Month: April 2007

Biking in Astoria

Bike Polo

Also in the Times, there’s a good video about bicycle polo. Registration probably required. And of course there are good 1st-hand accounts on Bike Blog. How come his friends are cooler than mine? And I think my friends are pretty cool.

Fixed Gears in the Times

It’s not a bad article. Actually, once you get past the part that implies fixed-gears can’t stop because they don’t have brakes, it’s surprisingly good. But I can imagine writers convincing editors about their story about these crazy people that ride bikes… get this… Without Brakes(!). FYI, my fixed gear has fenders and front brakes.…
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B.S. for Bike Safety

Here’s a link to the NYC bike safety report. It doesn’t really say much. Or blame cars enough. And most of the statistics are pretty useless, most often because they have no denominator. What’s the use of knowing bike injuries by month if you don’t know how many people ride each month? And despite my…
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Fun on a one-speed

A post about Heaven on Keep It Street Level: Riding a one-gear bike takes effort, especially when hills are involved. And sometimes it’s a real struggle out there. But every so often, Heaven is reached on the road. The grade of the road, the selected gear ratio and leg strength all come together at once…
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Bikes allowed on Roosevelt Island ramp

So I was coming back from the Lower East Side biking home at 3am. Unromantically, I left my wife to take the subway because she didn’t bike. But the Queensboro Bridge bike path is closed. For construction. Like is has been on and off for a year. But instead of waiting for the bus or…
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Keep it street level

I’ve just unabashedly borrowed this cartoon from another bike blog I’ve just discovered.There is other good stuff on this blog, too. Like this post on bike commuters.

Bizarro parade permit

Check out the NYPD’s parade permit, now needed to assemble groups on bikes. Believe it or not, I still have faith that the courts will rule this in mad-crazy violation of, well, the First Amendment. I’ll be really scared when it turns out I’m wrong. I like the bizarro permit from Why I ride much…
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New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans was great. Still very fucked-up, mind you. But a wonderful city. Good biking. Great food. An easy city to strike up a conversation with strangers. I was charmed. Too bad the city was destroyed and nobody seems to care. It’s two years later, for Christ’s sake, and it looks like the storm hit…
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Biking in New Orleans

I’m back, with stories and pictures… In a few days. I’m getting a new computer as my old one is telling me in no uncertain terms that it’s tired of life. Meanwhile read what Zora says: New Orleans is a fabulous place to ride a bike. The fact that I’m mentioning this before the food…
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Off to New Orleans

I’m off to New Orleans for a wedding. We got a heads-up about a place to rent bikes. So we should be tooling around in style. I’ll be the one wearing a green top hat, if I can find one. For a little preview on biking in the city, see Dan Baum’s excellent New Yorker…
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