When we started remodeling our house last year we moved some walls around, and we have had to resort to temporarily storing some household goods in BluesCat World Headquarters, resulting in reduced square footage available for bike parking. One day, I made the mistake of grumbling about having all the bikes jammed together now, and having to climb over two or three bikes in order to get to the bike I wanted to ride. “Well,” said my wife, “You should park some of them outside.” I gave her a look which was a cross between an over-the-top double-take and an expression of abject horror. Surely, this loving, lifetime partner of mine knew full well that bikes belong in the house! Evidently not, because she ...

I'm very happy that there is a good network of mountain biking trails where I live, though I rarely use them. But here's how stupid I am: I've always thought that bike infrastructure for daily life (getting around town, running errands, biking to work) was it's own thing, and not related to recreation. I live where I do, in large part, because of the quality of life that comes from not-too-shabby city cycling infrastructure. So I often would roll my eyes when my local bike advocacy organization sent out announcements like this: TRAIL WORKDAY New Bike Trail Grab a pick and a shovel. Move rocks and dirt, just like a Soviet forced labor camp! Manacles will be provided, but bring your own long sleeved shirts, ...

Janette Sadik-Khan is the rock star of transportation bureaucrats, not just because she is the current Commissioner of the Department of Transportation in America's largest city. But that has something to do with it. Embarrassing confession: I've passed up the opportunity to see Sadik-Khan two previous times. I mean, how exciting could a transportation bureaucrat be? It wasn't until I heard a real rock star, David Byrne, gushing about her in the audiobook of Bicycle Diaries that I realized I shouldn't miss the opportunity again. And that opportunity came at the Womens Bicycling Forum. Sadik-Khan has been at the center of PlaNYC, New York City's mission to overhaul it's infrastructure to make the city safer, greener, and more liveable. And because these ...

Wouldn't you think that if some smart folks had solved a problem more than 300 years ago, that the problem would have gone away? In the 1650s a gambler asked his smart guy friend, Blaise Pascal for help with gambling. Pascal was intrigued, and struck up a correspondence with another smart guy Pierre de Fermat -- and probability theory was born. Probability theory pretty much determines what is a good bet, and what is a longshot; the mathematical difference between a low risk and you've got to be stupid. Yet 300-and-something years later, suckers are still playing Live Keno in casinos, and people still believe that bicycling is dangerous. There seems to be no hope for a vaccine for cognitive biases -- those irrational mental holdovers that ...

I haven't been in the cycling industry too many years, but I've already seen some proprietary systems for racks and accessories that attempt to lure you into a particular brand's inbred family. These are racks and bags that work best with sibling products. Racktime has it's Snapit system, and Thule has it's Pack ‘n Pedal™ line of bags and racks. But Loko Bike Racks are a new concept that is mad scientist in it's ambitions for world domination. And judging only from their Kickstarter project page, it looks really cool. The rack system does many tricks, but my favorite is how it can turn any bike into a cargo bike. I used to have a trailer-cycle, but when the kids got too big for it, I ...

I'm heading to DC again to attend, participate, live Tweet, and blogify the National Bike Summit hosted by The League of American Bicyclists. The event culminates with a day of lobbying Congress for cycling programs. I wasn't certain if I'd be able to go this year. I put off even thinking about it. But something weird kept happening. I have this tube of lip balm that's two years old. I bought it in DC at the Bikestation at Union Station where Bike the Sites rents bikes (plus bike child trailers, trailer cycles, wheelchairs, and even Segways) to tourists. (I don't use lip balm that often, so yes, it can last me for two years.) And in addition to having a delicious coconut flavor, it's kind ...