Painting a new bike lane in Oaxaca City Imagine Critical Mass – but you’ve raised money to pay the police to escort the ride – and hundreds of people show up, including whole families – and everyone is singing and chanting and having a grand time – and it happens twice a week. That’s how […]
Getting ready to jump over a hurdle at a 2009 ‘cross race. Cyclocross season is well underway. It’s something of a local pastime here in Portland, with serious road racers enjoying a chance to eat waffles and get muddy (well, this year it’s more like dusty) in a cheery, open environment. Many everyday, regular, jeans-and-a-t-shirt […]
Back in March, while we were on tour, I entertained myself by making lists and lists of slogans to put on stickers. Several months later I sat down at the computer to choose the best ones, fancy them up, and shoehorn as many as possible onto one sheet of vinyl, to be printed by Diesel […]
It’s safe to say that bicycling is not an important issue in this year’s race for the U.S. presidency, nor is it likely to be an issue very much on the winners’ radar in the next four years. But, while half-paying attention to Obama and Romney debate earlier this week, I couldn’t help finding myself […]
On Monday afternoon, I posted about the Bike Test, an analytical tool to help the people in the bicycle industry, advocacy, and media to determine if an image or situation is sexist. There’s been quite a response; loads of people coming to read the article, tons of discussion and debate in online forums and social […]
One of the highlights of last week’s National Women’s Bicycling Summit was the touching and often hilarious video presentation of Emily Finch, subject of the all-time highest-traffic story over on BikePortland (yes, this one was even bigger than the one about the beer bike that broke the site when I was an editor there). Here’s […]
The Bike Test is a three part analytical tool for determining whether or not something like an advertisement or event is sexist. It was developed for use in the bicycle industry and advocacy world, but can be applied to any field, and can also work for race, class, sexuality, or other category beyond gender.
In the vein of my as-if-they-were-rock-albums bike route mini-reviews of last year, here is a general and biased, yet heartfelt, review of sharrows. Sharrows are the Jordan Catalano of bike infrastructure. Remember how you gazed at them across the classroom for hours, drawn to them, longing for them? And then it turned out that they […]
When you think of Portland, it’s likely that an image of a bicycle pops into your head. You’re also increasingly likely to associate the city with its craft beer scene – microbreweries adorn every block in some neighborhoods, and it’s hard to find a part of the city where you can’t amble down the street […]
We came to California chasing the dream and ended up in West Oakland. Actually, we come down here a couple times a year to visit friends, table at big book and zine events, and generally enjoy a working vacation away from the distractions of home. In a few days we’ll get on the train again […]
Dear world, I’d like to introduce you to my next zine issue of Taking the Lane Quarterly. Volume 8 is “Childhood.” [Update: It’s out and available here] It’s about when you rode your bike as a kid and it was joyous. Or when you rode your bike as a kid and you fell off and […]
While I share a lot of links on Twitter – it’s a great way to work out my aggregative feelings – sometimes there’s just a lot of cool, empowering, interesting bike news. This month has been one of those months, so here’s a selection. Some old news, some new news, all high quality infotainment to […]
Update (11/23/12): I removed this promotion when switching to my new shop software. But if you send me a receipt of your donation to Marilyn’s medical bills and your mailing address, I’ll send you one of these as long as I’ve still got copies. The theme of the third issue of Taking the Lane was […]
If a political candidate had a habit of walking into crowded places twirling a gun around with the safety off, would that be considered worth mentioning to voters? Or would it be passed off as a personal foible, something to be grown out of and regretted? If nobody was ever hurt, would it matter at […]