Author: Richard Masoner

Daylight savings ends Sunday

Richard MasonerNovember 3, 20072 Comments on Daylight savings ends Sunday

To cyclists, that means another hour for riding in the mornings as well as an excuse to write another bike haiku like Frank did. 🙂

Here’s a picture from what I did yesterday. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is about a 10 minute bike ride from my front door. In the photo I’m fording across the San Lorenzo River. From there I rode uphill into Santa Cruz Pogonip Park, onto the U-Conn Trail, and then I did a couple of loops through UCSC forest trails before zooming downhill into the city of Santa Cruz where I caught a bus back home. The weather was beautiful — sunny and with a high of nearly 80°F in November! Like Jason wrote, “Being a cyclist means hating global warming … but liking it warm. Oh, the humanity!”

Mountain bike fording the San Lorenzo River

The bike is an old low-end GT mountain bike that’s now about ten years old but still going strong.

Mountain bike tip of the day: When you hop over a 12 inch log, watch your landing zone for large obstructions! If you don’t, you might face plant like I did — that’s dirt from the trail on my face after I shoveled straight in just like Steve Austin’s experimental spaceplane shoveled into the runway in the Six Million Dollar Man.

Posted In haiku

DIY Rainlegs

Richard MasonerNovember 2, 20074 Comments on DIY Rainlegs

I think many cyclists are familiar with Rainlegs, which are lightweight water and wind resistant panels that cover the thighs to keep your pants dry in the rain. For cyclists, they’re perfect adjuncts to fenders.

“khyungyokpo” in Seattle gives his step-by-step instructions for Ghetto-style rainlegs made from a $16 pair of rubberized rainpants in this Flickr photoset.


Props to Bike Hugger, who has some extra notes and tips from the ghetto rainlegs designer himself.

Posted In diy

Natural disasters are good for search engine results

Richard MasonerNovember 1, 20072 Comments on Natural disasters are good for search engine results

The cooling weather means fewer people are reading bicycle blogs in the Northern Hemisphere, so traffic has dropped off significantly here at Cyclelicious. I’ve discovered that a local disaster does wonders for website traffic, though. It even earned me a link from a high ranking website (and thanks for that, Jordan!).

I posted a note about the San Jose Earthquake within minutes of the quake. That evening, my unique visitor count tripled from my previous day’s count. I suppose I could write something either profound or sophomoric on our need to connect with other human beings in a dramatic shared experience and how Web 2.0 enables this human interaction in powerful new ways, but I’m just a computer nerd who likes to ride a bicycle.

The technology of the web held up just fine in Silicon Valley. My cellphone didn’t work, but Twitter, Flickr, Blogger and the World Wide Web in general all stayed up and running, along with my Internet phone service. The Internet is descended from “ARPANET“, a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project. While the Internet would not survive a world-ending nuclear exchange, it hummed along with nary a hiccup during the quake in the heart of Silicon Valley. It helped, of course, that damage was limited to falling merchandise and hundreds of thousands of library books.

While I’m talking web stats, Alta Bikes is still in my top ten . Kirsten Gum remains a favorite at number four on the list; there’s quite a bit of interest in the Chanel bicycle; and more than a few people are still looking at Interbike 2007 information.

Posted In seo

Lance Armstrong and Ashley Olsen

Richard MasonerNovember 1, 200722 Comments on Lance Armstrong and Ashley Olsen

After four years of dating older women, 36 year old Lance Armstrong apparently likes ’em young now. Shortly after his breakup with fashion designer Tory Burch, Armstrong has been seen in the company of tiny 21 year old twin Ashley Olsen. The New York Post reports that “Armstrong was seen ‘making out’ with the tiny actress perched on his lap.”

Until I saw this news, I still thought the Olsen twins were like 12 years old.

Props to Michael for the heads up. Hey, what happened to your blog?

Posted In Uncategorized

Bicycle evangelists and a contest

Richard MasonerOctober 31, 2007Leave a Comment

First of all, a VERY QUICK CONTEST for SF South Bay people only TODAY (October 31) ONLY. It’s kind of a scavenger hunt: I’m volunteering at a game booth at the Blackford Neighborhood Community Fun Fest which takes place TONIGHT at First Church at 878 Boynton, San Jose, CA. The Fun Festival is tonight from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (I think). I’m giving the first three people who track me down at this Fun Festival a $10 REI gift card, which I will send via email. You must show up with your bike, you must give me your name and email address (which I won’t share with anybody except REI), and you must allow me to take your photo on/with the bike that I can post to Flickr and to Cyclelicious. Show up at the Community Fun Fest at 878 Boynton Ave, find me after about 6:30 p.m. (ask the people with name tags for “Richard”, and win. Please note that the event is for children and families.

This is interesting news from the UK: Hello, I’m your personal travel adviser. Can I persuade you to get on your bike?

The doorbell will be ringing unexpectedly in millions of homes from next year as an army of government-funded “travel advisers” tries to persuade people to switch from driving to walking, cycling and public transport.

If you are out, they will keep coming back and will call up to ten times, even in the evenings or at weekends.

They will ask you about your travel habits and will offer advice tailored to your journeys, including maps for walking and bus timetables.

If you appear unconvinced, they will offer incentives such as discounts at local bike shops and outdoor stores and free pedometers to measure how far you are walking.

Read more in the London TimesOnline.

Posted In uk