as listed by Twitter users. As you might expect, they’re not real movies, but enjoy them anyway. Gene Bisbee did.–Corrie
Twitter’s list of best bike movies never made
We all know that Twitter is a great resource for social networking, and it’s the one place where you’ll always be able to find out what Lance Armstrong is up to on a daily, in not hourly, basis.
55 Free Bike Route Mapping Tools
I’ve created a page for Journals and another for Mapping tools but they are both more out of date than the page at Bike Hacks listed above. I suspect that some of the sites listed there have gone commercial which means while the may have a free component, you’ll have to pay to get the full benefit.
That’s what’s happened to Map My Ride. That was long my favorite site because it allowed me to track my equipment and increment mileage on each by simply telling the program which bike I rode.
But then a friend from an OBR tour told me about Sports Tracks from ZoneFive. It does everything faster and better with a direct import from my GPS. Yes, Map My Ride had the funcionality but it was clumsy and still required you to enter much of the info by hand. Fair warning SportsTracks is share ware and has a learning curve and more features than you could possibly want.
Now when I want a map I don’t use MapMyRide because unless you are a premium user you can’t download what you create. It requires points and I have some, but they never seem to apply.
The internet just keeps changing. Fortunately on a bike about all I have to do is to keep turning the pedals. That never seems to change no matter how fancy a bike Sean sells me.
Corrie
Posted using ShareThis
Yeah, it’s Google Maps for the bicyclist. Works best if you live in the handful of cities that have been added to their database. Seattle is the latest. –Corrie
Bicyclists in Seattle should feel fortunate that the creators of Ride the City chose their town as the latest addition to the online bike-route mapping tool.
You can’t really say I’m either a bike geek or a computer geek. My eyes glaze over when we start talking gear ratios and a bike pretty much looks like a bike to me. I just like to ride. The same with technology. There was a time when I was considered pretty geeky but now I’m just a user as befuddled as most by my PCs idiosyncracies.
But I do love both bikes and the promise of the internet. That’s why I spend so much time as a bicycle advocate and paying attention to issues such as net neutrality.
Recently Congress passed legislation that will require bloggers to reveal the free-products they receive when they write about them. That applies to bicycling products too.
And of course you’ve heard about the trouble newspapers are having now that there content can be gotten on the internet for free. Is that any way to run a business? But are you willing to subscribe on line?
You’ve also heard about Google’s profits from content-related advertising. Everyone is trying to find another model that will work for them on the internt. How to turn all those page-view into money?
YouTube hasn’t figured it out yet despite there being the host for most of the viral-videos–you know the ones that everyone is talking about. This is the power of word-of-mouth at an industrial scale. But how do you insure your product goes viral?
Specialized is selling a new line of bikes designed for town=riding. They are heavier, less agressive and better for commuting than a road bike. The market is those folks who rode a bike as a kid, but probably haven’t been on one since. Can we move these former cyclists back onto the bike path and maybe into commuting? Bike Rumor has pics!
Doing so would improve the safety of cycling for all of us, improve health, lower health-care cost, reduce our carbon foot-print and genearlly make planet-earth a better place, right?
As much as I agree with all of that, I can’t help but see the Global Experience Project as just a big advertsing campain. Specialized has given Globe bikes to bloggers from around the world in return for those bloggers to write about their experiences on bikes.
So, it is a soft-sell. Specialized doesn’t expect rave-reviews aor technical reviews at all. They hope these bloggers will reproduce the “going viral” experience and drive more people to cycling and sell more bikes whether Globe branded or not.
I can’t even object to that. But I do note that it is an experiment as much as an experience. How do we get the power of word-of-mouth to take off virally? That’s the real question we are looking at.
If Globe bikes sell well, we’ll probably see lots more products offered to bloggers for free.–Corrie
Around the Globe: Follow the Globe Experience Project
November 4th, 2009 by Matt · No Comments
What do London, Hawaii, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Georgia, Portland, the Netherlands, Colorado, San Francisco, Ontario, Australia, Seattle, Texas, and New York City all have in common? All of these locations are a part of the Globe Experience Project.
With no racks, my Pilot’s not much for carrying anything. That’s the way I like it. But I do pick up club mail on a ride and often do the banking by bike, so ocassionally I have a few envelopes to carry. Putting them in the back of my jersey usually means they get soaked with sweat. Yeah, I’m not Sean but I sweat.
So I use a 1 gallon Zip Loc bag. Works great and has the advantage of protecting, say a rolled up bicycling magazine, even thought the magazine will stick out the top.
Still the Jersey Bin looks good. Ed Pavelka of roadbikerider.com reviews the jersey bin.–Corrie
JerseyBin
Price: $5.50 for 2 Trim Bins; $8 for 2 Big Bins (plus first-class shipping)
Source: website
Sizes: Trim Bin, 3.75×7 in. (9.5×17.8 cm); Big Bin, 4.75×7 in. (12.1×17.8 cm)
Material: 8-gauge vinyl
Made in: U.S.
Features: zip-lock closure, transparent, waterproof, durable, recyclable, custom graphics available
RBR advertiser: yes
Tested: 338 hrs. (Trim Bin); 53 hrs. (Big Bin)
I really like this Cyclelicious post on the ER doctor found guilty of injuring a pair of cyclists.–corrie
Doctor in Cuffs: What’s the Lesson?
The attitude and ignorance of Dr. Christopher Thompson is all too familiar for most bicyclists, exemplified by the fact that he admitted to police at the scene that he slammed on his brakes “to teach them a lesson”. Now who is receiving the lesson? And what is the lesson?
Amidst all the discussions of materials and gear ratios and training routines, we sometimes miss the ride itself. Bill Strickland of Bicycling Magazine captures one ride on one day. Kind of makes you want to stay in bed, though.–Corrie
by Bill Strickland
Right at the first hint of rise Yozell happened to be on the front so he just stayed there tapping it out, steady and not yet hard, and Pearson was, I think, sort of floating off the side bobbing from front to middle and talking about something to someone. I didn’t want to be anywhere near them.
I haven’t been able to climb at all since I got back into town at the end of July. I covered the Giro and the Tour this year — doing it right with wine and long dinners — and before that I was following Lance around the world, with neither my bike nor the time to ride. For months I’ve been the last one up almost every hill every ride.
Mandeville Canyon Road has garnered a good deal of attention recently. An ER doctor frustrated by cyclists on his commute home passed a pair and slammed on his brakes. The cyclists may have indeed yelled obscenities at the motorist but probably didn’t deserve assault with an deadly weapon–the car. The doctor has been found guilty and is awaiting sentencing in jail.
If you want to see what the route looks like and learn how to ride it correctly, take a look at this video made by LAB instructors.
Here is an account from cicle.org of the event:
Bikes and cars: Can we share the road?
Published November 2, 2009 by LA Times
By Christie AschwandenMandeville Canyon Road is a two-lane, dead-end road that twists and climbs for six miles through a quiet Brentwood neighborhood. “It’s perfect for bicycling — like honey to bears,” says Jeffrey Courion, former public policy director for Velo Club La Grange, a bicycle touring and racing club.
But with just one lane in each direction and limited visibility in some places, the road has also become a flash point for conflicts between motorists and cyclists. “It’s a problem of people competing for space,” Courion says.
That competition turned ugly in July 2008. Brentwood doctor Christopher Thomas Thompson is currently facing trial in the L.A. County Superior Court, charged with four felony counts related to a collision with two bicyclists in Mandeville Canyon. The injured cyclists allege that Thompson deliberately pulled in front of them, then slammed on his brakes, intending to hurt them. Thompson’s attorney argues that the cyclists had yelled profanities at Thompson and were to blame for the accident.
I doubt a brake light in daylight would be visible on a bike. How about at night? Doubt anyone would recognize what that blinking light meant as opposed to the blinker you’re already running.–Corrie
by Bike Shop Girl
A wireless brake light for your bike, is it possible? With technology from various industries touching the cycling world now it is exciting to see what new inventions will come about.
Dogs and Bikes just don’t mix. It’s bad enough that some owners think there animals are so well behaved that leash laws don’t apply to them or those 20ft leashes that provide no control what so ever. But ocassionally some smart guy thinks its a good idea to walk his dog by tieing the leash to his bike. Sounds like a good idea until the dog decides to chase a squirrel. I was almost garroted a few years ago by a nearly invisble leash right at throat height. Fortunately the leash hit the stem.
My neighbor likes to give his dog a nice run at the end of a leash while he rides his bicycle. I cringe a little bit when I see them take off like this, but they always return in one piece.
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