We’re heading out on tour next week. For the entire month of September, we’ll be driving around the western United States. Joe will show his inspiring short bike films, Joshua will serve up equally inspiring vegan food, and I’ll be talking about the bicycle economy. We’ll have books, zines, and movies for sale, a sort […]
Tag Archives: Bicycling
Quantifying Britain's bicycle economy
Posted onPashley made the bikes for the Royal Mail and now sells cargo-worthy commuters to the general public. (Photo: Elly Blue) Researchers from the London School of Economics have been looking into the bike economy, and have found it to be thriving.
Taking back the streets, with books, by ...
Posted onPortland’s Street Books—a library on a cargo trike that serves readers who may not have a home, identification, or other welcoming access to books—has been in the news a lot lately. This charming video shows it well.
Biking big, thinking big
Posted onMy latest column over at Grist is about bicycling when you’re big. It was going to be quite a different piece. Krissy Durden, a Portlander and fat-acceptance activist (who publishes a zine on the topic called Figure 8) connected me with the woman featured in the column. Durden also gently steered me away from the […]
Bicycle society in Jakarta
Posted onThis news report is a tantalizing look at cycling in Indonesia’s capitol and largest city. There’s a huge grassroots movement (the Bike to Work organization has 50,000 members) and a weekly ciclovia called Carfree Day, but people on bikes still need to contend with terrible traffic and a lack of bike infrastructure. Worth a watch.
A video tour of the bike dance movement
Posted onI’m writing about bike dance teams for one of my upcoming zines. I keep wishing I could include video clips in the zine – it’s a limitation of print, but one of the bonuses of having an accompanying blog. Here’s a selection that spans the wide and fascinating variety of what’s going on out there […]
Biking in Joplin after the tornado
Posted onPhoto from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District Joplin, Missouri resident Chris Patrick emailed yesterday to say he’d been thinking about my writing about bikes and the economy in light of his experiences in the wake of the tornado that destroyed a large part of his town this May. He wrote: “Since […]
Bike economics, the book -- almost
Posted onOver breakfast a couple of weeks ago, I decided in between coffee refills that I wasn’t done thinking or writing about the bicycle economy yet. I’ll make it into a book, I decided. The book itself is still a ways off – in the meantime, though, I’m remixing the best parts of the ten columns […]
Bike touring...do it for the economy
Posted onHere’s another post I’m migrating over from my old blog (now retired). Ellee’s bike touring guidebook to Oregon is now much closer to reality than it was when this was posted a month and a half ago. I’ve been inspired by her passion and entrepreneurialism to embark on some more ambitious publishing projects of my […]
Biking for both of us
Posted onI wrote about disability and adaptive bicycling for Grist this week in part because, this last winter, the topic hit home. One day, shortly after the new year, my partner fell suddenly and mysteriously ill. For three months, on most days, he was barely able to get out of bed and walk across the house. […]
Able to ride
Posted onCyndi Sutter on her cargo trike. My latest column on Grist, up today, is about bicycling with disabilities. As always, when interviewing people for a story, a heartbreaking amount gets cut for the final version. In this case, I particularly wanted to share some of the practical tips people offered for other folks with disabilities […]
Biking to the airport
Posted onMeghan and I like leading bike rides, though it’s not part of what we do with PDX by Bike. Instead, we empower people to explore Portland by bike in the way that suits them best, whether that’s through one of our city’s fine tour providers or on their own. To that end, we partnered with […]
That big bike race in Europe this week.....
Posted onThe biggest international bike race of the year is happening right now. No, I don’t mean the Tour de France. I mean the Giro Donne. Never heard of it? You’re not alone.
Bicycles and spinning wheels
Posted onMy latest column is up at Grist – it’s the tenth and last in the “Bikenomics” series I’ve been writing for them. Many of the columns are about how bicycling creates wealth for individuals, employers, and the government, whereas relying on private automobiles makes a few people and institutions very rich and systematically screws the […]