Almost exactly one year ago, I started bicycling to work thanks to VanCity and its Bike Share program. Now I bicycle to work 3-5 times a week rain or shine and am a small 'e' bicycling enthusiast. Really if you are reasonably fit and live and work within in the city of Vancouver there's no reason NOT to cycle to work.
More reflections later, but here's my bicycle route that I took today to go to the BEST Pancake Breakfast.
View Larger Map
Wearing my Mobile Muse 3 technical evangelist and Fearless volunteer hats, I'll be riding my bicycle with Amy Walker, publisher of the fabulous Momentum magazine about all things bicycling, as part of Car Free Vancouver 2008 starting from the Fearless Mobile Booth on Commercial Drive at 12 noon Sunday June 15, 2008. We'll ride to all the other Car Free Vancouver venues (Main Street, the West End and Kitsilano) and stream video live from my bike to the internet.
Ray sent me this hilarious look at cycling in Amsterdam. Hilarious because it's written from a naive point of view from somebody who doesn't seem to have travelled much or lived in a non car-dominated city :-) . Also funny because it does have some good insights. I have "new skool" type front and back generator powered lights on my 1997 Swiss bike which uses a cool relatively friction-less generator.
However it's not enough light (but great that it's always on and doesn't require batteries and the back light flashes when I stop) for those Vancouver winter nights and cloudy days in my opinion. What type of supplimentary lighting should I get? Cheap and cheerful $10 helmet mounted front white and rear red LED lights from MEC? Let me know in the comments please.
Thanks to Richard for joining up because without Richard joining I wouldn' t have joined and got back into biking. I have reactivated my Villiger Silvretta from Switzerland that I bought in Germany and am happily biking to work on it two or more times a week.
And thanks to Nokia for giving me the free Nokia N93 phone which I used to take 502 photos from the Vancity Bike: here are the 10 flickr sets of photos: 12345678910
I arrived just before the ambulence left from the scene of yet another accident involving a cyclist struck by a car on a bicycle route. This was just a couple of blocks from home, at 10th Avenue west (a cycle route) and Manitoba (also a cycle route, if I'm not mistaken?).
I didn't see the accident occur, though it did appear that the car ended up in the wrong lane, but it was clear that the cyclist, of course, got the worst of it in terms of damage and injuries. Fortunately, he appeared to be still able to walk, though his face appeared to pretty badly scraped.
I found this accident particularly upsetting because the neighbourhood is supposedly 'traffic calmed', with many alternating one-way streets, round-abouts, and other such devices, but it seems that alarmingly many motorists are blatantly ignoring traffic regulations. The unfortunate scene which I just witnessed illustrates the consequences of this kind of arbitrary violation of the laws.
I have lived in Vancouver since July 12, 1998 but I never biked from Gastown to Granville Island to East Van !
Impressions:
Columbia Street is a mess. The Carrall Street Greenway will fix this methinks
As I said to a Vancouver Sun reporter, I want it to be like the bike paths in southern Germany where I lived for 3.5 years. No motorized vehicles because there will always be accidents when the two share the same space.
Canada Line construction is omnipresent and disrupting every mode of transit!
Biking is the best way to learn about a city next to walking.
I took 80 photos of my journey today (yes I am crazy enough to take cameraphone pictures everywhere :-) !)
Here are my favourites (guess where they are :-) ! )
I arrived just before the ambulence left from the scene of yet another accident involving a cyclist struck by a car on a bicycle route. This was just a couple of blocks from home, at 10th Avenue west (a cycle route) and Manitoba (also a cycle route, if I'm not mistaken?). 