Come to the Los Angeles Street Summit!

This Saturday is the second iteration of LA's Bike summit, this year dubbed the Street Summit. I've been invited to speak on a panel discussing the safe routes to school movement in Southern California.

I'll be discussing the successes we've had in Santa Clarita, as well as some of my blogging efforts to promote the movement of family biking. Stop on by if you are in the area. The Street Summit will be held at LA Trade Tech College, in downtown Los Angeles.

google maps provides "bike there" option

This is revolutionary.

Sort of. It provides a great online source of designated bike routes/lanes/paths in cities. From my experience, this news is an incredibly sharp double edged-sword.

Good news first:

One stop shopping for all your bike directions.

Bad news:

It relies on city-data that is...hopefully up to date. Many existing municipal routes or "class III" (in CA) were first installed in the 70's during the first bike boom. A good amount of these routes were slapped down willy nilly and now find themselves on major arterials. There's nothing "routey" about them.

Also, it could make people think that because their destinations aren't served by a complex network of bikeways, then it's impossible to access their destination by bike.

So it could give people a false sense of security, at least to the ill-informed. But it could also encourage a lot of people out there to start riding their bike. Hopefully, the latter.

new bike

I purchased a new fork and frame from a nice guy in Philadelphia (off Craigslist - the used bike haven!).

I fitted it with a few of my old components, and a few new ones (thanks honey). All in all, I'm looking forward to this guy being my daily commuter, adventure taker, touring bike.

I've already used it with the trailer and it's a good fit there too. The only issue I can see is that if Ashley and I were going on an extended ride/tour with George - I'd probably want to get a triple.

I've noticed that when pulling the trailer - I comfortably move down to my second chainring. Which is fine when cruising about town, but I'm guessing that for a small tour with any size hills, I'd want a few more options and some lower gears to work with.

on helments

California requires that all individuals under the age of 18 wear a helmet when on a bike, bike trailer, scooter, skateboard, etc.

While there is much debate about the efficacy of helmets (and more specifically, helmet laws) I think they are an incredibly valuable device. As one having previous experience with being hit by a car (and thrown off my bike), I'm sure my helmet spared me an unwelcomed bonk on the head and road rash.

For infants/toddlers, your options are pretty limited. Unfortunately you have to throw aesthetics to the wind because the designs are borderline gaudy.

There is a pretty decent selection of kids helmets at REI online. BUT - you can't see how well the helmet fits unless you are trying it on in person. If you are committed to an online purchase, most helmets specify what head circumference the helmet can accomodate, and since most regular checkups to the doctor now provide this measurement - getting a good fitting helmet has never been easier.

We opted for the Giro Spree Bike helmet for Toddlers. The graphics are repugnant but the fit is pretty good and it has blinky lights on the back, which is a nice bonus safety feature for night riding.

As you can see - first impressions were good.



In the trailer, it did prove to be a little more prone to slipping over his eyes. This could probably be solved by tightening the chin strap. The golden rule for chin strap tightness is "two fingers." You should be able to fit two fingers (aligned vertically) between your chin and the helmet strap. So, for kids helmets - is that kid fingers or adult? Probably kid. : )

When it comes to helmets and with most things... I think getting kids started early and setting an example by wearing one yourself, will ensure a long healthy relationship with your kids, helmets, and bicycling.

how to make your family hate riding

Sage advice from this month's Rivendell Reader.

pain in the butt

On my last (how poetic) day of commuting in 2009, my beloved Trek passed away. It was a bitter sweet moment of course. With a broken frame, I quickly realized that I'd soon be riding on my more modest, more unattractive, and uncomfortable "backup" bike.

I should be grateful that I even have (had) two bikes... so I am. I was.

This year, as with the past two, I'm recording the amount of miles I ride my bike. It's fun, harmless, and a geeky thing to do. As the miles start to pile up on my backup bike - I was really feeling motivated to getting a new bike. My back up is just plain uncomfortable.

One reason is the saddle. It's the classic 80's road saddle. Plastic, with a quarter inch thick layer of foam spread over it. It also happens to be somewhat narrow, so when I'm sitting on it, I really feel it. Zoiks.

As much as it offended my sense of aesthetics, I moved my brooks saddle over to my back up and my back side immediately thanked me. It is not fun to ride a bike on an uncomfortable saddle, and I was certainly cursing that narrow saddle.

The pain was exacerbated by the fact that I had been off the bike nearly three weeks, so I reckon I had lost some of the... "callous" one develops when they spend a lot of time on their bike.

The other pain in the butt I've been forced to face head on is the process of finding another bike. For those of us who's preference in bikes cannot be satiated by hopping into the nearest big box retailer, or even a local LBS without special order, these can be trying times.

I decided that this time around, I'm going full-on commuter tour frame. Full braze ons for racks, fenders, front and back. My trek 330 was only a pretender, probably known as a sport-touring frame back in its inception (1989).

So where does a bicyclist with a penchant for lugged, steel, touring minded bikes turn to? The first two sources should be obvious by now, but nonetheless bears repeating.

1. Ebay
2. Craigslist

A couple of tips for finding bikes on both of these heavily visited sites:

To save time on Ebay, you can create "saved" searches. If you are looking for something specific like a "Trek 400" it gives you the option to save your search, and when anyone lists something matching that criteria - you get an email. Awesome!

Craigslist is a whole separate beast. Good advice is - if you are pretty determined to find something and are getting skunked in your area, try searching in neighboring areas, like Orange or Ventura County.

Also, here's a tip to using google that will allow you to search ALL craigslist listings for your term, in one stroke:

site:craigslist.org "whatever you want to search"

Then google will pull up whatever you are looking for, from all the craigslists around the world. Buying on craigslist from someone who isn't in your town might be a little tricky - best advice I can give is look for a friend who lives in that city and ask them to scope it out for you.

Other sources include general online classifieds, forums (adventure cycling, bikeforums), and your friend network.

Speaking of network - hey readers, I'm looking for a mid 80's - 90's touring frame. 61cm or bigger.

Any advice you guys have to buying a bike online? What's worked for you?

flat tire tip: match your valve with the tire logo

I acquired most of my bike maintenance skills at a lovely bike co-op called the bikerowave. One of the things that impressed me about the bikerowave was that there were so many knowledgeable volunteers, happy to share their knowledge with me. The things I learned there has probably saved me hundreds of dollars.

One volunteer there - was a persnickety old-ish man who was very particular in his tastes. He liked certain brands of bikes, in certain years... and poo-poo'ed everything else. Among his idiosyncrasies, was insisting that every time a tire was installed on a bike, that the logo from the tire match up with the valve stem.

When asked about this - he always replied that installing tires this way just "satisfied his aesthetic standards." To that end, it is a nice way to make everything is nice, and neat - if you think people are paying attention to the alignment of your tire logos... that is ; )

Only recently did I learn that there is another incredibly valuable reason for installing the tires on your bicycle this way.

It helps you diagnose flats!

Note the logo of the tire aligned with the valve

After 3+ years of commuting, I've noticed that the types of flats I get are more of the "slow + annoying" kind and less of the "fast/catastrophic" kind. The latter is often easy to diagnose the cause of the flat, e.g. nail, screw, huge piece of glass, tube explosion, etc.

The former (slow + annoying) can be somewhat difficult. If you find yourself getting flats for no apparent reason, there very well may be something embedded in your tire. A great way to find this out is to examine the tube after you remove it from your tire.

Pump up the tire and see if you can see, feel, or hear air coming out of it. For subtle and tricky flats, submerging the tube in a small basin of water will typically yield the source of the flat. Sometimes it takes a few passes through the water before you see the small bubbles trickling out.

Once you identify the problem in the tube, use your valve as a reference point and find the corresponding place on the tire where you think the origin of the flat is. This is almost impossible if you DON'T match the tire logo up with the valve.

This morning I got a flat, found the whole in the tube, then used the location of the tube to try to identify where the flat was coming from in my tire. It worked like a charm... there was a tiny piece of glass just barely poking through. Because I had the logo matched up with the valve, I was able to track down the source and remove the glass. Because it was so small, it may have been impossible to find the shard of glass by sheer visual examination or carefully running my finger through the inside of the tire.

So the next time you get a flat, line the logo (or writing) of the tire up with the valve. It'll help you prevent future flats by identifying the cause, faster!