Bike commuting in Tucson is becoming easier. My routes are starting to take shape, and I’m feeling less and less like I will get lost on the way to work. I don’t think of my commutes as “exercise.” Rather, I’m aware that my body is adjusting to what I’m asking it to do every day: ride 20 [...]

Eugene Bicyclist posted a thinker today in a post titled “On getting yelled at by a guy in a pickup.” Like me, he says he doesn’t get yelled at much. (See my post, “I Feel Your Rage.”) But he got yelled at by a guy in a pickup after making an “assertive” move in traffic [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I went looking for Portapedal, a new-ish bike shop in Tempe, Arizona specializing in portable bikes. When I found the correct address, this is what I saw:   And this is what I imagined would be inside: And I was partially right. Inside that suburban ranch house was an architect [...]

Americans tend to be very shy about asking for better prices. Maybe it’s part of the reason we accept having obnoxious pitchmen shouting Sale! Sale! Sale! at us. It compensates for our own reticence to initiate a deal on our own. When I returned from two-and-a-half years of living in Cameroon, I couldn’t pay retail [...]

So a cyclist is cruising down the sidewalk, and there’s a close call with a pedestrian — or maybe even a collision. Harsh words are exchanged. You should be in the street, you mountain of mad flesh! I can’t ride in the street, you cockered dread-bolted strumpet. There’s no bike lane! Listen, you rampallian, you [...]

When I was younger I used to buy my bike bags at the army surplus store. They weren’t actually army surplus equipment. There was nothing army about them. They were cheap junk. I still have some of them. I’ve bought several cheap bike rear racks too, including the classic cast-aluminum “mousetrap” rack, shown here pinching [...]