Spring bike haiku

Bradley the True Geek posted a spring time bike haiku.

Bradley masterfully shows us the change of seasons from winter to spring in his baiku when he describes the gray roller dust coating his bike tires.

Besides the well known 5 / 7 / 5 syllable pattern, haiku is defined by the use of words that evoke a season. A bike race on a beautiful March day, then, inspired in me this bike haiku last weekend.

Colorful team kit
Criterium cyclists race
Menlo Park Grand Prix

Colorado bike haiku

Carl ran a bike club for students at Columbine Elementary School in Longmont, Colorado. The bike club was for the Walk Or Wheels ("WOW") program at the school, which encourages students to walk or bike to school and which has an astounding participation rate of over 90%. Carl started the club as an additional impetus to get the kids out of their parents' cars and to teach them to ride safely.

He assigned some homework to the children, asking them to write some "bike haiku" or baiku. Read the student's baiku here.

Enjoy the weekend, all!

Bicycle haiku and other bicycle blog madness

Frank has an nice winter CX baiku in Illinois. He also pointed me to a old set of baikus from last summer.

Carlton talks about "get off the road for your own safety" individuals in the Netherlands(!), India and Nazi Germany. Perhaps there's a connection with this "bicycle neglect". Alan makes the point that the American Automobile Association -- which is a motorist lobbying group -- has more than 300 times the membership of bicycling advocacy groups. He writes:

In fact, cyclists are so utterly overpowered that the motoring interests hardly even have to show up. In Olympia and Salem, according to leading cycling advocates, the trucking, development, and manufacturing industries lobby fairly heavily on transportation issues. But car manufacturers, car dealers, and auto clubs rarely flex their muscle. Says [Bicycle Alliance of Washington executive director Gordon] Black, “They don’t have to show up very often, because they know the government is doing their bidding. They don’t feel threatened. They don’t see us as a threat.”

CycleDog points us to an online driving test. I scored 95%.

Now let's ge to the boring news: Diesel shortages in South Dakota, North Dakota (in spite of record production at the state's lone refinery) and Iowa, where the presidential hopefuls are stumping for the January caucus. There's even a shortage of hops for beer manufacture. The state of Connecticut plans for fuel shortages. Some French equestrians are pushing horses for transportation. And in Zimbabwe, a brand new biodiesel factory isn't quite living up to the hype. One of the problems? Not enough feedstock to go around: the farmers have to choose between starvation or running their cars, trucks, generators and irrigation pumps.

Introducing Carl in Longmont

Carl is a member of Bicycle Longmont in Longmont, Colorado, where he's active in the local Safe Routes to School program at his school. The Longmont and St. Vrain Valley School District Safe Routes to School program is among the most successful in the United States, with up to 90% participation at one of the schools.

Carl now has a blog: Getinlost in..., which I'm obligated to link to because he posted a bicycle haiku.

Via Carl's blog I also found the Alex Draude's Straight Chain blog about fixie riding in Kyoto and other areas in Japan.

Daylight savings ends Sunday

To cyclists, that means another hour for riding in the mornings as well as an excuse to write another bike haiku like Frank did. :-)

Here's a picture from what I did yesterday. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is about a 10 minute bike ride from my front door. In the photo I'm fording across the San Lorenzo River. From there I rode uphill into Santa Cruz Pogonip Park, onto the U-Conn Trail, and then I did a couple of loops through UCSC forest trails before zooming downhill into the city of Santa Cruz where I caught a bus back home. The weather was beautiful -- sunny and with a high of nearly 80°F in November! Like Jason wrote, "Being a cyclist means hating global warming … but liking it warm. Oh, the humanity!"


The bike is an old low-end GT mountain bike that's now about ten years old but still going strong.

Mountain bike tip of the day: When you hop over a 12 inch log, watch your landing zone for large obstructions! If you don't, you might face plant like I did -- that's dirt from the trail on my face after I shoveled straight in just like Steve Austin's experimental spaceplane shoveled into the runway in the Six Million Dollar Man.

Autumn bike haiku

Expressing the feelings and observations of the seasons is one of the hallmark characteristics of haiku. In his Halloween bike haiku, Jason perfectly captures the feeling of his blissfull night ride on a perfect autumn evening.

Remember, if you post a bicycle haiku and I find it, I'll link to it from Cyclelicious.

Autumn baiku

Frank in Illinois posted a "Cycloku" as a comment. That's a cyclocross bicycle haiku.

Warren combined two art forms in his Panda Haiku by combining a Panda Portait with a bicycling haiku. In case you don't know, a Panda Portrait is a self portrait of yourself on a bike while you're in motion.

It's autumn, but it feels like summer in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have highs in the 80s this week. Still, that's nothing like the hot temps down south. I spoke with my brother last night (he lives in Oceanside) and he tells me there's ash everywhere. Masiguy, who's also near San Diego, has some dramatic photos of the air and sky where he's lives and works.

Image credit: "Autumn." Print by Volauvent in Switzerland. Citizen Rider has a humorous rain related cycling cartoon also.

Summer rain baiku

Tommy was inspired and posted his own bicycle haiku of his ride through the summer rain.


"Bicycle Reflection" photo by tanakawho.

Summer Bike Haiku

Warren posted a bike haiku, so of course I'm obliged to link to it. Remember, if you post a "baiku" or bike haiku and I find it, I link to you (unless it's horribly offensive to me).

My children and I just finished up from a four hour mountain bike ride. I'm too tired to come up with any haiku.

"Tomas" Photo by Stefan Jansson.

Fixed gear brake failure haiku

A True Account Concerning Events that Transpired the Morning of April 25 in the Year of Our Lord 2007.

Fast downhill on fixed.
Red light. Brake breaks! Traffic. "Aaaah!"
SkipSkipSkipSkipSkipSkip skid skid STOP. Whew!

200 kilometer baiku

Grand Street Texting by moriza.

Kent is a professional haiku writer. He reports on a recent 200 kilometer bicycle ride in haiku! Nice stuff.

Bike + Haiku = Baiku

Warren posted a bike haiku which reminded me that Da' Square Wheelman also posted some interesting bike haiku news last weekend.

Warren celebrates the arrival of spring with his ode to those he shares the path with.

Da' Square Wheelman told us about the Winnipeg Haiku Cyclocross race that happened on March 11. Racers must compose some haiku while riding their laps around the course. Results are posted here. Although the Wheelman couldn't participate in the race, he provided his contribution on Samurai human disembowelment here. Poetry in motion.

Click on the haiku label below for more baiku. Remember, if you post your bike haiku and I can find it, I'll link to it.

Slow Brave Athena haiku

Vicki Jean posts a haiku about biking in the rain.

More bike haiku

A couple more people posted their bicycle haiku creations. I'm obligated to link to them.

Warren T writes about the slush.

Logan likes his curious machine.

Bicycle News

Here's something I've discussed with local advocacy groups: specialty bike retailers have to decide whether to continue to focus on serving non-Hispanic white males or reach out to the growing population of Latinos and Asians, says Brad Edmonson of ePodunk.com at the Bicycle Leadership Conference. “The new America is already here. Your choice is to either join it or fade away with the old America,” Edmonson said. Read more at BRaIN.

Atlanta burb proposes single-file bike restrictions.

100 mile bike race in the arctic coming soon. Jill's training for it.

DIY bike hoist.

Silicon Valley Leadership Group had a Cool Commutes conference, focusing on what companies in the Valley are doing to reduce single occupant vehicle commutes. One of the dramatic reports comes from Yahoo, where 36% of Yahoo headquarters employees get to work without driving solo. This is double the 18% mode-shift that the corporation committed to the City of Sunnyvale when building permits were first issued.

20,000 bicycles for self-service rent in Paris, France.

I owe CycleDog another link

You post a bike haiku and give me a way to find it, and I'll link to you. That's the Cyclelicious guarantee, or your money back.

Winter bike haiku

The Derailleur, the publication of Chicago Critical Mass, is looking for Bike Haiku (or Baiku) to publish for the winter issue. Winter-themed Haikus are the best.

Submit your oriental bicycle poetry to willow naeco via email, her MySpace page, or through Flickr.

For inspiration, don't forget to visit Chicago Bike Winter. For even better inspiration, get out in the cold and ride your bike!

Bike haiku link bait

I'm a sucker for Bike Haiku, which are Haiku poems with a bicycling theme. If you post bike haiku and I find it, your link bait effects are shameless but effective. The best way to ensure I find your bait is to link to Cyclelicious and make sure your post is pinged so I can find your post with Technorati.

Here's Warren's bike haiku about riding at night. Here's a bike haiku about a tragic loss.

"Shannon and the colourful leaves" by Matt Corks.

Remember, a haiku is a poem with three verses with five syllables in the first verse, seven in the second, five in the last for a total of 17 syllables. Some experts think 12 syllables work better in English, and that's okay by me.

I prefer the traditional style of Haiku where the poem contains a "kigo" and is evocative of the season, e.g. "Brittle leaves crunch underneath."

Bicycling and haiku seem to go together so naturally. Haiku often contains a juxtaposition, placing apparently unrelated or unequal things side by side, and as bicyclists we experience so much of that just in a short ride. Most obviously, we're the little scrawny guy or gal sitting unprotected on a 20 pound bike right next to the behemoth cage enveloping its occupant with four tons of steel, climate control, and entertainment. Not as apparent might be the little connections we see; I'm the highly paid computer engineer who rides through "the Projects" every day and says hello to surly teenagers hanging out at on the street and to their slightly older sisters pushing their infants in stollers to the corner store and to the middle age gang victim sitting in his donated wheelchair at the bus stop.

Bicyclists are connected to others in ways that most people are not, and these connections can make for some great haiku.

See related: bicycle, haiku, link+bait

Natsu no hate, ne.

Bicycle Haiku by Richard Masoner.

Cool breeze through jersey
As I lament Summer's end.
Leaves mirrored in shades.

Photo info: Bicycle Race by Francisco..

Cyclelicious haiku

Cycle licious. Yum!
Bikes good for health, soul, spirit.
Ride for fun. Hurray!

Tags: cyclelicious, poetry, haiku