I've been commuting to work and school on a bicycle now for more than twenty years. In a way, I got started back in my teenage years by being too poor to afford a car, a serious liability in LA. I wasn't going to let lack of an engine keep me from the beaches and anywhere else I wanted to go so I rigged up a rack for my surfboard and used my old Schwinn Cruiser like some people use a motorcycle. I went to college in the Pacific Northwest and amassed enough money to buy a really bad car or a really cool bike. I picked the bike and haven't looked back. I do a lot of recreational riding, but also discovered that bikes are also pragmatic transportation alternatives to cars and all the problems that come with them. I do own a car, but I reserve that for long trips and heavy loads(and the dead of winter).
A couple of years back a friend asked me about fitness advice for someone not inclined towards a gym. I wound up writing a very long essay detailing everything a person would need to know about getting around in their daily life by bike. I've actually been wanting to do a website on that for a while now and I have the perfect excuse.
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3 comments:
that's pretty cool that you're so in to biking. i grew up in concord CA (SF bay area if you're not familiar) where as a youngster used to bike everywhere. after moving out here to PA (outside of philadelpha), one of the first things that struck me was the relative lack of things like sidewalks, bike lanes... plazas in the middle of intersections!
it sounds like you have a good basis for your web site with the biking idea.
In your site, have you considered having a section on how to do simple bike repairs such as pumping up the air in the tires? I'm into bicycle riding in a small way and always appreciate it when other bikers share useful tips on bike care and maintenance. Good luck.-Gail
Still figuring out the blogger interface. It's not nearly as nice as LiveJournal's. Anyway, here's a reply to the two comments.
For philly_person, yeah, I'm going to show how to repair and inner tube. Actually, just how to replace one since there might be too many pictures for patching a tube. Besides, it's easier to just stuff a spare tube in a pack. I'll cover the difference between Schrader and Presta valves since this can really confuse people. I'll probably keep maintaining this site after class and will add more repair howtos. Back in college, we had a completely equipped self service bike repair shop and I learned how to do everything including straightening frames.
For sam: I've been lucky for most of the time I've been here in that I can ride the river path from my apartment into University City. That dilutes the Philly biking experience quite a bit. However, I have noticed that while drivers will ask and grant no quarter in their own campaigns, they do not consider it sporting to go after cyclists. I've had surprisingly little trouble. But even LA where I grew up had a pretty good cycling infrastructure in 70s and 80s. These days, they've put cycling paths along the flood control channels they call rivers out there and you use them to cut across vast swathes of the city to get from A to B. Also, there are a surprising number of Rails to Trails conversions around here. You can ride from Center City to Valley Forge with only occasional forays into traffic for instance.
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