This is the finished version of a four-day project that included one trip to a local residence and half a dozen trips to four different bike shops. I got it all together and color-coordinated before Lily got back from visiting family though, so it was a success.

This is the beginning. I picked up this Masi frame and forks with wheels, stem, bars, and seat post with my own Grocery Bike. This set-up was the basis for this build (Thanks, Jimmy!).
Next I put on a short, BMX-style Origin-8 stem, trimmed-down Origin-8 …

In “Wheels of Change: How the Bicycle Empowered Women,” Brain Pickings‘ editor Maria Popova reviews National Geographic‘s Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). Both the book and the article tell the story of the bicycle’s role in equal rights for women.

And if you’re more interested in the evolution of bicycle technology and what it meant for women, The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (MIT Press, 1989) edited by Wiebe Bijker, …

That is all.
Happy 2011, everyone.
[Art by Cartlon Reid]

I was walking to class today, and I was almost mowed down by a guy on a fixed-gear. I was crossing a street, in the crosswalk, where I clearly had the right of way, but he rang his bell and blew by right in front of me, running the stop sign on the corner. I’d already been conceiving this post in my head and that was the last straw. Being a frequent rider of bikes on the streets of many cities, as well as a frequent pedestrian, I have come …

I built this bike from pieces left over from other projects, bikes I found in garbage piles, bikes left next to dumpsters, and a few small but crucial parts from The Austin Yellow Bike Project. After completing it and riding it for about a month now, I am convinced that it’s a viable set-up for more than just trips to the grocery store.

This build centers on a Spalding “Blade” ladies hybrid frame that was left in the garbage at my old place here in Austin. The geometry is not super …

My girl Jessy passed this one along from Kotaku:
Portland is a serious bicycling community. But not so serious that it can’t have some fun with its bike lanes. Some wag painted a whole bunch of Mario Kart items along a stretch of North Williams Avenue in the city.
The symbols include speed boost arrows, bananas, mushrooms, and stars. So far nothing exotic or offense-based, like the shells. They’re there to provide a little humor and inspiration to cyclists commuting home.
Here’s the full story.

Well, it’s about time… Legislation has been passed that pretty well equates bikes to cars when it comes to rights on the road. Now if only the laws of physics could be amended to do the same.

Full article in Wired.

My friends were concerned about my bike ride home, I was not. The
night had warmed up, no longer the 20 degrees the morning brought.
I rode into my secret world.
With my bike.
Along the bike path, and up the hill.
Buchannan Street. Up the hill north of Columbia Pike.
I passed a sight beneath the street lamp light.
Five perfect logs with straps stapled on like they were suitcases. I
keep on going, with a stomach full of food and wine.
Wow… I must tell my friend Roni about that fantastic “trash pile” of
logs with …

In the early 90s, AT&T ran a series of commercials that posed some futuristic, technologically enabled task (e.g., “Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?”), and then answered it emphatically (”You will.”), claiming they’d be the company to technologically enable such a task. I believe they’ve all come to pass except one. As Stewart Brand once said, “Technology marches on, over you or through you, take your pick.”

I can’t help but think that many of the technological advances we debate and marvel about were downright inevitable. …

Here’s a new/old Schwinn we’re working on for Jessy.

I’m not sure about the model or year, but it has five speeds (soon to be reduced to one), fenders, a rear rack (steel), and had a built-in light set-up with a generator running off the front wheel. We found it on Craigslist.