Friday, December 28, 2007

Cycling in a winter wonderland

Thanks to all for the holiday greetings and wishes. My family and I had a wonderful visit with my brother and his family down in lovely San Diego. My brother Mark gets used fry oil from the Mexican restaurant down the street. He showed me the simple rig he uses to filter the fry oil. The filtering rig is amazingly simple, and his Mercedes diesel runs off of the straight vegetable oil with no engine modifications at all. Jump below the photo for bicycle news and views.


Warren has discovered the thrill of riding his bike in soft new snow. He liked it so much he did it again. For more amazing snow country cycling photography, we can always depend on Jill in Alaska.

Kids received bikes for Christmas. "The 170 brand new bikes are a Christmas gift to every student at the school, kindergarten through fifth grade. It was a surprise so big that it was overwhelming."

Jamie in Columbus writes about the link between oil and the economy.

When reading about cycling deaths in the news, I often wonder if the reported details actually match reality. I've read so many times of a cyclist who dies because he swerved right in front of a speeding car and like Streetsblog also notes, the driver is the only living witness to the collision. As a cyclist, I can't imagine just swerving out in front of car. The cyclist is generally aware that he's vulnerable.

Streetsblog points us to a fascinating video from 1958 on "Magic Highway USA."

A new year means new calendars. If you haven't gotten yours yet, Biking Bis points us to some 2008 bicycle calendars.

Industry Outsider on rickshaws: Rickshaws are bad (they get in the way of cars, donchaknow), and rickshaws are good (they're used by crime fighting superheroes!)

Sartolialist: Bikes in the background here, here and here. And the subject on the bike here.

Akemashite omedetō gozaimasu / 明けましておめでとうございます, all!

5 comments:

  1. Those ol' deisel Benzs are still widely used throughout Europe, for good reasons.

    Speaking of fuel consumpton, the closure of highway 64 in St Louis is expected to cause a sharp increase in local fuel demand. One engineer estimates that about $582 million in additional oil will be consumed in the next two years due to the extra traffic, construction delays and additional mileage, etc.
    Jack

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  2. That is an awesome picture. My first ten speed bike my parents got me as a kid was a Raleigh! Old school, baby!

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  3. That article mentioned in Streetsblog is just awful. You're right, "He came out of nowhere" or "He swerved right in front of me" probably means "I wasn't paying attention."

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  4. Hello,
    here are some winter wonderland pics from Austria (Leaning tricycle)
    cheers
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ3xLZGNh70

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  5. Thanks for the link, Fritz. I continually get teased by my family for not trusting traditional media, but when they don't report the whole story I feel totally justified in my skepticism.

    Re. the Streetsblog story: As I commented on the post to which you linked, the media has done a wonderful job of portraying cyclists as reckless people. I'm with you, though. I am willing to bet that most cyclists are aware of where the cars are and (perhaps unwisely) assume that they're paying attention to the road.

    I wish there was a way to track ACTUAL fault on bike/car accidents instead of the fault that was laid by the investigating police, who commonly have no clue about how bikes are supposed to be handled on the road.

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