I’m accepting submissions now for the witchcraft-themed ninth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies, scheduled to come out at the beginning of 2022. Working title: Bicycles & Broomsticks Please submit your original short fiction that combines themes of witchcraft and bicycling, through a feminist lens. Both witchiness and […]
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Reviewing Car Sinister: a Science Fictio...
Posted onWant more feminist science fiction in the world? Back Dragon Bike on Kickstarter through Nov 1, 2019! Last summer, as I was preparing the Kickstarter project for Bikes Not Rockets, my colleague Jeremy Withers, a professor of bicycle science fiction at Iowa State (sadly, I’m not 100% sure that’s his official job title), sent me […]
Lessons from the Untokening
Posted onSome of the smartest and most effective leaders in bicycle advocacy founded The Untokening a few years ago. It’s a mobility justice movement that centers marginalized voices. The organization is all about reframing the narrative around transportation and to that end, they publish papers, host webinars, and have regular conferences. Mel Herrera-Baird attended one of […]
Bike route mini-reviews: New Portland ed...
Posted onA while back I was reading a bunch of music writing and was inspired to review bike routes as though they were records. I realized the other day that at least one of them is badly out of date. Here’s one update and a new review.
Miss the Taking the Lane blog? Join me o...
Posted onIt’s been a while since I blogged here. Or anywhere. I miss it a bit, and some of you have let me know that you’d prefer I start up again. Well, I’m going to give it a try. But not here, for now—instead I’ll be posting a couple times a week on my Patreon page. […]
My big news for 2015: Joining forces wit...
Posted onUpdate: You’re invited to our Merger Celebration! Tuesday, January 27, 6-8pm (followed by live music) The Waypost, 3120 N Williams, Portland, Oregon Happy new year, everyone! I am buried in a mountain of paperwork, spreadsheets, and to-do lists, but wanted to surface for a moment to give you, the readers and visitors to this blog, […]
Dreaming of Portland
Posted onPortland! I miss you. For the month or two at a time that I’ve spent at home in the past year (probably adding up to about half the year, more or less), I’ve been happy. (So has my cat.) Sure, in these staccato bursts of time, I’ve watched you change. I’ve watched fortress-like condominiums pop […]
Upper class cycling culture and the demi...
Posted onWhat happened to Portland’s bike scene? Maybe first it would help to envision what it used to be. There was this booming, diverse, vibrant DIY bike activist and bike fun scene that transformed this city, from Critical Mass to Shift to any number of wild initiatives popping up. Any night of the week, there was […]
The Vulva Bike: A true tale of shock, gl...
Posted onWhen I first saw the ShockTwat on its inaugural journey, I marveled at it for two minutes straight and then snapped a photo with my phone at the last moment before it rolled away. When the time came to launch the Kickstarter campaign for Our Bodies, Our Bikes, I looked through my photos for a […]
Vehicular Cyclists weigh in on women
Posted on@deisum @ellyblue https://t.co/LGFbmSakxZ pic.twitter.com/hoEuEOdLoN — Sam Ollinger (@ollingers) July 10, 2014 After clicking through to the original forum thread to confirm that John Forester’s comments about gender screencapped here were made in earnest, I have nothing to add. Thanks to the strong-stomached Sam Ollinger, director of San Diego advocacy group BikeSD, for going boldy into […]
My cost of bicycling (what's yours?)
Posted onA while back I wrote a fact-check of the $308 figure that gets bandied about as the annual cost of bicycling in the US. As I discovered, the number is entirely false; it’s based on an old data entry error that quietly persisted until it became taken for granted as a fact. I found (as […]
Biking like a woman
Posted onA couple months ago, a man explained to me that he believes in the fashionable biking movement because it allows women to still feel feminine while they ride a bike, thus demolishing one barrier to getting around on two wheels. I’ve heard this from women as well in the past and thought “well, to each […]
What does sci fi tell us about feminism?
Posted onUpdate: The Kickstarter for the third Bikes in Space book, Pedal Zombies is live through August 4, 2015. (And yes, you can request a feminist analysis on this one, too.) When I ran the Kickstarter project for the original Bikes in Space zine, it included some funny rewards. One of them allowed the backer to […]
Aftermass is coming! To Portland and the...
Posted onFive years and a few weeks ago, some guys came by my office to see if they could interview me for a documentary the next day. I said sure. Then I didn’t show up. Fortunately, they were persistent and came by again the next day, and I sat in front of their camera for an […]