Bike Hugger 

There is interesting article in the New York Times today, all about Portland. The article covers some of the well known cycle-friendliness of the city itself, but really centers in more on the 125 cycle related business the city sustains.

Watch your backs and memorize license plates, Seattle area cyclists. Thursday November 1st Peter McKay suffered a punctured lung after being shot from a moving car. The police speculate the weapon was a .22 hand gun loaded with b-bs. Check out the comments on Peter’s blog to see the outpouring of support form the commuter and Randonneur community.

Earlier in the week police were called to the scene of a road rage incident. A SUV driver tried to hit a cyclist or run him off the road, apparently following him from the Freemont Bridge to Stone Way. Police were called when the driver pulled his car sharply into the bike lane, causing the cyclist to reach out and hit the car’s window.

Update: The PI’s chimed in with an article about tensions between cyclist and cars, specifically citing these two cases. As always, the ‘sound off’ section proves educational about just what people think about cyclists.

I’d imagine most of these incidents go unreported and un-responded to. So Huggers, have you had experiences like these recently? What would you do to reduce tensions between motorists and cyclists?

From the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, at Humbold University, check the Pedal Power How-to, guides, articles, and examples. Like this pedal-powered washing machine.

Also see the the commercial HPG and HPT (human power generation and trainer) from Windsteam technologies for all sorts of uses.

The last time the lights went out in Seattle, I desperately needed an Espresso machine and so with an HPG, I could just crank that baby up!

Ah yes, any bike-themed basement or garage isn’t complete without a saddle-sofa and matching stool … presented at Design Tokyo by ScarabBike and noticed by one of our readers.

I managed to make it out to the Lovely Ladies on Beautiful Bikes calendar release party (previously reported) with the camera and got a couple of shots. Lots of people having a good time, great music, lovely ladies with their calendars, the works!

Be careful out there cyclists! A study done by a couple of Carnegie Mellon professors (Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard) indicates pedestrians are 3 times more likely struck and killed after the switch to Standard Time. I can’t find the actual study to review the data, only a couple of news reports. I’d be surprised if cyclists weren’t either included in the pedestrian data set or had similar risks.

Riding in San Antonio is pretty much [like Austin]((http://texturadesign.com/blog/2006/03/another_fine_day_for_riding.htm) and I don’t know if it’s the Lance halo effect or what, but the people we met were very nice to cyclists, even giving us a ton of room on the road. When the Modal was built, we also converted Pam’s Davidson to S&S, and this was our first trip with them. We wanted to spend time with the bikes, assembling, learning how to do it, but two late meetings later and a couple business crises, we were slamming them together to get out and ride. And it went pretty well.

Pam’s bike took about 1/2 hour and the Modal was about ten minutes less because of the single speed configuration. We both struggled with the chain master links. Probably some secret bike shop knowledge we haven’t been blessed with yet, but after several tries and techniques, we got chains on both bikes. As I noted in my comments on another Modal post, riding a single speed is liberating. Where we had to stop several times to adjust Pam’s derailleur and fiddle with the master link, I was set.

The Modal at the Alamo.

The nice fall weather here in Seattle is bound to give way to rain soon enough, and you’re going to need to keep your legs dry. Full on rain pants are an option, but if you’re riding hard your pants or shorts may get as wet from the inside out as they do from the rain. Rain knickers help balance out the moisture inequity by being ‘open air’ where your legs are largely sheltered from the rain, and waterproof where you get the brunt of the precipitation. Khyungyokpo’s got your DIY solution photo documented up on flickr. DYI still to expensive? There are other options as well. If you’re looking for a high-quality pre made set take a look at some RainLegs.

Mark built up the Modal in Single Speed Mode this week. There are lots of bike geek details to share and I’ll cover what I can and add a travel report from Texas this weekend.

One of Davidson’s specialities is S&S Coupling travel bikes and Mark has traveled with them more than 30 times, all over the world, in various configurations. From Mark’s experience, Davidson’s direction, and creative input from me, we began working the Modal Concept in May of this year. The Modal is a travel bike that folds and toggles between single, fixed, and geared modes.

from the Bike Hugger Photostream.