed down or are really annoyed and the latter group drive like they are at a drag race: pealing out of each stop, only to be forced to stop one or two blocks down the way.

As a cyclist, I cannot hope to keep up (let alone pass) the drivers going at 45mph (or more) in stage 1. However, thanks to the timing of traffic signals, my average speed of 15mph means that I'm often able to play traffic hopscotch with many drivers through stage 2 and definitely so in stage 3. I think, though, that this merely makes those annoyed drivers even more annoyed. When I see one of these guys, I try to let them have the road, but it's not always an option in the more-narrow streets of the city (that also have street-parked cars lining them).

A while ago, I did a back-of-the-envelope style of driving time vs. cycling time assessment of my commute, and noted that - on average - it is actually a little faster for me to cycle in to work than it would be to drive, park, and walk, and much of that is due to the traffic being slowed by signals in town.

When I drove, I tried to learn if there was a traffic light pattern, one that would consistently allow me to have an overall higher average driving speed (even though I might not have a top speed). I found that east-bound on Washington, one could drive most of the distance from Ashley to State at 15mph and not have to stop; east-bound on Huron, one could drive almost all the way from Maple to State at 30mph and not have to stop; north-bound on Division, one could drive from Packard through to the Broadway Bridge at 30mph and not have to stop; etc. It annoyed me, however, to note that few other drivers actually figured this timing out, and I would pass them - again and again - at a slightly slower speed as they sped (time and again) to the next waiting red light. Traffic light hopscotch isn't only a bike and car game, I suppose.

I wanna get this...

Well, maybe I want to get this.

On days when I'm tired, it's raining, or the ground's icy, I would want to have this. This all-in-one wheel conversion to make an electric bike. It would make it easy to convert from my comfortable middle-distance touring-esque bike (that can average 20+ mph on the flats) to an around-town runabout (with a 20mph limiter).

What I like about it is the modularity.


... and the music.

Cycling vs. driving: which makes a faster commute?

My commute is roughly 4 miles each way, and although I don't own a car, I recently wondered which would make for a faster door-to-door commute: driving or cycling. Before I decide to rent a car or ask someone to do the drive for me, I want to estimate the difference.

My average "easy-commuting" speed (door-to-door) is about 10mph in the winter and 12mph in the summer, meaning that I get from my front door to the university in 24minutes and 20minutes, respectively. This is a total time that includes waiting for signals. My average moving speed is closer to 15mph during the winter and 18mph during the summer (meaning that if I didn't tire and I didn't have to stop, I would reach the university in 16 minutes and 13 minutes 20 seconds, respectively). However, since stop lights, stop signs, pedestrian flow, etc. exist, I will use the 24minute and 20minute figures for comparison.

Now, let's presume the fastest (legally) possible trip from my house to the University (i.e., no acceleration; one is immediately moving at the speed limit; no stops):

1. Cabin to the gate (0.4mi) can be driven at 20mph (1.2mins).
2. From the gate to Scio Ridge Road (0.9mi) is at 45mph (1.2mins).
3. From Scio Ridge to Virginia (1.3mi) is at 35mph (2.2mins)
4. From Virginia to First St (0.8mi) is at 30mph (1.6mins)
5. From First St to the Church St Parking Structure (1.0mi) is at 25mph (2.4mins)
• TOTAL: 4.4mi, 8.6minutes

However, we know that this is not a reasonable answer, since acceleration (and deceleration) occur, stop lights and stop signs exist, and we often cannot drive at the speed limit in the city due to traffic. Okay, so let's start to make this more realistic by adding in stop lights. If we assume that we will wait an average of 1 minute for each stop light, and 0.2 minute (12 seconds) for each stop sign, then we get:

1. Cabin to the gate: 1.2mins
2. Gate to Scio Ridge: 2.2mins
3. Scio Ridge to Virginia: 4.2mins
4. Virginia to First St: 2.8mins
5. First St to Church Street Parking: 9.2mins
• TOTAL: 19.6minutes

Already, the amount of time spent due to stop lights and stop signs brings this a lot closer to my summer travel time of 20 minutes! And we didn't even take acceleration into account. However, what is the average acceleration of a typical car? Well, according to hypertextbook.com, it's somewhere between 3m/s/s and 4m/s/s. Let's be generous and use the example with the higher acceleration (something like the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT). Now, we need an equation, something from elementary physics. Something like:

v = at + u

t = (v - u)/a

where t is the amount of time (in seconds), v is the final velocity (the speed limit, converted to meters/sec), u is the starting velocity (0m/s at stops, the previous speed at transitions), and a is the constant acceleration (4m/s/s). This will give us the time that it takes to reach the speed limit. Then we can find the distance it traveled over that acceleration time:

s = ((v + u)/2)t

where s is the distance traveled (in meters). The remaining distance will be traveled at the speed limit. (Stopping will be calculated in a similar fashion, and will assume 15fps (~4.6m/s/s). Now, running it through Excel (and adding all the stops), we get:

1. Cabin to the gate: 1.21min
2. Gate to Scio Ridge: 2.33min
3. Scio Ridge to Virginia: 4.25min
4. Virginia to First St: 2.73min
5. First St to Church St Parking Structure: 9.97min
• Total: 20.49minutes

Already it's on par with my average summer cycling commute time. And this is considering maximum acceleration and deceleration of a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT (i.e., stomps on the brake at each stop and floors it after each stop). If we assumed a more conservative driver, and take only 2/3 of the maximum acceleration and deceleration (still a bit of a lead foot, though), we get:

1. Cabin to the gate: 1.22min
2. Gate to Scio Ridge: 2.38min
3. Scio Ridge to Virginia: 4.30min
4. Virginia to First St: 2.79min
5. First St. to Church Street Parking Structure: 10.19min
• Total: 20.88minutes

Not much of a change in travel time (about 24seconds of difference if you don't have such a heavy foot). However, this doesn't take into account the additional time needed to find a parking spot (about 4 minutes) and to walk to the department building from the car (about 5 minutes), increasing the time to almost 30 minutes. If we add in things like waiting in traffic (the above calculations assume that you're the only car stopping at the stop lights and the only one stopping for the stop signs), and you can likely add another 2-5 minutes to the estimate.

In the end, using simple physics and reasoning, we can determine a few things:

1. It would take about 30 minutes to get from the cabin to my department using a car.
2. Driving at reckless acceleration and deceleration wouldn't really help reduce this figure.
3. Using a bike gives me 25 minutes of exercise in the morning (and about 30 minutes of exercise in the evening for my return trip), which I wouldn't get by driving, and would therefore need to spend at the gym as additional time.

Therefore, in addition to the points about cost that I mentioned earlier, riding a bike is, for me, a good way to travel for me. Still, I don't think that I'll be spending THIS much time on my bike:

THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

UPDATE (4/11/2012): I took a quick drive to and from my house (via Zipcar), and on my way back, I actually clocked the driving time, which turned out to be 13 minutes (caught lots of green lights, and parked at a lot west of campus, meaning that I didn't have to drive through campus), followed by 10 minutes of walking from the parking lot back to my office. In contrast, my bike commute time that morning was 22 minutes.

LeBron rode his bike to the game

O.M.G.! LeBron James rode his bicycle to the game that he was playing in? He did what?!?!?!? Rode a ... bicycle?

ESPN "reports":

Word trickled out during Sunday's game that LeBron James rode his bike to AmericanAirlines Arena. Traffic was backed up because of a nearby marathon and LeBron decided to take another mode of transportation. The ride took 40 minutes and he safely arrived at the arena with plenty of time to spare.

Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. A professional athlete used a pedal powered vehicle to go from point A to point B in one of the US's flattest and warmest cities, just like Dutch and Danish kids, adolescents, adults, and geriatrics do every day throughout much of the year (including the far-colder fall, winter and spring)?

Why is this news? Because he didn't drive and sit in traffic, having to go around the marathon course along with all the other cars? Seem like a smart option to me to ride his bike.

As Bike Snob pointed out in his original take on this:

I'm not sure if they're amazed he was able to do something a typical Dutch grandmother does on a daily basis, or that he didn't get run over by a car, or both, but in any case it's a sad reminder of just how developmentally challenged our relationship with cycling is here in Canada's steer head belt buckle. I'm also not sure why James opted for the "Cat 6 scuba diver" look (especially given the fact that he's in Miami, where it seems like his usual basketball uniform would have been a cooler and more comfortable choice of attire) but I'm sure he had his reasons. In any case, I certainly don't mean to criticize James himself for his mode of transport; rather, I just wish I lived in a country where this wasn't considered in any way remarkable. (I also wonder if ESPN would have found it funny if James was hit by a car and sent flying into a barbed wire fence.) Even the "smugness media" is excited about it, even though James appears to be one of those infuriatingly un-smug "vehicular cyclists" who wears a helmet and doesn't ride in tweed.

I am still amazed that people think that it's strange that I don't own a car and that I ride my bike throughout the year. The question of how else am I going to get to town if I didn't ride my bike throughout the year apparently doesn't occur to them. Still, I do it - not to cut through marathon-induced traffic jams - mostly to not have to pay for a car:

• gas (~$1000/year)
• insurance (~$750/year)
• registration (~$100/year)
• maintenance  ($150-$1000/year)
• parking (~$200/year)
• Total ($2000-$2850/year)

Compare this price to quarterly maintenance costs ($100-$200/quarter) and the financial incentive is clear. Add to this the distinction of not having to set aside extra time to do exercise (included in University fees if I do it on campus, or $1200/year at a gym), and the incentive becomes even more clear.

Although I don't know how long of a commute LeBron's was (that took him 40 minutes), I can say that I am one more person for whom bike commuting is not so strange (and feel that if others didn't look at it as a freakish thing to do, then there would likely be better bike infrastructure and commuter bike options around).

Real commuter bikes: Why they are necessary

One thing that I dislike about the cycling movement in the US is that it (still) seems to be dominated by what I would call "specialist" riders: road-bike and mountain-bike enthusiasts. By "enthusiast" I mean people who might drive their bike to a place in order to best utilize it for the purpose of riding smoothly and quickly on paved roads or race downhill and over rough terrain. These aren't usually the bikes that people would use for comfortable commuting. It's something that I've noticed as one thing that is very different between cycling culture in the US and in other countries with large bike-using populations. I personally think that one way of improving the biking culture in the US (as opposed to some places that are already "bike friendly") is to create the prototypical "US commuter bike".

A recent short YouTube film that takes one through the basic features of a Dutch commuter bike merely emphasized a major point about commuter bikes in the Netherlands: the comfort for the rider and the robustness of the design:



And this isn't only with the Dutch. From Denmark there is the Velorbis (and bikes like it):



In Japan, there is the ubiquitous mamachari:



Even when I was growing up in Japan (during the late '80s), I would see policemen, postmen, and mothers riding these mamachari (or versions of bike that looked a lot like them) up and down the lanes and roads. Every kōban (a police box that would serve as a neighborhood "post" for one or two policemen) would invariably have such a bike sitting outside of it, ready for use. I even saw (as I was riding around on my entry-level Bridgestone road bike) one electric assist mamachari that easily glided past me on one of the climbs up to my school (which was perched up on a hill with a steep grade).

The thing that all of these bikes have is a common design that speaks to people in those countries and announces, "I am the common bike." Its basic form is not fancy, although you can definitely customize them and make them more fancy. Its basic use is almost purely one of utility. And it is this form that you see chained up and parked throughout cities, instead of mountain bikes and road bikes (which can operate as commuters, but aren't necessarily the best for that purpose, at least IMHO).

Now, I don't have anything against those who are specialist cyclists, but my point is that if the general populace is to change their opinion about cycling as a valid method of transportation, then one of the things that they have to get rid of is the mental image of spandex-clad weekend road-bikers or downhill/off-road dirt-bikers and (instead) be able to include (to a large extent) the sedate and relatively untaxing ease of a commuter bike.

You will likely say, "But, Umlud, there already are commuter bikes from the major bike companies in the US." Indeed, I owned a so-called commuter bike. However, it was (still, in my opinion) not an optimal commuter bike (IMHO), because its ride wasn't a comfortable one for a person with a goal of reaching his or her destination without too much strain of cycling. In other words, it was a more-upright posture than a mountain bike with more road-worthy tires, but it seemed (to me) to be more of a means of cutting costs than providing a good alternative means for transportation. After riding my bike for two years, I learned that my daily commute of 3 miles each way (plus occasional wanderings of up to 10 miles) was too much for that particular model of high-middle-end bike. WTF? My neighbor's mamachari had still been going strong after more than a decade of daily use. (And, yes, I took my commuter bike in for maintenance and repairs.) It just doesn't seem like Giant (and possibly other manufacturers) weren't really investing strongly in the commuter bike market. (Perhaps it was because people tend to have a strange expectation of what $500 will buy in a new not-road bike.)

True, my solution - to buy a custom-made bike - was not to build a commuter bike for comfort, but for durability (something that my previous bike lacked) in all weather (also something that my last bike couldn't do) with the ability to haul decent weight (got sturdy front and back racks on my bike). Oh, it's not the most comfortable bike to ride for hours on end, but it will get me (surprisingly quickly and smoothly) from my home to work with a (usually) minimum amount of fuss every day of the year.

Still, in the end, I really do believe that one thing that needs changing in the US is the perception about what constitutes a bike rider. As for myself, I'm a guy who really doesn't care much about what others think of some of my choices, and for that I was able to build a really awesome bike - one which has been (according to people at Great Lakes Cycling) copied and modified by people around town. (Apparently my design for an efficient, low-maintenance, all-weather bike was a hit.) However, I also had a strong idea about the type of things that I wanted to do with my bike and an imaginative guy at Great Lakes Cycling to bounce ideas and designs off of (well, he proposed a lot of designs, and I queried him about various aspects of them), and I knew from the outset that I didn't want a traditional bike (i.e., like those being sold on the racks in the store). Even now, I go in and talk with the team there about how to make my bike even more awesome for my needs - changing the handlebars, adding a dynamo hub, etc. - all to make something that (I hope) will become my ultimate commuting and middle-distance bike that so obviously doesn't fit into any other category than "commuter". This is why I am such a fan of things like the "Best Utility Bike" competition that took place in Portland; without a national biking culture, a bike prototype is needed. (Well, that's one path to making the US more of a cycling nation, but not the only one.)

On Bike-Riding

Today, I saw three stories on the benefits of increased amounts of bicycling. The first (on Treehugger) - Graph of the Day: Proof that Bike Lanes Attract Bike Riders - described the benefit of having a transportation manager who is partial to bike lanes: if you build them (bike lanes), they (bike riders) will come.

What's interesting to my nerdy mind is that of the background trend occurring prior to Janette Sadik-Khan's (JSK's) appointment: four years of decline followed by seven years of increase. One point is that the two periods of decline (1986-1989, 1996-1999) have slopes that are not too dissimilar (-7 and -5.3, respectively). What's interesting is that 2006 ought to have been the start of another four-year downward trend (based on the previous years' trend). Taking the average slope of the two decline periods (-6.15), we could (somewhat reasonably) assume that the trend of NYC Commuter Cycling Indicator should have looked more like the blue line:

Therefore, the role that JSK has played in the increased bike presence in NYC is well above the expected. (Well, "expected" here means that things during the 2006-2011 period following the trend of 1986-2005, which - itself - is problematic, since there has been a major push nationwide since the mid-2000s toward greater "greenness".) For those people who want to rip out all the bike lanes, I'm sorry, but - as was asserted (and to which I am inclined to agree, even when you include the annoying cyclists):

The lesson of this chart, then, is that if you build bike lanes, cyclists will appear to fill them. That’s fantastic news, since cities with lots of cyclists are always the most pleasant cities to live and work in — even for people who don’t bike themselves.

To this article, I wrote the following response:

In much of the US, one more person on a bike means one less person in a car, which - for most drivers - means one less car on the road and one less car in the parking lot.

Furthermore, even if 20% of car trips are to destinations within 2 miles from the home (estimates run as high as 40%), taking a bike to those destinations will mean that there will be a significant drop in the amount of gasoline consumption, which ought to also lower gasoline prices somewhat.

Finally, if there is - nationwide - a greater movement toward bikes transport, then there will be a greater understanding among weekend cyclists and non-cyclist drivers alike that a bicycle is a valid form of transportation and not a mere "hobby".

In addition - according to a previous article at Think Progress - adding bike lanes creates more jobs than adding car-only roads. The math apparently comes out as 11.4 jobs created per $1 million for bike lane installation as compared to 7.8 jobs created per $1 million for car-only roads. Why? Because of the tourism, maintenance, and quality of life benefits that are associated with bike lanes.

The second article on this topic of the benefits of cycling came up on ecogeek: EU Could Meet Emission Requirements Through Increased Bike Ridership. It makes the point - thanks to the new world politics of carbon emission reductions - that increased bicycle ridership could have the benefit of allowing countries to meet their carbon-emission-reduction requirements:

A new report released by the European Cyclists' Federation says that a quarter of the required emissions reduction target for 2020 could be met if all of the European Union had bike ridership levels like Denmark.

The Danish people ride on average 2.6 km per day. If all of the EU hit that mark, it would reduce emissions by 55 million to 120 million tons a year. By 2020, that would represent five to 11 percent of the emissions target of a 20 percent reduction below 1990 levels. If that level of ridership continued, by 2050 it would represent a slash of 63 to 142 million tons or 12 to 26 percent of the transportation sector targets.

The third article (on Treehugger) - Bikes Will Save You and the Planet (Infographic) - provides a really nice, multi-part infographic that shows some interesting things that not only talk about the "usual" things of saving the planet, but also includes a lot of information about improved public health and serendipitously links to some of the points that I wrote about in response to the first article. (Infographic at the end, because it's quite a long one.)

It's important to recognize that - if we are going to start taking the advice of an ever-increasing number of public policy actors around the world - all efforts that we take that minimize the amount of carbon-emitting energy that we utilize, and - in the United States - this includes our use of personal vehicles. Also, if we are wanting to create societies that are more robust and more resilient to economic slumps, then investing in infrastructure that creates more jobs per dollar would be a good thing. As well, if we start to change the way that we (in the US) think about health care - that we are all in this together as a society - then the manner in which we operate our lives would also change (slowly, perhaps, but in the "right" direction, hopefully). Would that we could increase the benefits of car-pooling to make it more attractive, would that we could implement greater amounts of convenient public transport, and would that we could have greater ability to live closer to where we work so that cycling can be as easy for most people as it is for me. However, until we can realize better ways in which to do these things, small steps - such as taking short trips by bikes that can be used for utility and recognizing that bikes don't have to be only for spandex-wearing fitness gurus and downhill daredevils. ... and all that won't really be done unless and until greater amounts of bicycling infrastructure is built. (Which takes us back to the first article.)