Filed under: Uncategorized
Note: This is an expanded version of a post that ran on this blog in January.
Part I: A Street Encounter
It happened about a year ago as David Streever was bicycling home from his regular workout in New Haven, Conn.
“I was surprised by a young assailant who rushed me, grabbed for my duffel bag … and then tried to punch me,” recalls Streever, a Web developer who is active with a local cycling group.
He was caught off-guard but managed to evade the punch. Thinking, “Hey, take my dirty hakama,” Streever did what came naturally: He drew the bamboo kendo sword he’d just been using in his martial arts practice and brandished it as a weapon.
It wasn’t the reaction the assailant had expected.
“He jumped back in surprise and backed off, then told me to bike away quick, because his friends were ‘gonna get me,’ or something similarly inane. Sure,” says Streever, who recounted the episode on the Elm City Cycling message board. “I biked away, giving him the evil eye, and dialed 911.”
Urban cyclists in New Haven and elsewhere face dangers, pitfalls and concerns that set them apart from their rural brethren who ply Connecticut’s bucolic backroads.
Learn more about New Haven’s cyclists: “A Cycling Community is Born“
Filed under: News
Seattle’s going on a bike-route binge, adding 200 miles of designated lanes. But who wants to ride in all that rain? Also, Cycledog talks about the things he finds on the road.
Filed under: Uncategorized
– Washington Post photo
Paris gets serious about cycling, introducing a system of low-cost rental bikes as a greener alternative to urban transit. Each bike comes with a handlebar, basket and bell. But where does the ashtray go?
*Once again, we are indebted to our astute friends at Elm City Cycling for bringing this to our attention.*
Filed under: General
Good with a wrench? Our friends at Blue Collar Mountain Biking have launched a new site, “Get A Bike Job,” devoted to helping match enthusiasts with jobs in the cycling industry. The initial postings offer little within reach of my hometown, although I can think of at least one bicycle manufacturer with headquarters a short train commute away.
Filed under: General
This guy straps a cam on his bike and then blogs his daily commute in the congested San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, Bike Summer 2007 in New Haven, which some cognoscenti privately dismissed as a pipe dream not long ago, is starting to take shape. Elm City Cycling gives us a planning update.
Filed under: News
If you can get beyond the indecipherable acronyms and stumper of a chart on this site, it seems like there’s going to be some federal transportation funding for cycling coming down the pipes. Now how to spend it … ?
Filed under: Events
But you can ride your bike there if you want.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m scheduled for surgery on Thursday, March 15 to have my ACL reconstructed. This will be followed by a recovery period of about six months. I don’t mind being cut up, but I’m not looking forward to being a gimp for months on end (although I should be able to resume cycling in some form after a couple of months). So I was hoping I might coax some cyclists who’ve been through this before to post and tell me how they incorporated cycling into their recovery.
Filed under: Events
We reported in an earlier post that New Haven would host BikeSummer 2007, a weeks-long celebration of cycling. Still no details on what it will entail, but the organizers of the event have apparently kicked in some cash and announced the news on their Web site.
