winter biking can be expensive

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..if you read commercially-motivated blogs.

The blog recommends $80 tires and $350 pants… just to get you started. So unless you’re wealthy enough to drop a thousand dollars to attempt to use your bike this winter, the advice in that blog is purely decorative and probably demoralizing.

It’s probably that most readers of that article don’t really need to bike in the winter; they can ride their well-equipped SUVs for any real travel. For this type of cyclist – the adventure consumer – the real thrill is in the shopping.

Meanwhile, you can find insulated ski pants for $20, and it’s possible to make your own “winter tires” for next-to-nothing with a little googling. I bike on my regular mountain bike tires all winter by sticking to plowed paths and sidewalks.

Unless your primary motivation is status (rather than survival), product placement is sort of insulting and useless. Remember way back before the age of blogs, when the only sources of information were advertising-driven magazines?

That time is past because the earth can’t sustain commercial lies anymore. Don’t buy $350 ski pants to bike this winter. Use Google instead of Visa and save money and time that you can use for recreation and slower travel.

CTV maps where cars most often crash into bicycles

source: CTV

Not surprising that those two busy corners along the Berri bike artery are popular sites for crashes. But what’s more surprising is that the DeMaisonneuve bike path doesn’t contain any of the top five. I guess motorists along that route have learned to yield.

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dollarama rainbike fashions

Whenever I go for a ride on a rainy day,  I pass a few soggy people wearing bike helmets. I realize it’s important to protect your head. But even if it’s not as deadly as an SUV collision, rain also requires wardrobe adjustments.

In this photograph, our handsome model wears only the most practical rainwear made up of inexpensive items that can be found at Dollarama or a hardware store.

On top, he sports an elastic hair band to keep his poncho hood from slipping off his head as he rides. The poncho itself is sleeveless so our model wears a long-sleeve vinyl coat underneath it. The splash of orange says citrus together with the lemony pants and poncho. Bright colors make you both visible and sunny.

Covering  his athletic legs, rain pants go all the way down to cover the tops of his insulated galoshes. The reflective vest serves two functions: night/wet windshield visibility, and improved poncho aerodynamics.

Our modeling hunk’s glamorous hands are protected by two layers of gloves: fleece undergloves and neoprene outergloves. Neoprene gloves alone will make your hands sweat and create mildew, so always wear a pair of fleece or knit gloves underneath.

Once you’ve got the fashion basics that make your look work, you’ll be ready to splash with pinache.

Rainbike fashion checklist

Headband elastics (5/$1 Dollarama)
Disposable poncho ($2 Dollarama)
Vinyl Coat ($10, Urban Behavior)
Reflective Vest ($10, Canadian TIre)
Rain Pants ($12, Canadian Tire)
Fleece or knit gloves ($2, Dollarama)
Neoprene gloves ($10, Canadian Tire)
Insulated Galoshes ($40, Yellow Shoes)

Insulated galoshes with zipper front $20 - $50

Neoprene gloves keep hands dry and warm

me and you and a dog-free sled

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There’s an important flaw in the hippiexploitation classic Alice’s Restaurant. The flaw – in the environmental/peace credentials of the movie – is that paradise was paved over to build a parking lot for Arlo Guthrie’s Volkswagen van -  his beloved vee dub.

The Vietnam War was mainly about securing rubber supplies for car tires, and the scene in the movie where Arlo and friends dump their trash down a hillside from the van spoils the movie’s granola flavor. That so-called “love” van was in reality just carbon monoxide and war.

The inventive bloggers at home grown cycles propose this motorless alternative to the earth-destroying Volks Van. Light in the pawprint, the bike camper offers inexpensive nomadism without all the animal-sacrifice associated with industrial gluttony.

We’re animals ourselves. So you can get whatever you want – except cannibalism – at this restaurant.

no parking in bike lanes please

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Sometimes, a $37 parking ticket doesn’t sound a loud enough message.

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bixi vandale

purple rain soundtrack

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intro to naomi klein’s no logo

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spiderman noir soundtrack

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a unified theory of mental pollution
written and read by George Atherton (not shown in image)

How do we fight back against the incessant flow of logos, brands, slogans and jingles that submerge our streets, invade our homes and flicker on our screens? We could wage a counteroffensive at the level of content: attacking individual advertisements when they cross the decency line and become deceptive, violent or overly sexual. But this approach is like using napkins to clean up an oil spill. It fails to confront the true danger of advertising – which is not in its individual messages but in the damage done to our mental ecology by the sheer volume of its flood. (rest of essay)

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Disclaimer: The publishers and writers of this blog in no way support vandalism in any form – whether corporate or independent – against private property or the environment.

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bixi pollutes in new ways

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the plateau is not amused

Now saddled with a carcass that only a culture-jammer could love, the bixi initially struck a high note in Montreal a few years back as a democratic, healthy, clean, and discreet way of getting around in style. Its non-polluting character was a huge part of the draw and – we all thought – a better quality of life was its dignified raison d’etre.

But with the addition of ugly advertising panels to the rear wheels, bixi can no longer claim to be non-polluting, stylish or dignified. And that puts its existence into question.

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visual pollution

Montreal’s has a really eclectic core (which can be ugly) and its neighborhoods are extremely different from each other. The addition of the simple and ubiquitous bixi stations provided a unifying design element that united the entire city visually. Now, a bixi station looks more like a ripped bag of pizza boxes left on the road by an irresponsible small businessman.

Is this what the sponsors are trying to communicate: irresponsible business practices?

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mental pollution

The mental environment is composed of the private and public spaces in which we live our daily lives. When this space is whored out to corporatism, we are all left with less dignity. Our civic pride is turned into shame, and our education and life experiences are diminished.

I think the bixi ads merit a daily moment of shame. We could all stand in prayer circles around jade representations of Michel Dallaire chanting: “Look what we did to everything we touched.”

political pollution

While the original concept provided a shiny and stunningly simple vision of a sustainable future, the new bikes are a riding tribute to the corporations that ruined the environment.  And the award-winning and democratically utilitarian vehicles are now being deployed in a novel form of indentured sandwich-man slavery.

The money-movers at bixi Inc. have stepped out of line and demonstrated that they are not worthy to run this program. They have done the wrong things to the wrong symbol of the public sphere.

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nationalize (municipalize) bixi

With such a dramatic drop in public approval after a brilliant introduction, bixi is the Obama of public utilities: a slick and award-winning new way for business practices to destroy the earth a tiny bit more.

Perhaps the city needs to step in and nationalize bixi to keep it clean.

Facebook page of rage

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make winter tires with zip ties!

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This season’s homemade winter tire cover is taken from a how to article in the inhabitat infosite.

Take that bike out of snow storage, people — the folks at Dutch Bike Co. have a handy way to give your two-wheeled ride some snow tires for cheap — all you need are zip ties!

The Seattle-based bike experts were looking for a good alternative to pricey studded tires when they happened upon this genius substitution. Just snap the ties on your wheels, clip off the excess, and you’re ready to go zipping through the winter wonderland covering much of the United States right now.

The folks behind this genius discovery assure you that the zip ties will cut into snowy and icy surfaces enough to make sure you won’t go slip sliding away.

Zip ties were just lying there at Dollarama waiting to be discovered all this time.

I hesitate to recommend this too strongly though because this probably won’t  work with regular brake pads.

 

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is the plateau the grinch of winter biking?

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This article reports that the Plateau will not be clearing its central parts of the city winter bike network this year. The arondissement wants more money from the central city in order to clear this snow.

Or maybe they want the central city to take over the bike path networks entirely? It’s hard to justify shutting down so many central parts of many cycle highways, so I wonder if this protest vandalism will lead to more public awareness of inclement cycling.

Personally, I’d like to see entire streets dedicated to cycling only in the winter months. This would make winter cycling a lot safer.

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using bike data to transform roadways

An Infrastructurist article describes how Lyon’s bike-sharing program has facilitated research into the bike traffic patterns in the city.

the Lyon researchers believe their data will help the city plan bike paths more efficiently.

On early weekday mornings, before rush hour, Lyon bicyclers reached an average speed of 14.5 kilometers per hour (roughly 9 miles per hour) — though “experienced or hurried” riders got up to 20 k.p.h. (12 m.p.h.), the authors report. During morning rush hours the average bicyclist’s speed dropped to 13.5 k.p.h. (8.4 m.p.h.). Still, that figure compares very favorably with the average car’s speed in a downtown European city, which ranges from 10 to 15 k.ph. (6.2 to 9.3 m.p.h.).

Our local Bixi network allows for studying central city cycling patterns as well. Will this information be used to create new cycling facilities?