2014 – Week 7 – Internet Round Up

16 Feb 2014 – Week 7 – Internet Round Up

News & Blog

BLOG: A great blog post on the All Things EPIC blog which sarcastically explains why one should not date a girl who bikepacks.  My initial assumption was that this blog was written from a male’s point of view but upon further review I was surprise to confirm that the blogger is female with the handle Ji!! and lives in Durango, Colorado.  We are looking forward to reading about her bikepacking adventures!

NEWS2 Aussies invent a blinky bike light, dubbed the Fly6 also doubles as a HD camera.  The intent is to monitor drivers behind cyclists so that they are aware of their bad behaviors and take corrective actions.  You can get yours by supporting the Kickstarter campaign for $129 Australian dollars.  The light includes a 8GB Class 10 microSD card which loops through videos.  You’ll have an HD capture of that harassing driver right before he buzzes by you with license plate number and all.  We’re considering adding one of these puppies to our touring rigs.  Stay tuned!

NEWS: Get ready to print your own titanium bike frame!  According to this GizMag article, 2 British companies teamed up to create the world’s first 3-D printed titanium bicycle.  The framed weighted 3 pounds which was 33% lighter than the aluminum version and exceeds the EN 14766 mountain bike strength requirements over 6 times.  This a very impressive accomplishment and illustrates how far we’ve come to using these high-tech 3-D printers.

NEWS: Forbes is reporting the beginning of trouble for the auto industry in a recent article.  We’re seeing a negative trend for the auto industry in which people are moving closer to the city and using public transportation more, millennials do not want to own their car, and car sharing services like ZipCar as well as transportation service like Uber is fueling the fire.  The article claimed that the car industry lost the opportunities to sell 500,000 cars in the last 10 years and believes that the number can go as high as 1.2 million by 2021.  The other interesting thing is that for every 1 car they sell to ZipCar‘s sharing service, they miss out on selling to 32 buying customers.

NEWS / BLOG: People For Bikes report that Suffolk County’s (NY) Legislature Thomas Barraga should ever ride their bikes in the Suffolk County.  According to Mr. Barraga, 90% of the people who rides in his community are hit by cars.  This was in response to a a letter that a 17-year-old whose mother was involved in a collision while she was riding her bike.  First of all, if your county has such morbid safety records in terms of cycling and pedestrian collisions, why are you not doing something about this?  Is it not your job to make sure that the people of your county lives in a safe, happy, and healthy environment so that they can continue to vote for you?  This is the kind of ass-backwards thinking that people who have never been on a bike would default to.  Here is a copy of the letter for reading pleasure.

I recommend we follow the lead of Nancy Sathre-Vogel of the Family On Bikes blog and write a letter to Mr. Barraga at Thomas.Barraga@suffolkcountyny.gov.  I’ll be drafting mine as soon as I’m done posting this week’s round-up.

Videos

Music video by And The Giraffe entitled “Sorry” shows the duo, Nick Roberts and Josh Morris of Gainesville, Florida riding a bicycle through several familiar Los Angeles streets.  This melancholy song takes us through Santa Monica, Pacific Coast Highway, and the Coyote Dry Lake bed in the Mojave Desert.  The video was shot in 1 day and racked up 500 miles on a rented U-Haul according to the YouTube description. [youtube=http://youtu.be/0u0JTuhRQfU]

More bicycle and camping love in Camera Obscura‘s music video for their song “Teenager”.  This is actually an older song from their album, “Underachievers Please Try Harder“, which was released in August 2003.  I’ve been a  fan of theirs since stumbling upon some of their tracks through Pandora‘s online music station a few years ago. [youtube=http://youtu.be/J9d-zjI6xLo]

Images

An expensive clothes rack!

Can’t wait to watch this movie but why is there 30 disc for the DVD?

A bit late for #tbt. This was the first ride that jump-started Johnny’s love for bicycling again. Taken 05/17/2008. pic.twitter.com/FdNt6WAB4m

— Milestone Rides (@MilestoneRides) February 8, 2014

Cycling 12mph for 30mins burns 298calories @exerciseworks pic.twitter.com/w3onMXMSBJ

— CyclingSurgeon (@CyclingSurgeon) February 7, 2014

Bicycling just 20 miles per week reduces women’s risk of heart disease by 50%. Any one here ride? #RedHeartChat pic.twitter.com/6l7tPEh2T2

— Women Bike (@WomenBike) February 7, 2014

“Public investment” vs “Wasteful Subsidy.” Sadly, too often this is how #transit investment is perceived & portrayed. pic.twitter.com/5V5Qzz2nw1

— TODERIAN UrbanWORKS (@TODUrbanWORKS) February 11, 2014