With the recent release of Google Map’s Bike directions the cycling word has been buzzing over bike mapping. Having a major global player like Google adding to the bike universe certainly has some large implications. Social media has been a flurry of messages discussing the new Google Mapping system, but have things really changed that…
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Are Google Maps' Bicycling Directions a Game Changer?
Last night Google made a “game changing” announcement at the national bike summit in Washington DC. The long awaited “Bike There” option has been added to their options for route types. The dropdown next to Google Maps “Get Directions” button now has “Bicycling” as the fourth option following “By car”, “By public transit” and”Walking”. We…
Retail & Commercial Services by Bike
Bicycles are an excellent way to do business. Whether you are advertising your business by bike (aka bikevertising), transporting customers around town in a pedicab, moving your business or vending station around town by bike, picking up trash by bike, or any other range of services, bicycles provide a unique, cost-effective, and eye-catching way to…
Trek Ride+ : First Impressions
The bicycle shop I manage, Cool Breeze Cyclery, and sister store, Trek Bikes of Charlotte, have brought in a fleet of the new electric assist bikes, Trek Ride+. One of these, the FX+ is a demo bike that our co-owner with an engineering background took for this past weekend. Below is his original experience. We…
Bike Weddings
When we set out to define utility cycling, we did not list every single type of utility cycling activity we could think of at the time. Fortunately, the concept of utility cycling is quite vast, so we found ourselves creating general categories and subcategories of the practice, which if you have been following this site,…
Bicycle Land Services
It’s been quite some time since we wrote about cycling services here at Utility Cycling.org. When we set out to define utility cycling, we came up with three subcategories related to the topic of cycling services, including retail and commercial services, emergency and patrol services, and land services. We did a four-part series in late…
Weekly Round Up : What Was Going on When I was Busy
This past week has been rough. Blogging is a side hobby/job for me, so it take a back burner if things get too overwhelming in life. Right now I am struggling to find the time. Firstly I have my family, which needs time after work or on my days off, this part of my life…
Sean's Home Made Bike Trailer Revisited
Back in January we wrote a post about Sean from Australia who had created a really cool custom trailer out of an old school table and some parts you could find around the house or hardware store. One cool thing that Sean had done was to design his own custom hitch for his trailer.
The Bike Trailer Blog Needs You!
WE NEED YOUR INPUT! Here at the Bike Trailer Blog we are going in a new direction with the blog, driven by your photos and stories of your bike trailers and experiences and our excitement of our development of the Wandertec BONGO Bike Cargo Trailer and a range of BONGO trailer accessories designed to set…
Top Commuter Bike Resources and Reviews
Bike commuting is all over the news and maybe your work place has signed on for the commuter tax benefits.. We want to help you get on that bike and out using this amazing piece of transportation.. The more cyclist that are out on the road, the more we will be taken seriously and moving…
Severe Winter Weather Advisory
Our guest writer today is Doug Rozelman. He is a co-worker of mine and an avid cyclist. Slo wly he is trying to learn to use his bike for daily task, and to live the cycling lifestyle. Read his first post Why I Go By Bike for good background on his commuting. As irony would…
Why CampfireCycling.com Thrives in the Small City of Flagstaff, AZ
Most people do not think of Flagstaff, Arizona as being a cycling mecca, but Campfire Cycling’s hometown is full of cycling enthusiasm! Flagstaff has a tendency to “fly under the radar” when it comes to it’s cycling scene, but there is a lot going on in and around this city of around 60,000 people. This…
A Utility Cycling Trailer Interview
One of the main purposes of Utility Cycling.org is to celebrate the many ways in which a bicycle can be used to accomplish a wide range of tasks. In fact, the potential for utility cycling is so vast, in our Year in Review, it became apparent that we really haven’t even yet begun to scrape…
Pulling a Bike Trailer with a Carbon Bike
Over the summer we received a couple of emails asking us what we though of pulling a bicycle trailer like a BOB or Burley Nomad with a carbon framed bicycle. We all now the stigma that surround Carbon fiber frames, many people cringe at the thought of using a carbon fiber frame for anything else…
Utility Cycling Year in Review
Truth be told, Utility Cycling.org is only 1/2 year old, but we thought it would be fun to do a year in review post (excuse me, half year in review) nonetheless. It has been an exciting first half year and we hope you enjoy looking back on it with us. We are definitely looking forward…
Mail Delivery by Bike
Recently, we have witnessed an upswing in parcel delivery by bike, especially as UPS continues to expand their use of bike trailers to deliver packages around the holiday season. In many places, bicycle delivery services and mobile bike businesses are popping up that offer a wide variety of services (you can find information about a…
2009 Top Commuting Products : Lights
It seems weekly I’m modifying one bike or another, trying out the newest or greatest product. Most of the time it is on my own dime, working in a bike shop I get to see all the cool things, and crave all the cool things too. Here are some of my favorite things I’ve tried…
Fire Service Bicycle Update
We recently published a series here at Utility Cycling dedicated entirely to emergency and patrol cycling services. The series about that included posts on police bicycles, emergency medical service (EMS) bicycles, fire service bicycles, and search and rescue bicycles. Header image credit: Palatine Bike Medic Team The purpose of the series was to explore the…
Bicycle Infrastructure
Infrastructure. What is this word that has been wafting through conversations and inundating the Interwebs of late? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, infrastructure is “a collective term for the subordinate parts of an undertaking; substructure; foundation.” Wikipedia describes infrastructure as “the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or…
Required Viewing for Work Place Health
Here at the www.CampfireCycling.com, we take our work very seriously, it is important to us to provide the best selection of and information on bicycle trailers, bike touring/commuting gear and related genera. That being said we as people don’t take ourselves too seriously. In fact, for our own sanity we try to keep things as…
Search and Rescue Bike Services
Our final post in the four-part series dedicated to emergency and patrol services by bike is all about search and rescue. We have already covered police bicycles, EMS (emergency medical service) bikes, and fire service bikes. Search and rescue (SAR) service by bike is closely related to EMS services by bike, but with a slightly…