Ah yes. Back to the bike stuff.

No snow, but this ride was a lot colder than it looks in the photo.

Whenever my life gets busied up, this blog tends to take the brunt of neglect. I suppose it's only fitting that if something is going to wither, it might as well be a blog. After all, it's made up entirely of electrons, and electrons don't need much to survive. Still, neglect is neglect. I'll try to put things back on course, at least for the time being, with a potpourri of bike stuff from the hopper.

The Denver area has now officially had snow twice so far this season, yet it hasn't been enough to make fat tires worthwhile. I'm not complaining much, and I have a feeling that a solid blast of snow will be along soon enough. Regardless, my Pugsley remains my most often ridden bike around home as of late.

When I'm at work downtown, I invariably use Denver B-cycle. I do have a fondness for B-cycle's somewhat clunky red bikes, so around this time of year I soak up my appreciation for them before the system is shut down for the year, which this year will be December 14. I'm fortunate enough to need to get around to meetings and other things, so I ride a B-cycle most days. I always look at bikes, and sometimes I even remember that I have a camera on my phone to take a photo of some that I see. Here are a few that caught my eye recently.

The first is a Peugeot mixte of likely late '70s or early '80s vintage, with a lot of carefully chosen new parts installed by an obviously adoring owner. The arcs of the fenders perfectly follow the curve of the tires; evidence of a masterful installation. Plenty of chrome, gold and aluminum with a garnish of honey leather. Nicely done.

A well comported Peugeot mixte. Note the vintage-y, French-y reverse brake levers.

I like how it's all tarted up in a manner only a bike geek would appreciate or possibly even notice.
Gold looks good on a bike.

The next bike spotted out in the wild is a 1992 Stumpjumper FS, which was one of the first production bikes originally spec'ed with front suspension. The Specialized Future Shock was a badge-engineered version of the Rock Shox Mag 20. The frame of the bike was of good stuff; Tange Prestige oversized tubing. The bike also had a full Deore DX group including top-mount thumbshifters at a time when most other bikes in this range had already gone to trigger shifters, which are less desirable to me and others of my admittedly eccentric ilk. Back when they were new, I remember thinking this bike was a great value at about $850 or so, and others must have agreed, because it was not uncommon to see them out on the trail.

Several years ago I rescued a well-worn frame and fork of one of these Stumpjumpers from a dumpster behind a college apartment building on move-out day. I ended up building it into a rigid commuter for one of my brothers-in-law and I still have the functional Future Shock fork somewhere in my shop.

The specimen that I saw still had its original Future Shock fork, but the fork had apparently died and was resting in peace at the bottom of its stroke. The bike is apparently ill-sized to its current rider, with a bottomed out seat and what would appear to be a very long reach to the handlebar. Except for the limitations of the finicky air/oil fork, I would anticipate this era of Stumpjumper FS to live forever, much like its rigid steel ancestors.

I'd be willing to bet that the owner doesn't know this bike is a 1992 Specialized Stumpjumper FS.
Note the nicely yellowed pie plate.  

The last bike that I recently saw and took the effort to capture in a photo is a Surly Pacer in British Racing Green, though the photo doesn't make the most of the color. I went through a phase of a month or two in duration in which I thought a Pacer was probably my next bike. It's got nearly the tire clearance of a Cross-Check, but it's a little tighter, steeper and presumably faster. However, my interest in skinny tires has always been fleeting, and is part of a recurring cycle in which I eventually re-realize I'd much rather go for fatter rubber. This cycle coincides with a renewed admission that no formula involving a faster looking bike actually equates to a faster me.

The Pacer that I photographed had a dropped chain and a sort of loneliness about it. Maybe it was an undue influence of the cold, overcast day. Once again, this model of Pacer is an example of the long line of Surly bikes sporting a nice green hue.

Somewhat forlorn Surly Pacer in British Racing Green.

Riding a bike in the constantly changing environment of the Denver city center can be challenging, but it is a place in which discoveries are made every day. Apart from bike stuff, I like to try to capture some of the other things I encounter, so the following, in no particular order, are a few random things I've found interesting while riding during the past few weeks.

A full-sized American sedan mated to a motorcycle front end. I wonder what it says on the vehicle registration?

"No comment," replied this suburbanite.

A menu from a post-hipster café? A shopping list? A party recipe?

Along the lines of observations while out riding, but in a different vein, are the changing conditions for bikes on Auraria Campus in downtown Denver. Recently, Auraria Campus, which is an unusual multi-institutional home to three higher-ed entities including the University of Colorado Denver, Metro State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver, opened its first cross-campus bike route, indeed its first area in which a bike could be legally ridden across campus. This is a major step and a huge improvement over a policy logjam reaching back a few decades, an accomplishment for which the campus deserves accolades.

The Curtis Street bike route is marked with diagonal stripes as it crosses a central pedestrian corridor.

Previously, bikes were only allowed where cars were allowed, which meant busy streets and vast car parking lots, both of which are of limited value for reaching actual campus destinations via bike. Although bike racks exist within campus, bikes were required to be walked from the campus perimeter to racks near buildings in the interior. Keep in mind that Auraria is a commuter campus with virtually no on-campus housing, and located in the core of the city. Broad car parking lots are a dominant visual feature, yet students, faculty and staff are ostensibly encouraged to use alternative transportation.

I discovered Auraria's implausible bike policy during my first week on the campus several years ago, when I was pulled over by a bicycle mounted officer and given a warning for riding on what appeared to be a multi-use path that intersects a multi-use path maintained by the City of Denver. I was riding slowly and courteously, and the officer was courteous with me, yet I was incredulous, as I'd never heard of a university campus where bicycling was not allowed.

Bike parking at the North Classroom Building was recently expanded, though it's already filled to capacity.

During the following years, I investigated casually as a student, and then officially as a member of the Chancellor's Task Force on Sustainability. I worked my way through various campus staff and administrators, but the origins and purpose of the bike exclusion policy were hazy and responses generally fell in two groups. One group of responses acknowledged that policies didn't allow bike riding for safety reasons, primarily to remove the possibility of bike/pedestrian collisions, but don't worry, you can still walk your bike anywhere. Meanwhile, squadrons of campus maintenance vehicles–golf carts, small trucks, large trucks, and ATVs–were and are still driven all over campus, driving on sidewalks and paths, weaving around pedestrians, sometimes at high speed. Apparently, somehow these much larger and faster vehicles do not pose a safety concern.

The second type of general response was that the official or campus administrator was completely unaware of policies excluding bicycling on campus, often accompanied by an admission that they had never even thought to ride a bike to campus.

After many years and through the efforts of many people, in the end, the policy logjam appears to be easing. Things seem to be changing for the better. The present situation is far from perfect, but we now have an East-West bike route, and a future North-South bike route has been hinted. An on-campus Denver B-cycle station is even planned for Spring 2013. However, the next logical, critical, yet somehow missing step should be education of campus occupants as to the purpose of the new bike lanes.

Whenever I've been on the Curtis Street bike route, pedestrians and parked service vehicles are omnipresent in the clearly marked bike lanes, even though parallel sidewalks, driveways, or service docks are nearby. Additionally, pedestrians inattentively walk into the lanes without looking, sometimes in front of approaching bicyclists. I don't like to think this way, but without a solid effort to educate all occupants of the campus regarding its new bike lanes, inevitably, any collision will probably be blamed on the bicyclist, regardless of actual fault.

Walking and talking is not uncommon on the Curtis Street bike route.

A delivery truck parked squarely in the middle of both lanes of the bike route, even though a service dock is close by.

To be fair to Auraria, delivery trucks are a common sight in Denver bike lanes outside of campus, too.

Goodbye Barnes Dance, hello mayoral candidates

Orange plastic shrouds mark the end of an era.

If you've been in downtown Denver since Monday, you may have noticed that the diagonally facing crosswalk signals have been covered in orange plastic since Monday. The option for pedestrians to cross diagonally at intersections, otherwise known as the Barnes Dance after former Denver traffic engineer Henry Barnes, has gone the way of the dodo.

The Barnes Dance fell victim to the nature of its inherent geometry and disadvantageous timing. As with many of life's challenges, illumination with regard to this instance draws upon the Pythagorean theorem, which states that in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. Applied to the Barnes Dance, the distance across the hypotenuse (diagonal crosswalk) is greater than that of either of its sides (perpendicular crosswalks). You might say, "Okay, so Pythagoras says it is farther to cross diagonally than it is to cross perpendicularly. So what?"

Ah, but if that is your response, then you may have forgotten the "disadvantageous timing" part of the first sentence in the preceding paragraph. The timing problem arises with new standards for the average walking speed attributed to pedestrians. Apparently present day pedestrians traverse less ground per second than did pedestrians during the era in which the Barnes Dance came into being, increasing the time needed to complete a diagonal crossing, thus throwing a wrench into the timing of a three phase traffic signal cycle. Slow walkers, whatever their reason, contributed to the demise of the Barnes Dance. However you frame it, the decreased speed of pedestrians equates to a sad commentary on society.

The hypotenuse is no longer an option. Way to go, slowpokes.

In bike news, check out the answers to a bicycle issues questionnaire put to the Denver mayoral candidates by BikeDenver. If you are a Denver voter and ride a bike, it is important for you to understand where the candidates fall in relation to your concerns. Thanks to BikeDenver for this valiant effort to inform the bicyclists of Denver.

Let's encourage the next Mayor to make bicycling in Denver even better.

As a postscript, congrats to Chris at Pavement's Edge on your new longtail bikes. May they carry you and yours far and with fun.

When bikes were called wheels

I ordinarily only post content that I have generated myself; a simple formula of bike-y photos with accompanying text. However, I will bend this self-imposed pattern for the moment, foregoing the former and creating a commentary on content generated by others through the latter. I've been swayed to this action because in the course of research I came across some old editions of a bike magazine at archive.org that were just too amazing not to share. The magazine is so old that it's not from the 21st century or even the 20th century. These archived issues of Cycling Life date from the Victorian Era bike heyday of the late 19th century, when bikes were called 'wheels' and a broad segment of people became acquainted with personal mobility to a degree unprecedented in history.

In terms of raw innovation, influence on infrastructural advancement and, in particular, social impact, there was exponentially more going on in the U.S. regarding bikes in the late 1890s than even the most impressive whiz-bang gizmos or Portland-esque policies of the present bike-related swell of interest. Enormous, lasting changes were ignited at the time, such as the development of light-weight alloys, pneumatic tires and high quality steel in pursuit of building ever better bikes, as well as improved roads demanded of public officials by crowds of bicyclists. It is too often forgotten that nascent motorized vehicles benefited disproportionately from, and later almost entirely usurped these advancements originally championed by bicyclists.

The story of the revolutionary impact of bicycles on U.S. culture and infrastructure begins to emerge with each successive page of the archived editions. There are gems at every turn, such as the fact that in 1896 the U.S. exported a substantial amount of bikes to a number of countries including Holland, Denmark, France and Belgium, that railroads were developing improved ways to carry bikes on train cars, and that the benefits of physical activity for women were being discussed in an open forum, perhaps for the first time. There is even photographic evidence that a multiple rider three-wheeled ancestor of the Surly Pugsley once existed with astonishingly large dimensions. All of these items and more can be found in just the first few pages.

I enjoy just about any bicycle related material. I look forward to the latest Rivendell Reader or Bicycle Quarterly as much as any self-acknowledged bike nerd, but the breadth, depth and scope of Cycling Life, not to mention its deliciously borderline pedantic writing style make anything produced today pale in comparison. A favorite recurring line in each issue:

Cycling Life does not relate unimportant events at great length. Quality outranks quantity in Its preparation. Its contributors are men of sound judgment.

Anyway, enough from me. If you've read this far, consider yourself in the target demographic. Do yourself a favor and check out this treasure of the ages. However, be forewarned; the archive has 1,326 juicy pages just waiting to whisk you away from your responsibilities. You're welcome.

http://www.archive.org/details/cyclinglife00test

Colorado Bike Summit

The Titan stands alone on Capitol Hill.

I was fortunate to be able to attend Colorado's first ever bike summit, which finished up a two day run today. It coincided with some chilly weather hovering around 0F, and a blizzard that began last night and continued into the morning. The summit attracted many of the most enthusiastic and connected bike people from around the state and the region. A lot is happening with a variety of bicycle related efforts throughout Colorado, and it was enlightening to gain a better view of the big picture.

Denver Mayor Bill Vidal was the lead-off speaker on Monday.

The first day of the summit featured several speakers including Mayor Bill Vidal of Denver, Dan Grunig of Bicycle Colorado, Tim Blumenthal of Bikes Belong, John Burke of Trek, and Randy Neufeld of SRAM Cycling Fund. Later in the day, breakout sessions focused on complete streets, safe routes to school and the power of mountain biking in your community.

Overall the content was thought provoking and the opportunity to discuss issues with new and different people contributed to a solidly positive experience. At the end of the first day I left convinced that frequent communication within the state's bicycling community would probably do much to identify common goals and facilitate projects.

A wind driven snow storm began as I returned home on Monday night.

I should take a moment to mention that I finished reassembling my Titan on Sunday evening just prior to the bike summit, with the help of my ever eager shop assistant. The Titan had dependably performed for several years during an extended period between service intervals, and is now ready for many more.

Shop assistant / bike fairy using her magnetic wand to identify objects made of ferrous materials. This grin signifies a positive discovery.

On Tuesday, the Colorado Bike Summit continued with a trip to the state capitol for constituents to meet elected officials and to ask for support of bi-partisan house bill 1092. The bill would ensure road rights for bicycles on public thoroughfares or require the necessity to provide alternative routes. The goal is to resolve Blackhawk's unreasonable bike ban, and to stem potential similar actions which might deny bicyclists from access to public roads elsewhere.

Representative Andy Kerr (D) and Senator Greg Brophy (R) are co-sponsors of the bill. After a press conference, Rep. Kerr took a spin on his bike for a photo op in front of the capitol building. It turns out he forgot his helmet, and I happened to be the only person around with one, so I loaned him mine.

Rep. Kerr sporting my trusty old helmet, still featuring the team 290 sticker.

Making sure the moment is adequately recorded for posterity.

Rep. Kerr and Sen. Brophy did a great job talking about how bicycling tourism, industries and activities are important contributors to Colorado's economy, and that arbitrary bike bans such as in Blackhawk create a negative image for the state. Kerr is a regular bike commuter and noted that although bicycling is possible here for nearly every day of the year, today was one of the few exceptions. I won't argue his point of view, except to say that I had a nice ride anyway.

Regardless of weather-related challenges, reduced traffic volume and much slower car speeds equals good riding in my book.

On Oregon House Bill 2228

I never thought riding one of these would make me an 'outlaw biker.'

Note: This is an expanded version of a comment I left on the Xtracycle Every Day Adventurers blog concerning proposed Oregon legislation.

I know that this is ostensibly a blog about biking in and around Denver, but any implied geographic boundaries are loosened when issues of import arise. As such, a state representative in Oregon has proposed an ill-informed bill that could have a chilling effect on carrying passengers under the age of six on a bicycle. The bill would restrict any child under six from being a passenger on a bicycle or in a bicycle trailer. If passed, this policy could spread to other states, so it should be of concern to all of us who value family bicycling and car-reduced transportation.

I have a few thoughts on the value of having children under the age of six as passengers on bicycles based on my own experience. To begin, I'll present some background. I live in car-centric suburban Denver with my wife and five-year old daughter. In part because I found the design to be so appealing, and in part to reduce our car use, I bought a Big Dummy cargo bike in 2008, soon after they first became available. The effect was immediately transformational. Riding together as a family for recreation, errands and commuting to work and school has made us healthier and happier.

My daughter loves to ride the Big Dummy, although she is able to ride her own bike. She started out in a Burly trailer, and was overjoyed in moving to riding on the rear seat of the Big Dummy, or "our bike" as she calls it. Wherever we go, she happily informs curious people about how we use the bike and what it can carry. She enjoys arriving at school on the Big Dummy, which is usually mobbed by kids telling us how cool they think the bike is and asking if their parents can get one too. In no small part because of her experience riding from an early age, I'm confident my daughter will be physically active and a lifetime bike rider, both valuable to counter health risks prevalent in our culture. She is also more engaged with our community and the world around her; highly useful building blocks for creating good citizens.

We are now a two cargo bike family. This past year, I built an Xtracycle for my wife. Because we ride our bikes frequently, we now know more about our neighbors and neighborhood and are more likely to visit local restaurants and businesses than in the past. In a car, we tend to stick to standard routes around town, spending money at a relatively few number of places. On bikes we are more free to explore, spending money not needed for gasoline throughout our community.

To be clear, I am not an anti-car advocate, but instead in favor of using the correct vehicle for the job. Our family owns two cars, but we use them much less frequently around town than before. Like others in this country who are pioneering life with reduced car dependence, a law to restrict carrying young children by bike would be detrimental to our health, economics and quality of life.