I was in LA with my wifebot and wee Z this weekend for the holidays.
Spending 16 hours or so round trip in the wrongTank’s unforgiving seat made me yearn for my bikes fiercely. However, all was not lost. I spotted three wonderful bike bits.

A. Green Bike Lanes in Long Beach.

The pic above was shot in Belmont Shores, a cozy beachfront community in Long Beach, where you MAY get kicked out for wandering around with a caucasian, jackie, but man, NICE bike lanes. I can’t wait for this to continue to spread into Bay Area cities… you can’t fight the logic forever, city planners!

2. "S..s..s..s..s..SEVEN."

I stopped at a local donut shop to pick up me sleeping pops some donuts. In front, an Electra electric bicycle in matte black. One patron inside, a kind looking very old man in wing tips and no dentures therein. I asked him if it was his bike, he said yes. I asked him if he liked it, he said yes. I asked him if it was a sweet, sweet internal three speed hub, and he said:

"S..s..s..s..s..SEVEN."

And then smiled his dentureless grin and gave me a thumb’s up.

D. 3Girls vs. 3Dudes

No pic sadly, but in these lazy quiet streets in suburban Lakewood, we took several long walks with Z in the trike stroller (YES, trike!) and on one, saw three boys, mid-teens maybe, out riding their brand-spaking-new factoryFixies, complete with spoke cards. All three had lost control and were hooting and hollerin’, with one foot down and one sprung up as the pedals went wild. It was awesome. Then, on another, I saw three teen girls on lazy looking dutch bikes or uprights, and all three were riding side by side, and all three were on cell phones. Surreal!

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I’m not much for football yeehaws, but if I were to go to one, I’d want to do it by bike, like these awesome superfans…

http://www.asylum.com/2009/12/18/new-or … -gamedays/

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massan knows.

i don’t know who apollo cutts is, and he’s pretty fucking annoying, but he did do a little PIECE on some work that colin and colby (MACAFRAMA) are doing, and it’s FULL of good shit.

+ MACAFRAMA-produced leader commercial, featuring massan? oh HELL yes.
+ MACAFRAMA 2, fall. proper.
+ MACAFRAMA bike? SICK.
+ are those beeps "raleigh" and "mike giant?" if they are, i’m officially gonna start saving my money NOW. a mike-giant-branded raleigh MACAFRAMA bike would be the only thing to supercede my leader.

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MASH and MACAFRAMA

there’s getting to be quite a handful of fixedGear urban cycling films out there, such as the bootleg sessions (3 DVDs with a 4th on the way), fast friday (which is actually more of a documentary), and a bunch of others. but in my opinion, the two crowning achievements amidst this flood are MASH and MACAFRAMA.

MASH was of course the first, and in so many ways, remains the best. this is just my opinion because i prefer the style of riding exhibited in MASH and because i’m a nostalgist. but with those two things considered, there’s something about MASH that’s more timeless than all the rest. it’s dirtier, for one thing, which instantly makes it feel more real, like you’re really out there riding. and the riding showcased in MASH is WAY more hardcore. it’s got it’s fair share of wheelies and light tricking, but MASH is a RIDING video. guys out there bombing hills and blasting through traffic. and the tricking that does happen in MASH is just the fun stuff you do when you’re on a bike all day, it’s not "freestyle" or "acrobatic." additionally, the great majority of the riders showcased in MASH are messengers. some are from back in the 90s, though none are from the 80s, i think. and a couple are even further entwined in cycling culture off-camera. garrett chow, for instance, is like the product manager at specialized or something, and road races. james newman cyclocrosses and road races. so that’s a little more valid to me, i think, that the riders in MASH are experienced. does SF play a part in my nostalgic pedestal placement of this film? i suppose it does, yeah, but here and NYC are where track bike culture sprung from, so what can you do? the final thing that puts MASH over the top to me though, is strange to say, but it’s that it’s filmed from a moped. with a moped, the camerapeople can get through the traffic along with the riders they’re following. this not only lends major excitement, but it seriously broadens the areas where they’re even able to ride. check this out, in every other video out there, they’re filming from a car. and what is the number one thing that hardened city cyclists can do that cars can’t? FLOW. we can alter our course more quickly, we can blow stop signs, we can switch between being a "pedestrian" and a "vehicle" — and so when being followed by a car which is filming, the riders in other videos have to pre-plan SO much that you can feel it when you’re watching. the spontaneity level isn’t nearly as high, the routes don’t feel as fluid, the camera is often stationary — it’s just kind of plodding. not so in MASH.

but there’s another, the other strong video, MACAFRAMA, which shares a lot of the same characteristics of MASH, but brings everything forward in the timeline. the number one most standout piece of positive in MACA is the fact that it’s filmed in HD. this, in conjunction with some pretty well-plotted out angles and lines and slo-mo accentuation gives it an AMAZING watchability. it’s just beautiful. and there’s a rider in MACA that i just fucking LOVE to watch, named phill cheng. dude BALLS SF, and it’s awesome to watch. utter concentration. (most times — he actually almost gets creamed TWICE.) of course, MACAFRAMA happens in a different time, so there’s a lot more freestyle in it, but one thing that keeps me loving it is that it’s not a tricking video, such as the aforementioned bootleg sessions, or stuff from chris fonseca and others. it’s got a ton of just good ole fashioned city bombing, and there’s at least two overlapping cyclists, too, so i think MACA is honoring it’s inspiration or something. feels that way, anyhow.

with the sudden, booming popularity of fixed gear bikes, there’s all this demand for videos showcasing nice and clean lines, pretty bikes, new fashions, and every once in a while, some real progressiveness. but the above two are, so far, the standouts in a very thick pond of mediocrity.

and keep in mind, this is just me. trixter guys like prolly and others will like different stuff for different reasons. but if you want to see some good riding, you can’t go wrong with MASH or MACAFRAMA.

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i’ve been trying to find THIS as a link for a long time.

sit back and enjoy 3:33 (i did not make that up) of the smoothest, most aggressive, flat-out ballsiest riding that the streets of SF may have ever seen.

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over at the GUARDIAN UK today, we learn that a study conducted by the UK’s department for transport and analyzed by the transport research library, gave some overwhelming results.

"With adult cyclists, police found the driver solely responsible in about 60%-75% of all cases, and riders solely at fault 17%-25% of the time.

The cyclists’ lobby group CTC said the report showed that the government needed to focus more on driver behaviour rather than on issues such as cyclists wearing helmets."

there’s many more details in the report, which i encourage you to read, but what i’ve snipped out above is relevant in more than a few ways. to me, it shows that in the midst of the new (as opposed to the old) cycling "revolution," it is the DRIVERS who need to receive additional training, NOT the cyclists. no amount of helmet laws, light laws, brake laws, et cetera are going to quell the spate of ghost bikes unless and until the drivers start getting some fucking education about their expected means of interacting with cyclists.

i’ve noticed on a million and three occasions that drivers who i’ve had altercations with just don’t KNOW the rules. they think i’m out there breaking all the rules (when in reality, it’s just one or two, ha!), when in fact, i’m pretty goddamn good at following them. WR always gives me shit about middleLaning, but setting aside his concern for watching his buddy get smeared down the side of a garbage truck, i’m well within my legal rights to do so, as long as i don’t impede the flow of traffic, which i never do. i middleLane in front of COPS. but i’m off-topic, what i’m saying is that if the drivers knew the rules, there would be far less cyclist deaths out there.

here’s what i suggest. mandatory driver re-training, every several years (we’ll call it 3, for brand-awareness’ sake). tell you what, i’ll even offer myself up for cyclist re-training at the same time. make it fair. make the drivers demonstrate an understanding of how they’re expected to act out there. make us understand it, too, there’s several times when i don’t know if what i’m doing (or about to do, or just DID) is legal.

or, you know, just keep turning us into roadkill, whatever.

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while other cities are starting to try and pass laws prohibiting "acrobatic riding" or requiring registration of bicycles or otherwise fucking cyclists because we have nicer asses than them, san francisco spent 2009 continuing to bolster the cycling infrastructure and truly trying to develop a fair balance between the cyclists and the autos.

some of the 2009 highlights, as listed over at the SFBC, are…

+ the first separated bikeway in the city, soon to be extended on much of mid-market street
+ fewer cars & better transit service on market street thanks to the success of our new great streets project
+ 6 new bike lanes — all striped within the last month and 20 more to come in the next year
+ the city’s first colored pavement & bicycle box, a way for bike-designated space to be more visible and respected by motorists
+ nearly 100 new bike racks in the past month, with hundreds more on the way
+ hundreds of new "sharrows," or shared-lane markings on key streets such as busy 5th st
+ "safe routes to school" programs for 2nd & 4th graders, and "walk & bike to school days" reaching hundreds of students
+ "sunday streets" events bringing residents out to the streets throughout the city, thanks to SFBC leadership and hundreds of volunteer hours

and as if these tangible changes weren’t enough to vibe on, city ridership is up FIFTY-THREE PERCENT. that’s HUGE.

SF FTW!

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THIS is the greatest video ever in the history of videos showcasing the use of a bicycle as a weapon.

the story is that the guy on the bike there saw two people on a moped ride by a woman and snatch her purse. so he calmly dismounts and then hucks his bike INTO the mopedders, taking them down.

FUCK.
YES.

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I’d have bought this book for the cover alone, if it weren’t levying such an elitist, rich-shopper tax of like $49.99

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interesting POST from the very, VERY awesome cyclingWMD, featuring some straaaange bikes, man.

i don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on with the front tyre on this wrongFarthing.

this wrongTandem seems to be a concept frame stuck on cardboard printouts of wheels. WTF?

sickest. dragsterBike. EVER.

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