BluesCat is a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, who originally returned to bicycling in 2002 in order to help his son get the Boy Scout Cycling merit badge. His bikes sat idle until the summer of 2008 when gas prices spiked at over $4.00 per gallon. Since then, he has become active cycling, day-touring, commuting by…
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Shopping Panniers: The Gateway to Utility Cycling
This is our newsletter for the month.If you’d like to get this delivered to you inbox, subscribe here. We’ve had a variety of shopping panniers, but now we’ve listed them all together on one Shopping Panniers page.(Warning: May lead to cravings for long tail bikes.)Here is part of our selection:Banjo Brothers Folding Grocery Bag PannierGetting…
Ma Bicyclette
Ma Bicyclette
Two-Wheeled Trailer Recommendation for Bike Touring
Via BikeTrailerShop.com Email: We ride a tandem for touring and are looking for a two wheel trailer. We did the TransAm towing a BOB but could never learn to stand with the loaded trailer. We tow our grandchildren in a Burley D’lite and standing is no problem. The choice in two wheel touring trailers seems…
Josh's Oversize Package Moving on a Wike Cargo Trailer
Sometimes, it’s just as easy to move a large package short distances on a bike cargo trailer as it is trying to stuff them in the back of a car. It looks like Josh here would agree by the looks of this photo contribution.
The Day Before Bike to Work Day
National Bike to Work Week: Day Four. And I didn’t commute by bike on days one through three. What!? You say. Tell us it isn’t true, Glorious Leader! Please stop calling me “Glorious Leader.” It’s embarrassing. But this is why I didn’t bike to work for three days: That majestic animal is Howard Bishop. I…
May is Bike Month: It's easy once it's easy
“Wanna have a beer?” At 7:44 PM, on Friday night, when it looked as though I would spend the evening excavating my garage, that text message popped into my phone from my friend Chuck Cheesman. Later that same minute, I replied that I indeed would like to have a beer. And during that minute before…
'Park To Pedal': Drive, park, then bike. (Yeah. That'll work.)
Commute by Bike has been HuffPo’d! Welcome, readers of The Huffington Post. We hope you enjoyed the article, “Bike To Work: Commute With ‘Park To Pedal’ Instead Of Driving All The Way” with it’s link to Tim Grahl’s article over here, “A Guide to a Simple Bike Commute.” And thank you for continuing to explore…
Humorous PSA's
Humorous PSA’s
Disaster Response Bikes
Bike Portland recently had an interesting article on cargo bikes for disaster response. The notion of using cargo bikes – and bikes in general – for disaster response is a great example of a bike service. I did a series of posts a while back on different Emergency & Patrol Services by Bike, which included…
A Damn Fine Review of Bike Tail Lights
The community blog for Bicycles Stack Exchange has this excellent review of 16 bike tail lights, and boy am I pissed off. I’ve been building up to publishing my own version of the best bike tail light review the world has ever seen, and the author, “nhinkle,” has outdone even my grand ambitions — with…
Reasons to Preserve Bike & Pedestrian Funding
Reasons to Preserve Bike & Pedestrian Funding
Portapedal: A Bike Shop, not a Sitcom
A couple of weeks ago, I went looking for Portapedal, a new-ish bike shop in Tempe, Arizona specializing in portable bikes. When I found the correct address, this is what I saw: And this is what I imagined would be inside: And I was partially right. Inside that suburban ranch house was an architect…
Ten Weeks (and Counting) with an A2B Metro Electric Bike
BluesCat is a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, who originally returned to bicycling in 2002 in order to help his son get the Boy Scout Cycling merit badge. His bikes sat idle until the summer of 2008 when gas prices spiked at over $4.00 per gallon. Since then, he has become active cycling, day-touring, commuting by…
Safe Yakking with the UCLEAR HBC 130 Bike Helmet Communicator
A few months ago, when the people were screaming a little louder than usual about distracted driving and even distracted cycling, I received an offer from UCLEAR to review their HBC 130 Bike Helmet Communicator. Unfortunate timing. But I took it on because I know that some Commute by Bike readers have longer commutes than…
The HubBub Helmet Mirror: Get used to it
The main reason I wear a helmet is because I really like having a rear-view mirror. I’ve used several mirrors over the years, and I definitely prefer the kind that mount in the vicinity of my left eye over models that mount on the handlebars. I’ve been using a HubBub Helmet Mirror for about three…
From Cambridge: A Radical Theory Combining Cycling, Commuting, Suits
When I think of Cambridge University, I think of Stephen Hawking, theoretical physics, cosmology. Heavy-hitting brainpower being applied to the most elusive and fundamental mysteries of the universe. Don’t you? Slackers. When are the navel-gazers associated with that so-called University going to take on a real challenge, such as a grand unified theory that combines…
History of Dutch Bike Paths
History of Dutch Bike Paths
2012 Resolutions for Commute by Bike Contributors
Happy New Year bike commuters, and would-be bike commuters! I asked some of our contributors to send me their resolutions for 2012, this is what I got back: Bob Caravona Has it been two, three or four years ago that we sold our other car and became bike commuters? In any case, since then, as…
2011 Utility Cycling Year in Review
Another year has come and gone here at Utility Cycling. It’s been a year of ups and downs. The year started out strong with lots of great posts from myself, Josh Lipton, and Stacey Moses. We made some good progress in the summer towards the Utility Cycling book we’ve been dreaming up for a while….
Liquor Store Drive-Thru by Bike
It was getting late. I knew it would be cold outside. I was starting to think of my commute home, and thinking of what pretext I might have to get a ride home from my wife — a pretext that would not involve an admission that I just didn’t feel like cycling home. Aha! My…
Commute by Bike's Top 10 Posts of 2011
So, 2011 is almost over. It’s time to coast across the finish line with a look back at those times when I wasn’t feeling quite as lazy as I am today, after three days off. To determine the top ten posts of 2011, I took a look at how many times each post was viewed…
Ridekick: A Nicotine Patch for Car Addiction
At the beginning of this year I went on record with this New Years resolution: I'm going to eliminate as many of the reasons as I can that require my wife to spend time in a car, beginning with the grocery shopping. I may start with some shopping panniers, but ultimately I may have to…
A2B Metro Goes South for the Winter
BluesCat is a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, who originally returned to bicycling in 2002 in order to help his son get the Boy Scout Cycling merit badge. His bikes sat idle until the summer of 2008 when gas prices spiked at over $4.00 per gallon. Since then, he has become active cycling, day-touring, commuting by…