Yeah. Wow, right? Read it.

So far, not much to report, that’s why I haven’t posted in a while. Let me tell you, CT ain’t got nothin on Rochester winters. There have been two snowfalls thus far which anyone would classify as “heavy”. Not blizzards like ROC is used to, to be sure, but everyone around here freaks out. The roads basically become closed save for a few plows and crazy people who think they know how to drive in the snow.

I still rock my way in like any other day… I may spend less ride time going no-handed and air drumming to heavy metal, but I still get there by my own two legs. And I have to smile when I pass someone begrudgingly cleaning off their car and trying to dig it out of the driveway.

Anyway, this has been my winter rig so far this year, a 90’s Schwinn Frontier a co-worker gave me in the spring because it was wasting away on his back porch:

I got it pro-tuned last month at Renaissance Cyclery in Plainville, it’s been pretty good, even with those simple mountain knobbies. There’s some snow, but New England gets a lot of what is affectionately referred to around here as “Wintry Mix” (I had never heard of it so frequently before moving here). Basic translation is road slop. Got a decent clip on fender for the back. Can anyone recommend a good one for the front?

I also recently I upgraded my light situation with another Fenix L2D up front and another Planet Bike Superflash, so now I am running 3 total back there. And of course the Neon:

in other news, I got a new project for the new year…

a late 40’s Roadmaster Luxury Liner… all original, all intact, as found in storage, I just cleaned up a little so far. It’s already up in the stand getting tinkered with. Original tires still hold air and all the moving parts still move, I realized that it was probably still ridable so I took it out for a test spin (before I completely dismantled it) and shot video because I knew no one would be believe me that it was still functional:

click to watch video

Besides being 60 years old and needing some fresh grease, it rides nice and smooth. Can’t wait to fix this one back up in time for plenty of spring cruisin.

Now I still need to work on finding more people to cruise with here…

I picked up some studded tires from Towners about a month ago, and have been tearing up the roads with them since. I’ve experienced and seen my fair share of wipe-outs in past winter seasons, and after reading about Ethan’s experience this morning, figured that I’d share some thoughts on the studded life.

My tires, basking in the ice-cold neon power of the Chicken Avenger 

The Right Tire for You 

My particular Nokian tires seem comparatively low-end, as Nokians go. They have just 160 studs per tire compared to the meatier Nokian Extremes that our own Jack Spula uses. Plus, it seems that the $65.00-per-tire asking price at Towners is a bit high compared to what other people are paying around the country for this particular model. So if you can spare the time to research the best value you can find, I suggest you do.

But even lower-end overpriced studded tire models receive praise from their users. I’ve spent time on icy roads with road tires, mountain bike tires, fat balloon cruiser tires, and of course these Nokians, and this winter season (with the studs) is really the first time I’ve felt comfortable in all road conditions. I’ve gotten away in the past with “knobby” mountain bike tires, but they’re only good when there’s snow on the road. Those knobs do nothing to grip onto the ice.

How Far Will Studs Take One? 

I still ride with extra caution on nights like tonight when it gets cold after a bit of a thaw. That’s my sensible nature.

Yet studs really speed up my winter commutes. I used to get off my bike and walk it on side streets when there was a lot of sludge build-up. Poorly plowed back roads are still not my preferred route to take in winter, but they’re navigable with the Nokians.

White and black ice usually isn’t much of a problem, either, though I make sure to slow down a bit when the street looks shiny. Turns are easy to take, which is a huge relief at intersections. I was riding with Joey Mac last winter, and we went to take a left at an icy intersection, but Joey’s bike kept going straight. A busy intersection is the worst place to fall off your bike, and avoiding that situation just once is worth the price of at least one studded tire.

The brown frozen sludge that cars deposit next to their path, which Jack affectionately calls “car snot,” is probably the most difficult surface to ride on with studded tires. It builds up the most on roads with moderate use, where there is enough traffic to push the sludge next to the motorists’ path but not enough to help melt it all away. When possible I just ride closer to the center of the road, in the right tire track, and let motorists try to figure out how to pass me safely. But when I have to ride in the snot, I drop the bike down to a low gear and take my time. I’ve even ridden uphill through the snot (on Empire Boulevard, by the bay) and that’s something that can’t be done with standard road tires.

Incidentally, the studs handle fine on clear roads. There’s a bit of a humming noise, and a hardly detectable increase in rolling resistance, but nothing that makes me look forward to the end of the season when the road tires go back on. These tires are welcome to stay on my bike for as long as the weather demands.

Cuts through the snow like a hot knife through Earth Balance. 

Now, To Find Studded Boots! 

One hilarious drawback of these studded tires is that they’ll take you to places where you can’t walk. I’ll stop my bike and get off, only to stumble around on the icy surface. I’m happy that my studded tires have made me stop cursing my decision to live in a northern climate while I’m on my bike. Now, for some boots that will do the same while I’m walking.

Howdy. Check out this extensive look at Bicycle Helmets for the 2009 Season. And thanks to Randal Putnam for the link.

The Initiative for Healthy Infrastructure at the University of Albany has completed its feasibility study on the Central Avenue Bikeway. You can download a PDF of the study at the IHI site.

Yeah, so how about that ride in this morning?

I took a spill turning the corner from New Scotland onto Myrtle. No damage. Just shook me up a bit. If I’d had studded tires (yeah yeah I’m working on it) it might not have been an issue.

I’m just happy to be riding my bike again.

This came into the RocBike mailbox this morning:

Good morning Jason. I just came across your blog and really enjoyed reading it. I am hoping you might take a moment to look at my site www.3feetplease.com to read my story and decide if it is something you think your readers might find valuable.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you Jason,
Joe Mizereck

Joe sells jerseys that are anything but subtle. And that seems to be what’s needed these days. Check them out:

Visit Joe’s site at www.3feetplease.com.

From Alternet:

Trip is to protest mountaintop removal mining
by Brittney Moore

Sam Evans wants the voices of Appalachian families near coal mining sites to be heard, so he’s cycling to Washington, D.C., to hand-deliver protest letters written by mining communities.

“The bike ride for me is just a way to take the voices of the people who aren’t being heard right now and take them to Washington, D.C.,” said Evans, a third-year law student at the University of Tennessee. He plans on leaving Tennessee Jan. 9 and arriving in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20.

Evans won’t be alone for the 750-mile trip. Missy Petty of Conservation Fisheries Inc., a nonprofit organization that rescues endangered fish species, will join him for the first half of the trip.

Evans and Petty plan to stay in homes close to coal mining sites to see for themselves the impact mining has on nearby communities, then gather letters protesting mountaintop removal mining. Evans will hand-deliver the letters to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which will give the letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“We just want people to be aware of what’s going on in their own backyards and want them to care,” Petty said.

Read the rest of the article

Super stylish and super expensive: the Rapha Tween Softshell

(Thanks, Paul)

Dan Craven provided this video of a bicycle ride through Albany’s Washington Park during the Holiday Lights fest:

From the New York Times:

By JAN ELLEN SPIEGEL
Published: December 31, 2008

Photo: Wendy Carlson for The New York Times

After a summer of their dreams, bicycle store owners are facing a grim reality this winter.

Big increases in business this year led some shop owners to think that they were largely insulated from a slowing economy. But the economy has continued to spiral downward, taking bicycle sales and much else with it.

The question now is whether all the bicyclists who appeared last summer will be back next summer.

Read the rest of the article at the NYT site.

Today’s “neato” link is this one, from BikeHacks. It demonstrates how to recycle an old peanut butter jar and turn it into a waterproof, crushproof saddlebag.

Pretty cool. Check it out. Via Cyclelicious.

Great to read about Ethan’s first ride in the snow. It’s an experience no one should deny him- or herself. I’ve been making my usual commute to RIT on the Lehigh Valley Trail (N Branch, which runs between the UR South Campus and Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road very close to intersection of Jefferson Rd., Rt. 252). As long as the snow doesn’t get more than a few inches deep, the trail is quite passable. Of course, it helps to have good lugged tires to churn through the heavier accumulation – and I recommend a good set of studded tires for serious winter riding in this climate. I splurged on a pair of Nokian 26×1.75’s a couple years ago; each tire has 160 carbide-steel studs, the kind that you can put on a lot of mileage on (even on bare pavement) without noticeable wear. Well worth the investment. The perfect set-up is to have more than one machine in operation: keep one bike equipped with studded tires for the more challenging conditions, and another with regular rubber for the clear days.

Last night, as our regional blizzard hit – and to my mind, the snow is a beautiful thing, indeed, at least till the ambient crud turns it to a crappy shade of brown – I went for a two-wheeled spin around the neighborhood. It was at the beginning of what was to become an extended rush hour, and over at Goodman and Clinton, as I’m sure at other major intersections, the fume-belching traffic was stop and go – mostly the former. Even with my Nokians, I slid a few times; the detestable brown “pancake” (a.k.a. “car snot”) was beginning to semi-solidify. This stuff prevents your lugs/studs from getting purchase, so you shimmy a little or a lot. But all in the all, such conditions make for a fun ride; just watch out for fishtailing or rotating SUVs, etc. Rides like this are also work, so you might not click off many miles. My little excursion was more easily measured in yards. But this is a matter of principle. I try to never let a blizzard go unanswered. I mean, isn’t it every RocBiker’s duty to demonstrate that there’s no such thing as “unrideable conditions”? Hey, I also mean within limits. But what limits, exactly? As with jazz, if you’ve got to ask, you’ll never know.

(Footnote: I’ve been away from RocBike for a while because of some health concerns that luckily didn’t turn into anything major, but did throw me off my game temporarily. Great to be back!)

I rode my bike to work yesterday knowing there was going to be a big storm, because I wanted to ride in the snow. I’ve never done it before and I wanted to know what it was like. I will think twice about doing it again.

I lucked out, because they sent us home early. This meant there was not as much snow at 2:30 as there’d be at 5, and there was also some daylight.

My bike doesn’t have studded tires yet.

The ride up Orange Street taught me a lot. I could not ride in the tracks cars made because the packed snow would just break away, and I was sliding all over the place. Lark Street was so messy I actually got off my bike and pushed it to a side street. Which I couldn’t ride on either.

Washington Park was a dream! There was nobody there. The snow was unbroken and I just cruised through it. It was beautiful.

From there I rolled through the snow at the edges of streets down to New Scotland. New Scotland was a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting. I cut down to Helderberg and rolled through that.

It took me an hour to get home, and the trip usually takes 20 something minutes. I knew it would be slow, I didn’t know it would be that slow. It was exhausting work. And then I had to shovel when I got home. I am glad I did it, but it is not the sort of thing I want to make a habit of. I could’ve walked home in a little more than an hour and I wouldn’t have been as beaten, nor as near to traffic.

Some people would say the biggest mistake I made was doing this at all. I say the biggest mistake I made was not wearing waterproof pants of some kind. My pants were soak through by the time I got to the park, and then the water in them began to freeze.

This looks super cool (and classy too): Bike Burrito

From today’s New York Times:

After a pilot run in 2007, United Parcel Service is once again adding bicycle carriers to meet its holiday demand. It’s a tack that, like alternative fuel vehicles and other measures the company has historically taken to reduce operational costs, provides an attending environmental benefit in the form of reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.

According to Norman Black, a company spokesman, the bikes simply make sense at this time of year. “You and I are having this conversation on the peak day of the peak season when all the volumes come together and hit us at once,” Mr. Black said. “You can imagine what a challenge it is to be able to dramatically increase your network’s capacity to reliably deliver packages,” he added.

The company typically delivers nearly 15.8 million packages a day. During one five-day stretch of the pre-Christmas peak last year, that jumped to over 20 million a day.

Read the rest of the story at the Times site.

In early December, I spent a few days in New Orleans. I saw a lot of bikes, which was surprising to me. They have a different mentality about their bikes down there- it was eye-opening.

I saw a lot of trikes with rear baskets. Bright, fun colors. Most of the bikes I saw were cruiser types. People don’t ride around all kitted up. I saw no spandex, no bike jerseys. I didn’t see many helmets and almost no day glo. At night, the streets are so well lit, and wide, that you don’t have to disguise yourself as a Christmas tree to ride around. I was shocked. I kept thinking “that is NOT safe” and my brain threw red flags all over the place. But then I started to realize that all of the defensive measures are not really necessary in The Big Easy. It didn’t seem to me that anybody was going to be hit by a car there.

I saw a lot of really nice bikes locked up in less than perfect ways, but at least reasonable ways, which meant to me that people know how to lock their bikes and are not worried about having their nice bike stolen. This is a far cry from our little town, where people break into your house to steal your beat up piece of crap bike.

A neat thing was the Canal Streetcar. It goes up and down the center of Canal Street. Reasonable public transportation, for sure, but I saw a lot of bikes riding up and down the streetcar lane. I don’t know if it was “legal” but the cops didn’t mind. I thought it was a really clever use of public transportation space.

(Oh, yeah, yay RocBike is back up!)

Here’s an article from AlterNet featuring an excerpt from Chris Carlsson’s book:

Bikes Point the Way to a Sustainable Future

Courtest of Fossil Fool at Rock The Bike: