The Archives
The BEST Bike for Commuting
Whenever you start to talk about the “best bike” for anything, you’re venturing into monumentally subjective territory. For commuting in Phoenix, Arizona, the best bike for me is my long wheelbase recumbent. The combination of the flat terrain, warm weather throughout most of the year, and the laidback, comfortable riding position in the chaise lounge…
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…
Exploring Washington DC by Bike with Kids
We moved quickly, a light mist falling then settling on the surface of the reflective pool. The October morning was quiet, the silence punctuated only by the incessant questions from my 5-year-old, pedaling on the trailer-cycle behind me. Who is Martin Luther King? Was he really a king? When are we going to eat lunch? …
The Adventure Begins … Again
“Where have you been, man?” I’ve been asked that question a lot in the last few months. Some of my friends actually thought I’d died, but I’ve been able to contact them and tell them “No such luck!” The fact is I’ve been sick. More accurately, I’ve been injured. Last May, I was at work…
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…
Why We’re Traveling and Biking for A Year as a Family
“One more lap, Dad,” my 4-year-old begs. He and my husband, Blair, have been riding “hot laps” through the campground for over an hour, but he still hasn’t had enough. Blair nods, good-humoredly, and they take off again — racing down the empty dirt road at top speed. Left in the dust, I smile to…
Balance and Bellas – Oct.2017 Family Cycling Roundup
In this edition of our Family Cycling roundup, the focus is on teaching kids to ride bikes. Its something I’m quite interested in learning about more as I’m working on teaching my daughter to ride a bicycle and giving her a bicycle for her 6th birthday tomorrow. But before you should think about getting your…
#BikeCommuteAdventure – Promote Bike Commuting by Sharing the Story of Your Route
3 Questions: Do you ride your bicycle to work? Do you carry a smart phone with you? Are you on social media? If you answered yes to the 3 above questions, you are well qualified to participate in #BikeCommuteAdventure. A few years ago, after I’d moved to a new house here in Tucson, I was…
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…
Balance Bikes are Not for Every Kid, Including My Daughter
I confess, as the owner of a business designed to empower transportation focused cyclists, I have barely spent any time attempting to teach my daughter to ride a bicycle, and she is almost six. Her birthday is next month. So I’ve resolved to get her a nice bike and make things right. When my daughter…
From Getting Started to Breaking the Law – The Sept.2017 Commute by Bike Roundup
For this first edition of the Commute by Bike News Roundup, I’ll be presenting the life of the bike commuter chronologically. That takes us back to when our two-wheeled adventures began … The Birth of the Bicycle by Alex Q Arbuckle on August 29, 2015 So we have bicycles, now what are we supposed to…
Custom Cargo and Delivering Hops – A Utility Cycling Roundup
This is the kickoff off roundup post that I’m experimenting with. The plan is that each week I’ll gather interesting stories from the last month or so within one of the 5 cycling niches we cover, Commute by Bike, Family Cycling, Bikepacking, Road Touring or Utility Cycling. I’ll be keeping notes of interesting stories that…
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 Bikes of Future Past: Bicycles in the Cold War and Beyond
But is there a future for the bicycle in warfare? In a word, yes. When the fuel tank is empty, and the gas station has been bombed, then the bicycle is a mighty fine choice.
There will always be a need for lightweight, reliable, stealthy, low-cost transportation.
The Utility of Clipless Pedals, or, Why I Ditched My Spuds
“So I forgot to clip out of my clipless pedals and fell over.” A well-worn pedal. To anyone who isn’t serious about cycling, the above phrase is nonsensical. In the minds of snobibsh cyclists, nothing distinguishes them more from their casual brethren on wheels than their clipless pedals. Switching to clipless pedals is as momentous to an…
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…
The Swiss Army Bicycle Did All That, and More
Bicycles are almost as Swiss as Swiss Army knives, and the Swiss Army proudly maintained a front-line bicycle infantry regiment into the 21st Century. While it was disbanded in 2003, The Swiss Army continues to use bicycles for base transportation
How the Bicycle Won the Vietnam War
In the wake of World War II, the militaries of the West left bicycles behind for the automobile and the armored personnel carrier. Bicycle infantry units in the German army were disbanded alongside the rest of the defeated forces.
Rolling Recumbent Part 2: Neuroplasticity and You!
“You can laugh at them now, Wesley,” my biking buddy Liz had told me a decade ago on a group ride, “But someday youre going to be one of those old guys on a recumbent.” Well, that day has come. I’m a certifiably older, slightly goofy guy on a recumbent. On my first sandwich delivery…
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…
"Geef me min fiets!" Give me my bike! The Bikes of World War II.
‘Tis a pity that General Patton didn’t lead a column of bicycles into battle, but Field Marshall Montgomery led an army of foot soldiers and “foot cycles” in Normandy. When the British were bottled up in Normandy with their plentiful bicycle
Small Business Tales from BSH and the Launching of LocalBasket.com
Happy Small Business Saturday everyone! As the editor of this cycling blog and the owner of www.CampfireCycling.com, I generally find myself as deep in the weeds of small business as I am in immersed in the world of cycling. And I’m often tempted to write about my various small business trials and tribulations here at…