Shek's Footprint

As I started riding a bicycle a little over a year back, I was exposed to many types of bicyclists. Some of the groups are road bike riders (with a sub category of triathletes), beach cruiser people, mountain bikers etc. All these categories have a fair amount of consumerism associated to them. Some beginners are led to think that they have to invest in all this gear to ride a bike.

There is a category of bicyclists that is growing in numbers. They have older bikes, probably bought used and primarily used for transportation. Some of these get converted to a fixed gear but none the less are used to go from a place of residence to a place of business. This emerging category of people on bikes using it for transportation is the group I belong to and advocate for. This is what Bikejax.org stands for.

To promote the notion that you don’t need a ‘fancy’ bike to start commuting, Ryan Van Duzer from Wonderbikes, the bicycle advocacy group of New Belgium Brewery, took off on a three speed bike and toured across several states.

This is are his words after completing the tour:

I never thought in a million years that my cruise across America would be as amazing as it was. Most people thought that the idea of riding a heavy three speed sounded very uncomfortable…and in fact it was. But it’s not the moments on the bike I remember most about this journey. It was the people I met along the way who made this experience so magical. Everywhere I pedaled I met friendly, warm-hearted Americans. From café owners in the deserts of Arizona to coal miners in West Virginia, it seemed that everywhere I turned, someone was there to make my day a little brighter. And to all the Wonderbikers across this great land, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of you who joined me for a days ride or took in and fed a stinky Duzer. This may have been a solo mission across the country but I never felt alone with so many people cheering me on.

And what did I accomplish other than get a very sore behind? Well, the goal was pretty simple, to inspire people to ride their bikes and raise money for Community Cycles in Boulder Colorado. I may not have motivated the entire country to ditch their cars but I definitely got some people to think twice about driving. I got countless emails from strangers who promised me that they’ll ride more often, even my mom! And it looks like we’ll raise about $4,500 for Community Cycles and their youth after school program. A big high five to all who donated to this great cause! If we can inspire the little ones now, we’ll create a culture of cycling that will last a lifetime.

What now? I’m gonna rest my body for a little while, and probably drink some cold Fat Tires until I dream up a new adventure. Until then I hope you all keep on riding your beautiful bicycles and ringing your bells.

Read the full story here: http://www.newbelgium.com/team-wonderbike/duzer

All you have to do it ride a bike, be aware of the laws and have fun. Happy riding.

Posted via email from shek’s posterous

“What is Bikejax?” we get asked numerous times at the bike valet. Newbies at the Riverside Arts Market (link) wonder if we are a shop or a club. “Neither” we reply.

Bikejax started as a blog that talked about bicycling in Jacksonville. It mirrored the likes of BikePortland.org by putting a spyglass on the almost invisible community of bicyclists. Bikejax caters to a specific community of cyclists, namely the utilitarian kind. ‘People on bikes’ is what we like to call them. They are not ‘Bicycle Lifestylists’ or ‘City cyclists’. There is no hint of consumerism attached to the definition of this community.

The aim of Bikejax has been to promote bicycles as transportation. Soon after getting tired of bitching about the deplorable conditions of bicycling in Jacksonville, Matt Uhrig decided to ruffle some feathers. The phenomenal success of the night ride (link) was a beginning. Then came the ghost bikes, the MPO meeting participations, Vision 2035 participations etc. Only a year after its inception, Bikejax has been on TV (link)(youtube link), raised awareness on bicyclist deaths through ghost bikes(link)(link), participated in and organized one of the most fun rides in the history of Jacksonville (link)(link)(link) and finally started and consistently maintained a successful and free Bike Valet service (link) which has few rivals in the entire USA.

The informal saying goes, “Bikejax has achieved more in one year than most formal bicycling clubs have in decades”. Though all these tasks have been possible through the support and dedication of countless volunteers, merchants, City officials and FDOT officials, the one man that needs to be thanked is Matt Uhrig for his idea, relentless gumption and perseverance.

$4500 is given towards a new car to people whose clunker achieved 10 mpg or more lower than the new car. $3500 if the mpg difference between the clunker and the new car is less than 10.

Lets assume that most people with an 18 mpg clunker “upgraded” to an SUV achieving 5 mpg more. They received $3500 from the $1,000,000,000 allocated funding. Some simple division later, approximately 285,000 clunkers were pulled off the streets (1,000,000,000 / 3500). Therefore, there are now 285,000 people or families on the road saving 5mpg (or saving 0.012 gallons per mile) more than they usually were.

An average family drives around 15,000 miles a year. This leads to 180 gallons of gasoline saved per family per year. For the 285,000 clunkers replaced, we save 51,300,000 gallons of gasoline every year. Increase the federal funding to $3 billion and we will save a little over 153 million gallons of gasoline every year.

If the average clunker is replaced by a vehicle achieving 7.5 mpg higher, with a $3 billion stimulus, America will save almost 205,200,000 gallons of gasoline every year.

The total consumption of Finished Motor Gasoline is 137,801,370,000 gallons (approximately 8,989,000 barrels per day in 2008. Data from http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html). Hence, a $3 billion funding, by saving 205,200,000 gallons of gasoline, saves only 0.1489% of total consumption. Not too significant in my opinion.

To achieve a 1% reduction in nationwide motor gasoline usage, around $20 billion (that is $20,000,000,000) needs to be pumped into the new-car market replacing over 5.7 million vehicles with a new vehicle achieving 7.5 mpg higher.

I wonder if gasoline consumption can be reduced by 1% by utilizing only $3 billion in bicycle infrastructure and alternate energy driven mass transit and rail infrastructure? The budget for this year’s Mass Transit infrastructure is $8 billion, $5 billion more each year for the next 5 years, not including operating costs. The Cash-for-Clunker’s $3 billion will be a nice addition to the mass transit budget and shave off 8 months from the 5 year proposal.

Further, evaluating the impact on a family, and assuming $3 billion in funding, these 857,000 families (285,000 X 3, assuming one clunker per family though there is no such rule) will save around 180 gallons of motor gasoline related expenses. At an average cost of $2.50 per gallon of gasoline, each family saves a measly $450 a year and gains $15,000 or more debt on a depreciating asset. With $3 billion in funding towards overhauling the streets to make bicycling actually and subjectively safe, families may be able to reduce from two cars to one, saving upwards of $4000 annually in car payments, insurance and gas.

My 50 year old mass produced dutch city bike, a text book definition of clunker, needs no replacement. At the most, it needs $50 of TLC. The next time someone tells me to get a registration for my bicycle, I’ll tell them at least I don’t need Cash for my Clunker!

Walkscore.com is a fantastic way to find what shops and businesses you can comfortably walk to from your home. My apartment gets a whooping score of 20 out of 100. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Walkscore.com graded Jacksonville as the least walkable city in USA (news link). A bicycle effortlessly bridges the distance gap between walkable destinations to drivable ones.

So how is living car free in a part of town with an undesirable quality? Challenging would be my answer on an optimistic day. The grocery store is only a mile away. With a tiny bit of planning, grocery shopping is achieved in one trip on the weekend. The trusted Xtracycle is a fantastic grocery hauler. For that mid-week craving of Mexican food or to buy a critical grocery item I missed, I whip out the old single speed Dutch bike. Its front basket has plenty cargo capacity for a doggie bag or a case of Yuengling.

Zaxby’s, the only fried chicken restaurant worth visiting, is 5 miles away, mostly through deserted local roads. A trip there takes 30 minutes. I usually go alone as what I do with my fried chicken isn’t pretty. Riding back can be tad adventurous. Sitting on a hard saddle for half an hour after ingesting spicy buffalo sauce smothered chicken fingers isn’t ideal. The Town Center Mall with its departmental stores, pet food stores and Friday Farmer’s Market is within 3 miles away. In fact, I am hopping over there this evening for errands, all on a bike.

Dry cleaning seems challenging but easily solved if you ask the good Turkish people to fold your clothes into boxes. A trip to the movie theater dictates a longer route than one would take if driving but I chose to not ride on roads with a loosely imposed 45 mph speed limit. A trip to downtown is 12 miles long and a fairly pleasant one. A trip to the beach is 13 miles long and not so pleasant. Surprisingly, distance is not a challenging factor. I have gladly ridden 10 miles to a dentist, had her drill, scrape and clean my teeth and ridden back smiling, only this time with better teeth. On days with tighter schedules, I have hired a taxi cab.

So what is the challenging part, you ask? It is the people who meet you on the road through their protective shields of glass and metal. Living in a neighborhood with a walk score of 20 subjects you to people, who usually love their car-dependent life styles. They also have a patriotic attachment to things like big rims on their Kia and the roads they drive those low-profiles on. Most walkscore-20-dwellers will take the on-road-bicyclist-infringement without any patience. The bridged gap between walkable destinations and drivable ones is ugly.

I have a fan club. Well, the fan club is actually a hate club and it has only one member. Having waited till 8:30 PM to avoid traffic, I was riding my bike back from the grocery store at 9:15 PM. Most of the ride is on this service road (see picture below).

As you can see by the footprint of the blue sedan, the road is barely 8 feet wide. This is the southbound lane and has over twelve driveways entering or leaving it, making the already dangerous sidewalk riding even more scary. In the northbound lane on my return journey, Xtracycle fully laden with grocery bags, I had stopped at the traffic light. From the traffic turning left across the intersection from me, a car while turning into Southside Blvd, rolled down their window and yelled, "Use the sidewalk. I see you every time …". I wasn’t even in his direction of traffic.

I have repeatedly managed to anger somebody while just riding my bike. I have been promoted from a ‘murderer’ status to that of a ‘serial killer’!

Having done recent discussions on Carbon Trace and Commute Orlando about harassment to bicyclists, I have come to the following conclusions: