Not even the high for the day!

Wife: “Where are you going?”

Me: “It’s Wednesday. You know I go to the Wallingford Farmers Market on Wednesdays.”

Wife: “You’re going to take your bike?”

Me: “I always bike to the farmers market.”

Wife: “Are you crazy?! It’s going to hit 100!”

Me: “We cyclists are tough.”

Wife: “There is such a thing as heat stroke you know.”

Me: “Cyclists don’t get heat stroke. They create their own breeze.”

Wife: “I can see the headline now: Avid Cyclist Suffers Aneurysm In Heat Wave”

Me: “Miraculously Rides Through It and Arrives Home Safely.”

In happier times...

And so it goes in the World of the Misunderstood Cyclist. When you love to do something like ride, little things like heat waves don’t get in the way. Heck, if torrential downpours and freezing whiteouts and foot-deep snow and roadways full of black ice don’t stop us, why should a little extra sunshine? Besides, we’re doing our part to reduce global warming and climate disruption so this kind of thing — the hottest day on record in Seattle history — won’t happen for future generations.

So don’t call us nuts. Call us responsible. Call us sensible. Call us on our iPhones…

“Already 6% of our commuters are bicyclists; that’s more than any other city in America. We know when we add a bike lane we see about a 50% increase in use. Fifty-four percent of  greenhouse gases are transportation related, the tailpipes of these cars you see behind you. Even those of us who are not bicyclists will get the benefit of this because of the air we breathe and the benefit of the example that we will leave to our children to get more physically active as well and to look at bicycling not just as recreating but as a pragmatic way of getting to and from places of work, to and from places we need to go.”

So I guess the burning question of the day is: Does SF now trump Portland as the most cycling-centric city in the U.S.? I’m assuming Newsom’s stats are correct but wonder if Portland isn’t actually ahead (here‘s an unsourced citation putting Portland at 6 percent mode share; BikePortland.org cites 8 percent in this post last fall). My home base of Seattle isn’t too shabby in the commute department btw. Cascade Bicycle Club, which it should be noted is the nation’s largest local club, estimates commuting at a respectable 4.2 percent.

Having bike commuted in San Francisco as well and ridden in Portland, my observation is that Portland is by far the easiest to get around in, but it’s also the smallest and most compact. So the stats may not be the whole story.

More SF links from Streetsblog:

Mayor a yay and nay.

Dancing, make that cycling in the streets over MTA vote!

Sunshine is predicted!

One more time now:

Bike to Work Day rally, 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. at City Hall.

Bike to Work Day after-party, 4 to 7 p.m., Ballard.

Cascade Bicycle Club’s full event schedule.

Now get out and RIDE!

Well those days are over, kinda, starting with the refund thing not keeping pace with the price of a new bike! And I’m not too broke up about being in California this year, as I’ll be riding all over and going to the big Sea Otter Classic in Monterey this weekend.

Hopefully someone over on the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance e-group will post a review of First Day on Tiger. When I left town there was a lot of question about whether the road would be snowed in. And I know up at the top trailhead of Iverson, downed trees have blocked the entrance much of the past couple of months. (Note: The EMBA web site has this to say about Tiger.)

Let’s face it, it’s been a lousy winter. I wouldn’t expect Tiger to be too hospitable till sometime in July, given the ravages of snow, wind and rain. But if you don’t mind becoming a human mudball, it’ll be fun as always.

Alas, Seattle was shut out in the League of American Bicyclists’ “Bike Shops of the Year” awards. Astoundingly so. I can’t think of a city with more diverse and numerous bike shops than Seattle.

The countdown to Sea Otter madness continues with updates from Mountain Bike Action magazine and Bike Rumor, which has the trailer to the world premier for Freedom Riders, a film about trail-building on Forest Service land. Worth the watch!

PinkBike has a Fluidride Cup photo mojo going, check it out…

Accidental bather

I was out making my usual rounds through the U District when whoa! a mini-Katrina! It got really dark, then fat raindrops started falling and within 138 seconds I was in a veritable deluge. I ducked into Fluidride to sit it out and founder Simon Lawton asked if I needed anything. Um, what did he have in a complete change of clothes?

“Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re here for 30 minutes of shopping!”

The showroom is coming along, with an ETA of a week from Sunday. This is the one with the track lighting, black interior and the new line of white Evil bikes, including the Revolt with Dave Weagle’s DELTAsystem. We’ll keep ya posted!

Hey it's Seattle...what d'ya expect???

Eventually the rain let up and I continued over to Fremont, then made the long slog up Fremont hill to Phinney Ridge and home. Fremont hill is a thing of joy, of course. Not really that bad, you can kind of zone out because there’s plenty of shoulder clearance for traffic to pass by, and the grade, although steady, is nothing like Denny or Queen Anne. When I commuted to and from The Seattle Times back in the day, I rode Fremont several times a week, often after dark had descended. Wish I’d had the kind of HID or LED lighting then that they have today.

The mountain was out

One question I often get asked is, “Aren’t there too many hills in Seattle for cycling?” My response: There aren’t enough! Hills are the straw the stirs the drink, the journey to the destination. Now am I going to ride up Denny Way or Queen Anne Ave. N.? Not if I can avoid it (which is easily done). If you want to get up high in Seattle there are several ways to skin the cat. They do involve climbing, just less grade.

But riding hills keeps one healthy and fit, and provides a daily sense of challenge in a contemporary lifestyle that can easily become lazy, humdrum and uninspired. I sum up my attitude this way: If the world were flat, I wouldn’t ride a bicycle!

Made to Order (MTO) Bikes: “Your company, and I hesitate to use the term “boutique,” but being a popular high-end brand that isn’t one of the big three, have truly maintained the “handbuilt in the USA” standard, do you face any challenges in keeping things American?” I’ve met Sherwood, and visited the Sacto–area shop, where I picked up my El Saltamontes Electric Super Dust XC frame. Way cool…

The man himself

Bike magazine reviews the FlyPaper pedals. Crazy!

Apparently they do work

Bike Rumor: “Racing up despite economy.” Sea Otter registration (April 9-12) is particularly strong.

BikePortland: Elly Blue is headed for the Los Angeles Bike Summit this weekend. The increase in bike commuting in the city of Angels apparently is outstripping the city surface streets’ capacity. Sound familiar?

Biking Bis: “A lifelong cyclist, advocate and bicycle shop owner is hospitalized with internal and spinal injuries in Winston-Salem. A motorist ran him down while he rode his recumbent bike home from work about a week ago.”

I dropped down Fremont Ave. to the Burke-Gilman Trail and tooled around the north end of Lake Union, winding up over in Montlake. The Montlake Bike Shop is a cool place to see eye candy; they carry Santa Cruz and Ibis and usually have a demo bike or two in stock. Having the opportunity to demo a new bike is nothing to turn your nose up at these days.

This was almost a “tour de LBS” (local bike shop) day. I stopped in at Fluidride by the shipyard. They’ve expanded westward, breaking through the wall and setting up a glass counter with repair stall behind. The added room is nice; the former shop was a real cubbyhole — pretty dark and cramped. They’ve got so much elbow room now that they’re setting up a special “Evil Bikes” display: All black, with track lighting, to show off the new Evil line’s white-on-white. White is a great bike color btw, something I never appreciated till I got the custom pearl white finish on my Intense 6.6. Fluidride carries not just Evil but Cove, Transition, Kona, Iron Horse and just about all high-end lines except Santa Cruz. The expansion is not quite all in place yet but will be rockin’ when finished.

I also swung by Downhill Zone and Gregg’s Greenlake Cycles, missing R+E Cycles because of an errand detour. Let’s see, that’s five bike shops within what, a 3-mile radius. And I didn’t even take in Free Range Cycles or Cascade Bicycle Studio in Fremont! Or Recycled Cycles on Lake Union! Bike shops, they’re everywhere in Seattle!