Deda / Bianchi stem recall

Deda Elementi and Bianchi have announced a recall of Deda Forza bicycle handlebar stem, along with bikes equipped with this stem.


Because of four reports of cracking, Deda Elementi and FIV Edoardo Bianchi have recalled all Bianchi highend bicycles with 2008 Deda Forza high-gloss finish carbon fiber handlebar stems, and will replace the stems with Deda Zero 100 forged aluminum stems. The recall is being handled through Bianchi dealers world-wide.

The recall involves bicycles with Deda Forza black carbon fiber handlebar stems in gloss finish that sold in 2008 for between $4,300 and $8,700. The handlebar stems were also sold separately for about $400. “Deda Forza” is printed on the handlebar stem. Deda Forza black carbon fiber handlebar stems in matte finish are not included in this recall.

See details at Deda Elementi recall web page.

Jobst Brandt

I suppose I should mention that I ran into the man over the weekend! That would be Jobst Brandt, well known Internet pedant on all things bicycling. He literally wrote the book on The Bicycle Wheel.



He was riding an ancient yellow steel 10 speed -- yes, a real ten speed bike with only ten speeds with downtube friction shifters. He and his buddy Joachim (another HP old timer) ride Shimano SPD clipless and walked into the Foster's Freeze in Boulder Creek, California and ordered a couple of root beer floats.

I stupidly asked "Are you Jobst Brandt? I've read your stuff on the Internet for almost 20 years now." He chuckled and said his Internet postings get him in trouble. He then gave me his opinions on polypropylene jerseys (the best; it's too bad some people end up stinking in them), the Sun Microsystems logo (should have stayed with the old one), bike touring in the Alps (everybody should try it), Sumitomo tractors (it's not that hard to pronounce, he says) and Swiss cog railroad companies (they should keep the same name instead of confusing everybody with name changes).

It was a delightful visit.

Eurobike and web tech

The big European bicycle show -- Eurobike -- starts Thursday in Friederichshafen, Germany. If you have the software installed for your web browser, you're viewing below a multimedia presentation from Oamos of random images, text, and sounds related to a search for "Eurobike." It's kind of entertaining. Via Velorution.



While Giant Bicycles of Taiwan reports amazing growth during 2008, and exports from all of Taiwan's bike vendors to North America grew 19% in volume and 20% in value, Bike Europe seems bearish on the 2009 bicycle market in Europe. Because of a drop in consumer confidence amid gloomy economic news in Europe, bike vendors aren't quite sure what to expect for 2009.

Other factors include a stronger Taiwan dollar and higher material costs for vendors. “Although prices of aluminum and carbon fiber have been more stable recently, compared with three years ago, they have increased nearly three-fold,” says Giant spokesman Jeffrey Sheu.

In the meantime, there's plenty of low hanging fruit to pick in the United States, which lags behind much of the rest of the developed world in encouraging bicycling for transportation.

Commuters in Northern Europe have been lured out of their cars by bike lanes, secure bike parking and easy access to mass transportation. At the same time, steep automobile taxes, congestion-zone fees and go-slow rules have made inner-city driving a costly pain in the neck. In the Netherlands, where such carrot-and-stick policies have been in place for decades, 27 percent of all trips are by bike.

"It is very clear how to do this," said John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers University and lead author of a global study of strategies that promote cycling. "It is not rocket science."

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Has anybody tried Google Chrome yet? I haven't figured out how to easily subscribe to RSS feeds through Chrome, like I can with Firefox or Internet Explorer. Chrome also has a hard time with Flickr -- just logging into Flickr took several tries, and I never was able to upload images through Flickr's web interface with Chrome.

Brother of Gwadzilla

Marc Gwadz of Washington, D.C. is the brother of prolific bike photo blogger Gwadzilla. Marc races cyclocross, works as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health, and wears "Cars R Coffins" socks on his bike commute. Marc also gets bike commuter benefits from his employer in the form of "bike bucks," which are redeemable at area bike shops.

At the National Institutes of Health, workers can get five "bike bucks" for every 100 miles they commute, which they can redeem when buying supplies at two local bike shops. The program was the idea of Jill DiMauro, owner of Proteus Bicycles in College Park, Md., after talking to biologist Angela Atwood-Moore, who rides her bike six miles each way to the agency's headquarters in Bethesda, Md.

The NIH program has almost quintupled from the 25 employees who first signed up in January 2007. NIH riders earned $1,655 Bike Bucks in the first six months of this year, and the program spread in June to include employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also headquartered in the Washington area.

It has helped Gwadz, a contracting scientist at the National Library of Medicine, who has commuted on bike for more than 10 years. He rides 20 miles each day - "pretty much rain, shine, cold, heat," he said - and earns more than 100 bike bucks every six months. He recently used bike bucks to cover half his purchase of $230 bicycle shoes.

Incentives such as the bike bucks program are necessary if private and public organizations want to increase the number of cyclists, Gwadz said.

"One parking spot is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars, and they just give it away. If they want people to stop using that spot, you make it more enticing," he said. "People aren't going to change over just because you tell them about it."

Read more about this incentive program at Government Executive. Props to Fixed Gear Cycling for this find, and thanks to Gwadzilla for the info about his brother.

Above average drivers

Just like the children in Lake Wobegon, all of us are "above average" drivers.

I'm reading the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt quotes former New York City traffic commissioner Henry Barnes, who says, "As times goes on the technical problems become more automatic, while the people problems become more surrealistic." Traffic discusses the "surrealistic" people issues of driving -- the psychology and sociology of traffic.

Chapter 2 discusses the "Lake Wobegon effect" -- that we all think we're better than the idiot drivers around us. Vanderbilt talks with Rusty Weiss of DriveCam in San Diego. To improve safety for commercial fleet vehicles, DriveCam installs video cameras that record the 10 seconds before and after an "event" -- a collision, sudden braking, hard steering and so forth. They capture the 99% of near hits that all of us take for granted and forget about in our daily driving, and use that video to coach drivers how they can drive more safely. Research shows that driving with the DriveCam improve safety dramatically, even with teen drivers. They also capture some dramatic crash footage, like this one of a cab driver who falls asleep at the wheel and ends up with his head in a rear window.



Higher quality and more videos are available at the DriveCam website. The middle video on this page shows a tow truck driver falling asleep at the wheel and driving several hundred feet in a bike lane before he's jolted awake when he hits the curb. The scary thing is that he's unaware of what happened even after the curb hit -- without the video, there's no way for him to learn how to improve his driving. If a cyclist was rear-ended at that point, no doubt the driver would have claimed he was correctly in his lane and the cyclist, naturally, must have veered in front of him because he's a good driver with a good driving record.

If you're involved in any kind of transportation or cycling advisory committee, I highly recommend the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do.

2009 Bianchi Pinella steel frame

After a two year absence, it looks like Bianchi will reintroduce the Boron steel Pinella frameset in 2009.


I don't have information on the 09 model, but the sub 3 pound Pinella has been among the lightest weight steel frames available. Though there are concerns with durability -- the light weight comes from paper thin tubing -- when built up the Pinella frame makes for a fantastic looking bike that handles well at high speeds. It will be available as shown in the classic Celeste color with black graphics.

How an Indiana town got a bicycle map

Cycling advocates in Richmond, Indiana wanted a bike map to help promote the use of bicycles around their city. The city didn't have the funds to develop and print a bike map, so Mark Stosberg and other cyclists started an advocacy group, identified cycling routes, presented the maps idea to the city staff, looked at other good bike maps for ideas, designed the map, figured out printing costs, and did fundraising.

It's a really cool story that Mark has written up as a How To Guide to creating a local bike map.