Bike Hugger 

On June 11th, Janet Martinez was riding her bike on Route 9W in Upper Grandview, New York when she was struck by a car and killed. Route 9W is famous with New York City cyclists, it’s the land bridge that connects Manhattan to the suburbs and provides for a scenic and pleasant ride complete with some rollers and great climbs and downhills.

For the most part, Route 9W is part of Bike Route 9, the state designated bicycle route that runs all the way upstate. Bike Route 9 is a 350 mile series of roads that’s also part of the Hudson Valley Greenway. There are a few places where Bike Route 9 diverges from Route 9W, and one of them is in the area where Janet Martinez was killed.

This last week local assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe’s office held a sign-planting ceremony where they (along with the bike club that I founded but no longer run) and NYSDOT put up “Share The Road” signs along 9W. The state, in this Patch article says that they identified “20 locations along the biking lane and 9W corridor…that could use new biking signs.”

Unfortunately that action is a mere token, and it only serves to highlight the problem.

While Byron can attest to the fact that I’m not really the ideal head-type for a cycling cap worn as an accessory, I do love caps while riding. Occasionally a Facebook ad will give me a link to something cycling related that I actually like and that was the case with Rothera Cycling, a manufacturer of cycling caps for all seasons.

There are some three-panel hats here I adore like the Lanterne Rouge and Gentlemen’s Pink and the camo caps really crack me up.

Personally though I think I’m going to end up with the Winter Black and Pink cap, as I find it hard to get a good winter hat that’s both stylish and long enough to cover my ears. This one is lined with PolarTec fleece inside and in the ear flaps. For the Summer, it’s our own thin nylon cap I wear, even if it makes me look like a pinhead.

Just got an email from my Rapha buds that their team van got jacked the other night and someone stole a dozen Focus team frames. Ugh. While I’m guessing that those Easton wheels are already gone on eBay, the frames (without forks and in the team colors) are going to be hard to fence.

Items Stolen:

12 frames. All 54cm FOCUS Mares Carbon CX frames. All in US National Champion paint scheme. (Note: No forks were taken)

15 - Easton EC90 SL Rear Wheels 18 - Easton EC90 SLX Front Wheels 2 pair - Easton EA70 wheels

Contacts

Carlsbad Police Department Case 12-05050 Officer Sheldon Berg 760-931-2100

FOCUS Bicycles USA Jeff Rowe Operations Manager j.rowe@focus-bikes.com

Rapha Racing Chris DiStefano Communications Manager chris.distefano@rapha.cc

In an 1895 letter to a friend, when the safety bike was in fashion, H.G. Wells demonstrated how to dismount a bicycle with instructions and an illustration.

Observe when your left foot is descending & about 30° from the nadir. Stand on left pedal throwing up right leg. Bring this in a graceful curve over the hind mud guard & leap lightly to the ground. The treadle moves against your weight & assists the leap. Then smile. Thus.

117 years later, on bikes made of space-age materials, that’s what we’re doing in Cross before a barrier or run up. For the remounting technique, see this instructional video we made a few years ago with Tim Rutledge from Redline.

Cross is fun!

More Cross tips are in this YouTube playlist and this post kicks off the 13 Cross season for us.

HT Futility Closet and reader Paul Beard.

The Rapha Summer Sale is going on now, so I’ve been spending a lot of time looking over the line of clothing and trying to figure out which pieces to buy. I hadn’t given the Circle of Death jersey a lot of thought since white doesn’t really look good on my non-continental-racer frame, but then I noticed something interesting.

Rapha says this jersey was “inspired by legendary Pyrenean cols” but I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure it was inspired by Admiral James T. Kirk. Here’s my proof.

And here’s the original design work that the Rapha guys clearly stole from some Federation database. Probably thanks to a Klingon.