"yogurt pedaling"

Last weekend, I met the "yogurt pedaler," Annie Lambla.  Annie's biking from Chicago to Ohio, visiting farms and markets along the way, and teaching people about locally-made yogurt.  While in C-U, she visited Urbana's Market at the Square and UIUC's Quad Day, came out to our alleycat race, and graciously agreed to an interview for Smile Politely:

SP: Where did you get the idea to bike around with the yogurt trailer?

Annie: At first, I had an idea to ride around the Midwest from farm to farm, learning about new farms on the road, and selling my yogurt along the way.  My friend suggested building up a bike machine to run a refrigerator while I pedaled, but all of that just became too complicated and expensive.  So I decided to change it into a project to inspire people to get excited about making things, which is what bikes and yogurt have done for me.

You can read more of the interview here and follow Annie's bike tour at yogurtpedaler.com.

"the earth doesn't care if you drive a hybrid car"

... is the title (or at least a title) of this Robert Laughlin piece in the American Spectator.  Alternately entitled "What the Earth Knows," the essay argues that within the barely imaginable spans of "geologic time," the impact of human beings' carbon emissions is less than negligible.  It's a provocative thesis and leads to this great paragraph:

On the scales of time relevant to itself, the earth doesn’t care about any of these governments or their legislation. It doesn’t care whether you turn off your air conditioner, refrigerator, and television set. It doesn’t notice when you turn down your thermostat and drive a hybrid car. These actions simply spread the pain over a few centuries, the bat of an eyelash as far as the earth is concerned, and leave the end result exactly the same: all the fossil fuel that used to be in the ground is now in the air, and none is left to burn. The earth plans to dissolve the bulk of this carbon dioxide into its oceans in about a millennium, leaving the concentration in the atmosphere slightly higher than today’s. Over tens of millennia after that, or perhaps hundreds, it will then slowly transfer the excess carbon dioxide into its rocks, eventually returning levels in the sea and air to what they were before humans arrived on the scene. The process will take an eternity from the human perspective, but it will be only a brief instant of geologic time.

Laughlin recently discussed carbon and peak oil on an interesting podcast with Russ Roberts, a George Mason economist.  There, Laughlin speculates that while we may run out of oil within 60 or so years, human beings will likely begin to use liquefied coal and biofuels to create liquid fuels.  Most provocatively, Laughlin seems to suggest that human beings will never stop using carbon energy because nothing can replace it and people will never give up cars, airplanes, and the like.  The podcast's worth a listen (especially if you've got a long drive back from O'Hare!)

e-bikes in chicago!

Today, an entrepreneurship blog at Crain's Chicago Business featured a long interview with John LaStarge, owner of Chicago Electric Bicycles.

The business started when LaStarge converted a mountain bike into an e-bike, then sold it to a relative.  A year later, Chicago Electric Bicycles offers four different e-bikes.

In the interview, LaStarge talks about the motive and means behind his e-bike business:

In the spring of 2008, gas prices shot up to about $4.50 a gallon in Chicago and angry CTA commuters were complaining about bad service and high costs. I thought: there’s got to be another way to get around this city. I’ve always loved bicycles, so I looked up electric bikes online and bought one from overseas. The battery only lasted three months and they didn’t offer any services or support. So I decided to build my own.

 Read more over at Enterprise City.

"driving is why you're fat"

Good Magazine diagrams a simple equation: the more time you spend driving a car, the more likely you are to be overweight.  Meanwhile, the DC Streets blog reports that the car-dependent states are more likely to have high rates of obesity.

"Correlation isn't causation..." of course, but interesting stats nonetheless.

One Less Car hits (virtual) shelves

Zack Furness, a Cultural Studies professor at Chicago's Columbia College, has written a book called One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility. (It's published by Temple University Press. Click the link to order a copy for $24.95 from AK Press, who are doing good work for the cause of anarchy.) Furness will be donating all royalties from the sale of One Less Car to community bike projects in Pittsburgh and Chicago.

Furness will hopefully be coming to Champaign-Urbana in the fall on his promotional tour, but in the meantime, check out his book.

new design plus links

If the blog looks prettier lately, it's because I just redid it with blogger's new design templates.  Here's hoping it's now more legible.

I also just added a collection of links to (mostly) local blogs and other (mostly) local sites, both bike-centric and not.  Find them by scrolling down and checking out the righthand column, beneath "archives" and "labels."

If you've got a site or blog you'd like us to link (and want to link us back in return!) email us!

"biking on the cheap"

Yes, it's kind of hidden, but we do have a wiki.  Besides hosting various organizational docs, the wiki also contains cycling info, some C-U specific, some good for anywhere. 

My favorite are the links collected under "Advice - Biking on the Cheap."  There you'll find links to instructions for all sorts of DIY bike projects, like making your own LED lights, fenders, panniers, studded tires, messenger bags, repair stands, and even porter racks, such as this one from bikecommuters.com:

(photo from bikecommuters.com!)

weekend bike events?

We've got some!

First, the Art Gallery Bicycle Tour, which was rained out last weekend, will take place rain or shine this Saturday, 12 June.  It's a self-paced ride around town, punctuated by visits to some of C-U's art galleries.  Entry fee is a $10 and you'll get a discount on food at some participating restaurants. Check out the Champaign Cycles page for more details.  (And read a preview I wrote for last fall's iteration of the Tour.)

This weekend Champaign will also host Taste of C-U in West Side Park.  Some Bike Project volunteers will be volunteering at the bike corral and if you get there by bicycle, you'll get a free drink ticket good at one of the Pepsi tents.  The Champaign Park District website has more info.

(And if you'd like to see some live theater, the U-C IMC's hosting a "woven collage of music, theater, and dance" called Aquatown: A Future Hydrohistory.)

The Bike Project's also got a bunch of open hours this weekend if you'd like to stop by our shops.  The U-C IMC shop will be open 2-5pm on Saturday and Sunday; the Campus Bike Project from 5-9pm on Sunday.

Hope to see you out and about!

pix of the urbana shop

During open hours last night, Bike Project volunteer Carl made some pictures of the U-C IMC shop.  I showed up just in time to appear in one:

You can find more photos of both our shops (and some of our recent trip to Kickapoo) over at our photobucket page.

the bike project on tv!

(We cleaned the campus shop especially well last night because...)

This morning, Campus Bike Project manager Joel and The Bike Project's Volunteer Coordinator Emma appeared in two segments on WCIA's morning show!  WCIA's Nichole Szemerei spoke with Joel and Emma outside the campus shop and then Emma showed off the shop itself, including our collection of build-a-bike possibilities.

• Here's the first video, in which Joel and Emma talk about The Bike Project.

• And here's the second, in which Joel undertakes a brake repair while Emma shows off the shop and talks about the co-op.

PS: if you want a Bike Project tee shirt like those Joel and Emma are wearing, come by the U-C IMC shop in Urbana and get one for a $10 donation!  And if you'd like to become a member or to check out The Bike Project, stop by either the campus shop or the U-C IMC shop during open hours.

PPS: Thanks to Joel and Emma and thanks, too, to Nichole and WCIA!

and we're back

We've been on vacation from blogging, spending time scouring rust off old Schwinns with steel wool and elbow grease.  We really should get a Dremel.

But last week we heard that we "should totally blog about the shop!" ... and we agree.

Despite our laxity, we're still in the news!  Smile Politely (our incestuous sort of sister site) featured an article by a U of I journalism student about how we recycle old bikes.  And next week, probably on Monday, 7 June, C-U tv station WCIA's morning show will feature a segment on The Bike Project live from the campus shop.

And if you're looking for some bike-related fun this weekend, check out C-U's Art Gallery Bicycle Tour.  (Here's a preview I wrote for Smile Politely for the last iteration of the Tour.)

One last PSA: if you'd like to contribute to the blog, please email us and let us know.

"building a better cycling culture"

Yesterday, Smile Politely posted an article about how communities across the U.S. have tried to encourage bicycling.  Dedicated bike lanes turn out to have a big impact, which is good news for Urbana since the city council just recommended implementing bike lanes on Main Street.

There's a lot of great stuff in the article, but this is my favorite (I'm still upset about my home state, Florida, getting impacted by BP's oil spill):

Creating bicycle infrastructure has been shown to have significant safety and economic benefits.  In addition to these benefits bicycling is the most efficient form of transportation in terms of fuel used and Green House Gases (GHG) produced.  About 50% of the average American households GHG emissions are for transportation.  Switching a few trips per week per household to walking/ bicycling/transit has more impact on reducing GHG emissions than replacing all household light bulbs with compact fluorescents, increasing insulation, replacing energy inefficient appliances, and replacing windows with energy efficient ones.  Any community that wants to reduce its carbon footprint has to provide infrastructure for walking, biking, and transit to give residents safe, easy, and accessible transportation choices.

 Here's the rest of it!

online petition to support a bike-friendly downtown urbana

Tonight the Urbana City Council will meet and discuss their master bicycle plan.  If you can make it to the meeting, you should come out.  If you can't -- and even if you can -- but still want to show support for a bicycle-friendly downtown Urbana, Champaign County Bikes has developed an online petition you can sign to express your support for keeping Urbana bike-friendly.  Here's the details:

For all Champaign County residents - NOT just citizens of Urbana! As Urbana is the County Seat everyone in Champaign County should fill-in this petition.

BACKGROUND
Urbana has been recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. Creating an active transportation system for Urbana will improve our residents health, add economic benefits, reduce our carbon footprint, and give our community more choices in transportation.

WHAT IS NEEDED
The Urbana City Council approved the Urbana Bicycle Master Plan and an Urbana Downtown Plan that both call for the redesign of Main Street in downtown Urbana implementing a road diet that would improve safety, reduce traffic speeds, create a more attractive environment for shoppers and diners and provide better access for pedestrians and bicyclists. The Urbana Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission also approved this plan as did the Officers and Steering Committee of Champaign County Bikes. Road diets have been shown to slow and calm vehicle traffic and encourage bicyclists and pedestrians to shop and enjoy the downtown. We encourage the city council to proceed with implementation of these plans.

WHY
The Urbana Bicycle Master Plan was created with the assistance of the best professional bicycle and transportation consultants in the state of Illinois along with the City of Urbana staff and extensive public input. It's implementation will provide safe, affordable, and healthy access for bicycling as a regular mode of transportation. In 2008 this plan won awards from both the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association and the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, validating the very high level of expertise and the outstanding quality of Urbana's plan for bicycles in the city's future. Implementation of our excellent bike plan will benefit many generations to come and enhance the vitality of our downtown.

Thank You!
Champaign County Bikes

Please come to the Urbana City Council meeting this coming Monday evening, 5/10/2010.
Urbana City Building, 400 South Vine Street Urbana, IL 61801
Be there at 6:45. Meeting begins at 7:00PM

For more information about the street plan and for Urbana City Council contact information, please visit: http://UrbanaBikeLanes.notlong.com.

diy panniers

I just got a new bike... and, then, a new rear rack.  So now I'm looking for some panniers and realizing that I don't like much of what's out there.  Since it's an Axiom rack, I figured I'd check out some of the Axiom bags other bike co-op members seem to like.  These Monsoons looked great on our recent Tour de Kickapoo, but I don't know if I like them enough to drop one of those newfangled hundred dollar bills on them.  I'm into these grocery bags on Etsy.com, but like a lot of stuff on Etsy my second thought was "I could make that."

So I'm gonna try!  I'm reading up on plans for diy panniers found through everybody's favorite subject supposed to know, google.com, and lucky for you I'm sharing what I've found so far:

Here's the primary source, from a research scientist who presents the plans for his panniers exactly like you'd expect a research scientist would: using LATEX and featuring an abstract!  (When and if I perfect mine, I'll present the plans using the stupid conventional humanities-speak-title.)  From there, I discovered some other plans:

• This link features another set of conventional plans -- in an intelligible writing style!
• Here are two links about recycling old army bags into panniers.  I think I'm modeling mine on the second.
• Just for fun, here's one about recycling kitty litter buckets into panniers.  Virtue: it's waterproof!
• Another, from instructables.com!

Updates on my panniers coming soon.

"if you love oil spills, keep driving your car..."

"...and if you care about the future of human beings on the planet, please kiss your car goodbye."  So argues Jason Henderson in an article for alternet.org about the irresolvable contradiction between caring for the environment and owning and operating an automobile.  Some exemplary paragraphs:

We need oil to make the "shift" to other energy paths. Yet the vast majority of oil that Americans consume is squandered for short drive-thru trips. We are seeking to expand drilling offshore and in remote areas to keep this system of automobility afloat. At the same time we as a nation expect to make a great leap to new energy systems but that will require lots of oil to build them. We cannot do both.

To any rational thinking person this should be an alarming state of affairs. But to people who identify themselves as political progressives and yet continue to own and drive cars on a routine basis, this should be an embarrassment. Any progressive-leftist-liberal-"green"-environmentalist cannot, with a clear conscience, drive his or her children to school and expect those children to find a planet they'll thrive on. He or she cannot smugly shrug that the transit system does not go where he or she wants to go, or that the distances are too far to ride a bicycle. Any able-bodied progressive who regularly exclaims "But I need to drive!" is in need of some deep reflection on his or her values and especially the idea of a green car.

The "green car" movement has been around since the rise in environmental awareness and recognition of resource scarcity. It reflects how American progressives have held a great discomfort in trying to balance the convenient automobile lifestyle enabled by oil against the messy work of extracting and refining oil. The Prius will not cut it. Engaging in some sort of medieval offset-indulgence scheme won't either. You are driving an oil-consuming machine made from polymers derived from oil and designed to carry you under 30 miles a day in an urban configuration.

According to Henderson, by driving a car you could be complicit in destroying the beaches in my home state, Florida.

bike generated electricity and its vicissitudes

April gave us two prominent news stories about places using stationary bikes to generate electricity.  It's green power, of course, but the social meaning of such "renewable power" turns out to be determined almost entirely by the whole state of things in which it's embedded.  In the first story, for instance, bike-power appears as a... let us say unusual punishment enforced on prisoners unfortunate enough to be locked down in Arizona.  In the second story, by contrast, bike-power is a luxury for wealthy and rootless cosmopolitans.

First up: a report on "America's toughest sheriff"'s decision to require inmates at an unusual outdoor jail in the proto-police state of Arizona to pedal on a stationary bike to generate electricity if they want to watch television:

Arpaio installed an energy-generating stationary bike (PDF) attached to a TV when he found that 50 percent of the inmates were overweight, many morbidly so. As long as an inmate is pedaling, the bike will produce 12 volts of energy--just enough to power a 19-inch tube TV. But if an inmate stops pedaling at a moderate speed, the TV shuts off.
Because inmates can't be forced to exercise, access to cable TV could provide incentive for them to do so. Female prisoners will test the program first, because they were more receptive to it, Arpaio says.

Next: a story about the Crowne Plaza Hotel in bicycle-friendly Copenhagen, at which guests who pedal a stationary bike to generate electricity earn a free meal:

Guests will have to produce at least 10 watt hours of electricity - roughly 15 minutes of cycling for someone of average fitness....Guests staying at Plaza Hotel will be given meal vouchers worth $36 (26 euros; £23) once they have produced 10 watt hours of electricity, hotel spokeswoman Frederikke Toemmergaard told the BBC News website.

Here you can make your own conclusion. 

Make it witty.

California Proposes Ban on Texting While Biking

From NPR: Senator Simitian is trying to get a bill passed that includes cyclists in California's hands-free cell phone law. Sounds like a pretty good idea, what do you think?

slate.com asks... "why are there no hipsters (and track bikes) in China?"

...and no "ironic" fixed gear bikes, in particular. Despite the fact that 51 million bikes were sold in China in 2009, the fixed gear trend apparently hasn't caught on there.

Why? Well, as Slate tells it, "the anemic fixie scene seems to offer an object lesson in the difficulty of marketing fashion irony here":

"There is a saying in Chinese: 'Laugh at the poor, not the prostitutes,' " Juanjuan Wu, a professor at the University of Minnesota and author of Chinese Fashion From Mao to Now, told me. "Hipster fashion only really works by communicating your irony—in other words, someone needs to 'get it.' Hipster irony in dress would most likely be misinterpreted in Chinese society as simple poverty or weirdness."

(Bonus: The Flying Pigeon Project blogs about classic Chinese bicycles. Here's the Wikipedia article about Flying Pigeon, a Chinese bike company. Fun fact: Flying Pigeon bikes have 28 x 1-1⁄2 inch wheels.)

report from the first "bike stroll"

Sunday, we went out for an aimless slow ride, ostensibly a) to check the gearing on my new Sturmey-Archer 5 speed internally geared hub and b) to see, in person, some murals we'd seen in pictures last Friday night at C-U's Pecha Kucha night (which was a great success!).

Well, the hub's working great but we never made it to the murals. We got sidetracked watching some UIUC dance students perform an improvisational piece -- while dressed to look sort of like zombies -- in a barn on the south side of campus. Bike Project volunteer Tony wrote about the experience for Smile Politely:

There was a large troupe of dancers in dark coveralls moving about, shuffling, sliding, writhing, and plunging in a mixture of zombie-like and playful ways. Almost as interesting as the dancers was the space. The basement of the barn was a dairy operation with eerie metal cages and milking stations set up in a circular array. Upstairs in the humongous domed hay loft a silo formed the center and the curvature of the roof drew the eye upward.... A spare musical accompaniment complemented the improvisational dancers as they were drawn into the hay loft. The audience was mixed in with the performers and they were clearly engrossed in the piece.

And so we're making Bike Stroll a weekly event. More details soon, but we'll be having very slow, very relaxed aimless rides around town on Sunday evenings departing at 5:30pm from The Bike Project shop. Check the blog again soon for more details!

the official bike project deck

...and by deck, I mean slideshow, powerpoint style...

Tonight Campus Bike Project manager Joel will be presenting a slideshow at C-U's third Pecha Kucha night. Never heard of Pecha Kucha? Well...

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

You can learn more about Pecha Kucha here. C-U's third Pecha Kucha takes place tonight, 16 April, beginning at 8pm at the Canopy Club. The Bike Project goes on early, with a slideshow about some basic bike repairs.