Tag Archives: bicycling

by | July 21, 2014 · 9:08 am

Explore The World On Two Wheels, Online

Google Maps has taken to documenting much of the world’s roads, and even some more ambitious routes such as the Grand Canyon, but Cyclodeo is the first to begin documenting the world’s bike paths.

I particularly like the Golden Gate Bridge video, what a spectacular ride it would be. Explore the rest of San Francisco via bicycle here.

Cylodeo allows users to explore bike paths from their computer such the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. One city at a time, Cylodeo has gone about filming and routing bike paths in about seven cities in Europe and the United States.

A virtual map allows users to choose paths from a bird’s eye view, then view the route through first-hand video. Handy statistics are also available including the time it takes to ride a route, average speed and distance. Continue reading →

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by | July 13, 2014 · 6:00 am

Mobile Bike App Encourages Biking Across The U.S.

Getting into the spirit of biking might be as easy as turning on your smartphone. An organization called My City Bikes has now launched 14 different smartphone apps all aimed at providing a simple and user-friendly tool for bicyclists.

Bikes-iPhone-Bakersfield

Courtesy of MyCityBikes.org

Sara Villalobos with My City Bikes said the goal of the project is to make bicycling accessible to everyone in each city they create an app for.

“Biking is a simple pleasure (and) it’s something that almost everyone learns how to do in childhood,” she told me in an interview for KTAR in Phoenix. “But especially as we grow into adults a lot of people get away from it and it’s such a simple activity, but it can have such a profound, great effect on one’s own health and also on the community overall.”

Villalobos said they partnered with local bike shops in each city to create a comprehensive application for users that provides information such as routes, local repair shops and beginner bike tips.

“It’s a place where you can find trails throughout the city and in and around the area,” she said, “as well as road routes that you can get commuter bikes lanes, where you can bike safely from here to there and get to school or get to work on your bike.”

In places such as Phoenix, where hot and arid climates present health risks to riders, Villalobos said a useful tool in the application is a heat monitor to help people keep track of how much water they should be drinking based on the current temperature and how much they’re exercising.

The app is available for free on Android and Apple smartphones.

To find out if My City Bikes has an app in your area, visit MyCityBikes.org

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by | May 7, 2014 · 6:00 am

A Present From Dad Spurs A Young Couple’s Decision To Live Car-Free

Couple Curbs Car

When her car broke down this past March, Kayla Crawford took the advice of her boyfriend, Matt Carter, and decided to go car-free.

The dead battery on her 1999 Oldsmobile Aurora was the final straw in a long line of car problems.

“Having a car is insanely expensive,”said  Crawford, who lives with Carter in Mount Pleasant, Mich., home to Central Michigan University and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.

With poor gas mileage and a high insurance rate ($180 per month, driving became more of a hassle than a convenience.

Two months ago, the couple received a pair of bikes from Crawford’s father, and they have not looked back.

“It is really exciting to me that I have no other option but to go out and ride my bike,” Crawford said. “It is so much healthier for me and the environment.” Continue reading →

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by | February 26, 2014 · 9:00 am

How To Ride A Bike In The City

By Micheline Maynard
I’ve been getting to know the streets of Phoenix, figuring out where it’s safe to ride and the streets to avoid. It got me thinking that since I’ve never had a class in how to ride in a city, I ought to look for some help online.

Here’s a video from GristTV that’s informative and entertaining. It’s a great one to watch if you haven’t been on a bike in a while, or you aren’t used to urban cycling. (Bike sharing participants, that could mean you.)

Let us know if you have some urban riding tips to go with these.

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by | February 4, 2014 · 9:00 am

The Results Are In! How You Told Us You’re Getting Around In 2014

More than any other mode of transportation, our Curbing Cars readers get around by walking.

More than any other mode of transportation, our Curbing Cars readers get around by walking.

By Micheline Maynard

Back on New Year’s Day (a mere month and three days ago), we asked our Curbing Cars audience to tell us how you planned to get around in 2014. We got a terrific response and now we’re sharing the results with you.

We’re ambulatory. Most of us still use cars, but not as much as we use other types of transportation in the mix of the ways we get places. The number one way Curbing Cars readers get around is on two feet. Almost 80 percent of respondents say they get around most frequently by walking. That was followed by public transportation, used by 69.7 percent; cars, used by 58.1 percent and other modes of transportation, which included running, Zipcars or car sharing programs, and taxis.

Several people told us that they use of a mix of transportation in a single day. “I walk to work every day, bus in bad weather, bike for some errands in spring/summer/fall. use my car mainly for weekend shopping and for getting out of town,” replied one survey participant.

In fact, I’m doing more walking this winter in Phoenix, where I’m a Reynolds Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State. I walk to school every day from my home downtown, and I’ve walked to the farmer’s market, the movies, to drinks and dinner, and to the Phoenix Opera in the month since I’ve been here. Even though I walked frequently in Ann Arbor, I am doing even more daily walking here. (And of course, the weather is much better…)

We’re pleased with our choices. People seem to be pretty satisfied with the mix of the ways they get places. About 60 percent of you said you were happy with your transportation mix. About 24 percent said they’d like to change it, and the rest said they would like to change it, but couldn’t for various reasons. Continue reading →

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by | December 24, 2013 · 9:00 am

From Austin, Some Ideas For Anne On Transportation Choices

By Micheline Maynard

Andrew Hartford wrote for us recently about the ways he gets around Austin without a car. We asked him to provide our reader Anne in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with ideas for deciding whether to keep her 1998 Honda Civic, or go car free.

Hi Anne,

I have been in your situation before.  I’ve had car troubles in the past, and wondered if it was really even worth owning one (the cost and stress of maintaining it) considering I had other options of getting around.  Ultimately, I realized that not owning a car doesn’t mean you have to cut cars out of your life completely.

As much as I am an advocate for alternative forms of transportation (biking, walking, and mass transit), I understand that there are situations in which a car might be needed (much of the U.S. is still very car-dependent). Continue reading →

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by | November 27, 2013 · 12:55 pm

In Michigan, Redesigning A Campus For People, Bikes And Cars

In our latest student-written story, Curbing Cars intern Matthew Varcak at Central Michigan University looks at plans to redesign the campus for every kind of transportation use.

By Matthew Varcak

If you say Mount Pleasant to anyone in Michigan, the first thing they might name is Central Michigan University – a university that nearly doubles the city’s population from September through May.

CMU is a public school, whose campus covers 871 acres, and has 17,771 undergraduate students. This year, CMU had the NFL’s No. 1 draft pick, Eric Fisher.

Mount Pleasant also has a sprawling casino, resort and water park run by the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, an ample public transportation system, and a picturesque small town atmosphere.

The city and the university, however, aren’t known for being bicycle or pedestrian friendly. But some people are trying to change this. They are redesigning the campus with an emphasis on how it will be used by people, bicycles and cars.

CMU’s 2013 Campus Master Plan, which sets the direction of the university for the next century, features plans to make the campus more accessible for bikes and pedestrians. (See the master plan at the end of this article.) Continue reading →

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by | November 11, 2013 · 9:00 am

Can’t Bikes And Cars Just Get Along? Apparently, Not Yet

Chicago's bike lanes still result in bike-car conflict.

Chicago’s bike lanes still result in bike-car conflict.

By Micheline Maynard

Motorists and cyclists each have their own stories to tell about each other. Drivers complain that cyclists don’t obey traffic laws and dart out of nowhere without any warning. Cyclists feel like they have targets painted on their backs every time they’re out on the road.

Writing in Sunday’s New York Times, Daniel Duane tackled the situation in his op-ed piece, “Is It O.K. To Kill Cyclists?” Of course, the headline stretched things a bit. But for many of us, Duane nailed the issue in his lede paragraph.

“Everybody who knows me knows I love cycling and that I’m also completely freaked out by it,” he wrote.

After listing a bushel basket full of bike-car accidents, Duane made a salient point.

“The social and legal culture of the American road, not to mention the road itself, hasn’t caught up,” he wrote. “Laws in most states do give bicycles full access to the road, but very few roads are designed to accommodate bicycles, and the speed and mass differentials — bikes sometimes slow traffic, only cyclists have much to fear from a crash — make sharing the road difficult to absorb at an emotional level.” Continue reading →

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by | October 30, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Why Would — or Wouldn’t You — Wear A Bike Helmet?

As bike sharing gets more popular, public health officials are concerned people are on bikes without helmets.

As bike sharing gets more popular, public health officials are concerned people are on bikes without helmets.

By Micheline Maynard

When I bought my bike this summer, everyone I told about the purchase was adamant: you have to get a helmet. They were so insistent that I stayed off it until I had gone to REI and brought home a helmet ($32, on sale).

Many public health officials are concerned that as bike sharing spreads across the country, head injuries also will go up, as I wrote this week for Al Jazeera America. There are some pretty compelling statistics to that effect.

Greg Kagay, one of the backers of Curbing Cars, is a dedicated cyclist who’s been wearing a helmet since he had a bike accident in high school. He is eager to try out bike sharing, but he’ll only do so when wearing a helmet.

However, there are also some people who think the concern about cyclists wearing helmets is way over blown. One of them is Jana Kinsman, who is among the best known cyclists in Chicago, thanks to her project, Bike A Bee.

I talked with Kinsman at length for my AJAM story, and she presents a strong argument that helmets are not the point. The bigger issue, she says, is that bikes, cars and pedestrians all need to coexist.

Continue reading →

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by | October 14, 2013 · 9:00 am

Bicyclists: How Strongly Do You Feel About Wearing A Helmet?

These Bixi riders and cyclists at lunch in Montreal. Only one of them is wearing a helmet.

These Bixi riders and cyclists at lunch in Montreal. Notice that only  one of them is wearing a helmet.

By Micheline Maynard

A few weeks ago, Curbing Cars supporter Michael Leland wrote about his experience using Capital Bike Share in Washington, D.C. Michael is an avid cyclist who always wears a helmet at home in Madison, Wisconsin, but he didn’t have one with him during his trip. That caused him a little discomfort in using the system.

We’re wondering how strongly you feel about wearing a helmet when you cycle. Is it a must for you? Or, do you skip one on occasions when you’re taking a short trip, or using bike sharing?

Please take our poll. If you feel particularly strongly about this, we’d love to hear your helmet thoughts. Add them in comments, or email us at CurbingCars@gmail.com if you’d like to say more.

Click here to take survey

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