Happy new year, everyone! Maybe it’s all the apocalyptic-flavored movie previews and social media talk, but waking up to this new year feels extra significant. I wasn’t exactly holding my breath for the world to end, but today my breathing is a little easier and my shoulders are a little farther from my ears. Still […]
Archive | Adventures
RSS feed for this sectionHijinks and explorations.
Everyday Bicycling book trailer
Posted onHere’s what we did today. Now Everyday Bicycling has its own 46 second movie. The sun came out and everything! Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bike for Transportation (Whatever Your Lifestyle) from Cantankerous Titles on Vimeo.
Learning to ride: Sparkly Purple Banana ...
Posted onThis is the first post of three dedicated to stories of learning to ride a bike for the first time. These are outtakes from Volume 8 of the quarterly Taking the Lane series, Childhood. (The second story is here and the third is here.) I wanted to print them all but didn’t have room; the […]
Bragging rights: What have you carried b...
Posted onI find very few things in life more satisfying than finding new ways to carry stuff by bike. Especially the kind of things that you really *shouldn’t* be able to bike with. The one thing that is possibly more satisfying? Getting to talk about it later. Fortunately, I’m not alone in enjoying these indulgences. Every […]
Paradise is as bicycle-friendly as you m...
Posted onPainting 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 […]
California!
Posted onWe 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 […]
Can you bike to the airport?
Posted onCan you bike to your local airport? In a few hours, Meghan Sinnott and I are leading our second annual bike ride to and from Portland’s international airport (PDX) as part of the Pedalpalooza bike fun festival. Last year’s ride was a blast, featuring a tour of the Port of Portland’s bike-friendly airport facilities, including […]
On tour: Lack of infrastructure can't st...
Posted onMobilians on Bikes on a group ride. (Photos by Ben Brenner) There’s a chicken and egg question I keep coming back to – which comes first, the bike infrastructure or the bike riders? There doesn’t seem to be any single answer except the frustrating non-simple one that you need both at once and that they […]
On tour: The battle of Baton Rouge
Posted onIn Baton Rouge last week, our event was on the same night as a big vote on transit funding. The vote was a big deal – a yes outcome would infuse over $10 million into the area’s struggling transit system, lowering average wait times from 75 to 15 minutes, increasing the number of routes, and […]
On tour: Is Houston the next bicycle cap...
Posted on“Houston is the sleeper – the next big bicycle city that nobody knows about yet,” Tom McCasland told us on Thursday. I was, of course, skeptical. My impression of Houston so far was all potholes, unpredictable driving, the chaotic geography of a city without zoning, and only a few sightings of hardy bicyclists. A conversation […]
On tour: From the most fit to the least ...
Posted onOne of the best things about being on tour is we get to see the absolute best of the places we visit. And that’s been true this time around, as our friendly hosts have shown us extensively and generously around their cities and neighborhoods. Their love and knowledge of where they live is infectious and […]
On tour: Taking the lane by the grassy k...
Posted onReaders, we made the pilgrimage to Dealey Plaza. The place is an otherwise unremarkable freeway on ramp, marked with potholes that go all the way down to the underlying brick and two white “Xs” in the road marking the place where – or so we heard – a recent group of re-enactors guessed that the […]
On tour: The rental car has its revenge
Posted onYesterday, we returned from a pleasant lollygag by a cool river in Austin to find a terrible, terrible smell emanating from the rental car. We hurriedly unloaded everything in the parking lot until we found the culprit – faulty wiring in the trunk’s light had created sparks, igniting a smoldering fire. Imagine the relief when […]
On Tour: Fort Worth's bikeyest neighborh...
Posted onTexas has been treating us well. We drove down to Fort Worth a day early, fleeing the tornadoes that were threatening Kansas and Oklahoma – which gave us the luxury a long, thunderstormy morning the next day for Joe and I to catch up on work email and for Joshua to get started cooking up […]