Utility Cycling

Pedal Cliques: Top Five Reasons to Go Clipless (not)

“All real cyclists ride clipless pedals.” “No real cyclists use platform (“flat”) pedals.” That’s what you’d think, anyway, from reading many biking websites and magazines. They’ll tell you, in not so many words, that you’re not “serious” about biking if you’re not walking around in clunky plastic shoes and clicking on linoleum like a castanet….

The Wheels of Justice Go Round and Round

Like the wheels on a bike, the wheels of justice go round and round. Life, like biking, is about do-overs.  It’s about learning from your mistakes. Last month a young man made the mistake of stealing my Sport Utility Bike in plain sight of  a police officer, who promptly arrested him. When the arresting officer…

kryptonite-new-york-fahgettaboudit-chain-1415-disc-lock-5

Dude, Where’s My Bike?

My bike was just there. And now it’s gone. I’d been leaning “The Beast” up against the window at Jimmy John’s for a year. For the first few months that I worked there, I was really paranoid about locking it up every time I got back from a delivery. But I noticed that the other…

We Ride at Night: Bicycle Therapy

We ride at night. We ride with our lights and helmets on. We ride tight together. One wheel paces the next. We call the bumps, the potholes, the traffic lights. We ride together, trusting each other half an arm’s length away. We move as a single, sinuous snake, gliding around turns and over bridges. We…

Gratitude for the Bicycle

This Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for the bicycle. And this gratitude was all the more prominent in my mind since I don’t own a car anymore. It’s not an easy path to pedal. I sold my car before relocating to the other coast for a seasonal job as a bicycle tour guide. Sure, it was…

Whimsical Pedicabs and Oppressed Delivery Guys – Oct.2017 Utility Cycling Roundup

A dazzling display of pedicabs, bedazzled the Philadelphia streets in an amazing display by Cai Guo_Qianq.  Deriq Carr tells the story of how he launched Los Angelos Pedicab Company.  Austin pedicab riders make their big paydays when the big events come to town.  And an entrepreneurial teen is discovering opportunity in pedaling people at the…

Confessions of a Downhill Junkie

That’s me in the Lycra, That’s me on the descent, Losing my abandon. Trying to break my Strava record. And I don’t know if I can do it. Oh no, I’ve said too much. I haven’t said enough. I’ve been chasing descents since I was a kid in the Green Mountains of Vermont. By the…

Bikes of the Klondike Gold Rush

“White Man: He sit down, walk like hell.” That was how one Native Alaskan described Ed Jesson riding a fixed gear bicycle down the frozen Yukon River in the winter of 1900. How a man with practically no supplies and the simplest of bikes could ride over a thousand miles in the dead of an…

Some of My Favorite Things

Gore-tex that doesn’t go damp, Treads that don’t wear flat, Chains that never skip or squeak, These are some of my favorite things. When you ride for long enough, you settle into habits and gear. Maybe it’s a brand of socks that don’t bind, or bib shorts that don’t chafe, or gloves that keep your…

The Bike-Friendliest Little Town in America

I’m sitting in Bites on Broadway in Skagway, Alaska, a hundred-year-old saloon-cum-coffee house, watching tourists walk down the wooden boardwalks. For every dozen tourists, there’s a local guide biking past. The guides look lean compared to the typically tubby cruise ship passengers. They ride up to the post office mailbox across Broadway to drop off…

The Utility of Folding Bicycles

It’s cute, but is it practical? That’s the question many folding bikes elicit. Sure, it looks neat, but how well does it actually function? Form follows function. Ergo, the form of a folding bike should follow its function. Folding bikes are designed to be compactly carried and stored in other vehicles, but still provide reliable…

Rolling Recumbent, Part 1: The Utility of Recumbents

Recumbents. You’ve seen those oddball, laid-back bikes being ridden by slightly goofy guys (yeah, it’s usually guys). They’re smiling. They’re waving. And they’re looking suspiciously comfortable. Recumbents are practically the opposite of everything that bicycling is supposed to be about. There’s no crying in baseball, and there’s blessedly little comfort in bicycling. Right? Well, maybe…

An Ode to Laborers on Two Wheels

Let us now praise Sweaty Men and Women; All hail the Bicycle Courier, Who is fast on feet and two wheels, Bringing us coffee and sandwiches and beer.   Three cheers for the bike messengers of the world, the “cyclo-laborers.” While we cower in climate-controlled cubicles, they brave the sun and rain, the light and…