August 2, 2016Leave a Comment
I have over 20,000 images at Flickr.com/bike, many of which are available for you or anyone else to use for any purpose you want under the Creative Commons “Share Alike – Attribution Required” license.
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July 27, 20164 Comments on Wuhan bike lake jump festival
Do you remember when that kid at summer camp dared you to ride a bike off of the end of the fishing pier? In Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, they’re apparently calling this a “festival” and using it to raise awareness of environmental issues.
If you decide to try this at home, be sure to use a junk bike because water will damage the moving parts. Attach flotation to the bike frame so you can more easily retrieve your bike from the bottom of the pond. In the United States, polyethylene foam swimming pool noodles wrapped around the frame are a popular form of flotation.
Now I wonder: do fat tires provide enough buoyancy to keep fat-tire bikes afloat in water? If a cheap, discount retail fatbike weighs 50 lbs, what volume of air in a tire is required to displace that weight?
July 25, 2016Leave a Comment
I don’t often mention my online bike route tool because it’s mostly a recreational programming thing for me, but it has features that some people might find interesting.
Like most such tools, you enter a start and destination, hit “Bike There,” and the tool will (hopefully) give you a somewhat reasonable route. This screen capture shows the route selected by Google in blue, vs the route suggested by Mapquest in red.
July 20, 20163 Comments on For those about to ride, we salute you
A salute to Ian, David, Dan, Karen, Brent, Karl and Vinny, who joined this morning’s San Jose Bike Train.
Vinny, a regular bike train participant, is a Vietnamese guy who routinely bikes to his technology job in Santa Clara. This morning he rode his Bianchi San Remo, a lugged CrMo touring bike. In his heavily accented English, Vinny told me about AC/DC’s upcoming tour of Vietnam.
July 19, 20162 Comments on Online bike registration for Santa Cruz CA residents
The city of Santa Cruz Police Department announced their online bicycle registration last week. Registration is free and and never expires. See details at the Santa Cruz Police Blog, which includes stories of successful stolen bike recovery because the owners registered their bikes.
June 27, 20164 Comments on San Tomas Aquino Trail mowing
The Santa Clara Valley Water District began mowing along the lower reaches of the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail in Santa Clara, California last Thursday. Portions of the trail may be subject to closing during mowing.
If you see a tractor on the trail with a big side-mounted mower and the trail is still open, proceed with caution — the operator is watching for trail users, but he also wants to avoid driving his tractor into the creek. If the operator feels like he can’t work safely because some jackass in a hurry just has to get past right away, the contractor will close the trail, so please don’t ruin it for the rest of us, okay?
Contractors are working roughly from north to south, although they haven’t touched the area in the immediate vicinity of Highway 237 as of this writing. This trail work will take place Monday – Saturday and will continue into July as they work through to south of Highway 101.
The City of Santa Clara notice says “trail users to be re-routed to the opposite bank and facilitate passage,” but I don’t know if that means the water district plans to open the unpaved east-bank service road, which is normally closed to the public.