Last minute bike gifts I want you to want

There are still some of you who are frantically searching for some last minute Christmas gifts for someone who loves cycling. Like any good gift list suggestions, I've come up with the things I like and figure you should like them too. Read on:

Custom headbadges available to Hoopdriver Bicycles. Now nothing is holding you back from getting a custom "PINKO" and Don Cherry's head headbadge for your downtown elitist loved-one.

Pirate ship head badge velocolour.com
velocolour.com

Bike union membership. For the cyclist that already has all the bike bric-a-brac they need, give them the gift of a cause. The nice thing is that you get to be selfish; better bike conditions for yourself and still provide lots of externalized benefits for all those not buying memberships.

Sat, 11/27/2010 - 14:09 - The whole group ©The whole group
14 years ago ago by Kevin Brown.

BIXI membership. BIXI will launch next spring so there's no time like the present to buy a membership for your loved one, particularly those who can't be bothered to maintain their own bike or don't have room to store one.

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Betabrand casual pants with reflective insides. They're pants that look normal on the outside but actually hide their geekiness really well. Just roll up your cuffs and you've got wide swaths of reflective material. Who needs lights when you've got these pants! Before you buy these for someone make sure they're one of those gearhead types who doesn't mind the fashion faux-pas of pulling their back pockets inside out.

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A bakfiets aka cargo bike. I like cargo bikes and so should you! They are the ultimate functional bike - able to carry equally a case of beer or your children. All parents should consider a bakfiets a necessity. There are a few options if I've convinced you to get a cargo bike and you live in Toronto or area.

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Chocosol chocolate! They use pedal power to grind the cacao beans, blend the drinks and deliver the product to farmer's markets around Toronto. They have gift bags for the season.

Recycled laptop / courier bag. What better way to display irony and fashion than with a Mari Cla Ro bag made out of recycled car parts? This Roncesvalles store makes bags out of seatbelt parts, seat upholstery and other niknaks they can swipe from dumped cars. The result is a laptop or courier bag that is fairly water resistant and smart looking.

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herb : 14 years 4 months ago
Tags: bike culture, Christmas, gift list, holiday

34 thousand bike trips made daily into and out of downtown: city study

City of Toronto

The City of Toronto has released their 2010 Bicycle Screenline Report (full report / summary), which is the result of their September 2010 "screenline" bicycle count. The screenline counts all the cyclists entering and leaving the downtown core (bounded by Spadina / Jarvis and Bloor / Queens Quay) in a 12 hour period from 7am to 7pm.

Since this is the first comprehensive count, it will be a baseline from which to measure if the city is meeting its objective of increasing bicycle trips. I was part of previous attempts of counts at various intersection counts throughout the city but the data was never released, presumably because they wanted to set up a more comprehensive collection method.

Some interesting results:

  • the western screenline at Spadina has 45% of all bike trips
  • 62% were male (higher than I thought but still better than the 70% male typical for North America, where women are more likely put off by unfriendly streets)
  • 54% wore a helmet
  • very, very few rode on the sidewalk - 5%, and even fewer where a bike lane was present
  • only 24% of the roads had bike lanes but they carried 45% of all cyclists (particularly women)
  • cyclists greatly prefer arterials: 67% of all the roads (crossing the screenline) are arterial, but carry 94% of bike traffic
  • the city set up an automatic counter as well on College, running day and night. It found that 78% of bike traffic took place between 7am and 7pm. If this ratio was applied to the total screenline count the bike trips in/out of downtown could be as high as 41 thousand!

Note to all you politicians who would rather ignore the evidence that cyclists commute to work, that they prefer arterial roads for their directness, that they aren't going anywhere, and instead pretend that they can help cyclists by only focusing on suburban trails (this may come off as unprofessional, but I think you deserve the respect you dish out): f**k you! Yes, and I'm going to single out Rocco Rossi and Rob Ford as the worst offenders. Come up with some real solutions to make conditions safer for cyclists on the routes they already travel on. We're doing the city a service by unclogging the roads of more cars. Stick that in your pipe.

herb : 14 years 4 months ago
Tags: bike lanes, commuting, study, traffic

A dramatic reading: Don "Pinko" Cherry's "Speech"

Thanks Tino!

Best quote:

Actually I'm wearing pink for all the pinkos out there riding bicycles and everything. I thought I'd get it in. What'd ya expect, Ron McLean, here? To come here?

You know, I'm befuddled, because I thought I was doing a good thing, coming down with Ron - Rob - and I was gonna do this hear, and it was going to be nice and the whole deal.

Everybody has been so focused on the "pinkos on bicycles" part that they forgot that Dan - I mean Don - Cherry also has a problem with pinkos riding "everything". Just stay at home pinkos and you won't piss Don off - he doesn't even want to see you in a car.

herb : 14 years 4 months ago
Tags: city hall, politics, senility