Bicycling

Morning Report 5/13/05
Rider On the Storm

Transit Strike Is a Bike Rider's Dream

Ghost Riders: 21 Cyclists Killed Last Year in NYC

New Standoff Over Critical Mass as Another Bike Group Sues to Block Parade Regs

NY [heart] Critical Mass?

Dead Fuckin' Last in the Alleycat

Who's Sabotaging Bikers on the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges?

Design Competition Seeks to Make Red Hook Bike-Friendly

What Does it Take To Turn NYC Bike Friendly?

DEAD PREZ RIDE

Before you pig out, feed the brain

Valentine's Day Love Your Lane Ride + After-Party

Before you pig out, feed the brain

Take a Bike!

Ditch the Subway. Keep the Cab Fare. Miss the Bus. Try a Two-Wheeled Commute for a Change.

Get Rolling!

A Bike Week Calendar

Belles on Wheels

The Ditty Bops bike tour finally ends, 4,500 jittery and often moonlit miles later

Scare Yourself Shiftless

In a 24-Hour mountain bike race, life begins at 4 a.m.

Schlepping to a New You

At least the strike makes New York skinny

Riding to the Rescue

Sympathetic European cycling activists jump into critical mess to say, 'Free NYC cyclists'

Cycling Study, Bike Rules Website Hasten the End of the Urban Outlaw Biker

Where's your helmet, buddy? They're after us cyclists again! The recent crackdown on biker traffic violations in Brooklyn was just the thin end of the wedge: now Hunter College has released a study of midtown Manhattan bicyclist behavior, showing -- brace yourself -- that bikers are lax about fol ... More >>

Bloomberg to Bikers: Screw You!

With all the pale green bike lanes going in across town, you might think we have a bicycle-friendly mayor. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bike lanes are really his method of hectoring motorists by eliminating car-traffic lanes--as are the pedestrian malls at Times Square and Heral ... More >>

Bike Propaganda Contest Offer $4,000 Prize, Film Fest

The drive by responsible cycling advocates to get us all to stop at stop lights, wear helmets, and generally bike like Urkel has reached the propaganda phase. Transportation Alternatives has launched a Biking Rules Public Service Announcement and Photo Competition. Make and submit videos and photos ... More >>

Staten Islanders Displeased with Bike Lanes

People complain about bike lanes elsewhere in the city, too, but Staten Island seems to have more trouble with them than most. The Staten Island Advance tells us that new bike lanes are planned for the borough even as "half of the paint forming the Bay Street [bike] route has worn away" because of t ... More >>

Lawyer Says Bike Lock Beatdown is a Crime

A You Tube vid of a young Lower East Side cyclist -- some have theorized he's a bike messenger -- delivering a brutal beatdown to a pedestrian outside the public restrooms on Allen and Delancey made the rounds on web sites and blogs last week: The vid shows the two travelers coming into conflic ... More >>

TransAlt Celebrates New DUMBO Bike Path Where Member Cracked Up

​In 2005 Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick hit a pothole on Sands Street in DUMBO and cracked up badly. So he and the rest of TransAlt are especially happy to see the Sands Street bike path completed, affording bikers coming on and off the Manhattan Bridge, or just tooling around the n ... More >>

Transportation Alternatives Denounces Tomorrow's Naked Bedford Bike Ride

​Everyone, even if they don't care about bike lanes, seems to be looking forward to the naked bike ride scheduled for Saturday. The spectacle is meant to draw attention to the bikers' plight in Williamsburg, where the city scrubbed the Bedford Avenue bike lake, leading to a guerrilla hipste ... More >>

Critical Mass Has to Have a Permit for Big Bike Rides, Says Judge

​In 2007 NYPD, fed up with the big, rowdy Critical Mass bike events, made up a new parade regulation requiring all bicycle gatherings of 50 or more to get a permit. (Critical Mass usually involves hundreds of bikes.) The Five Borough Bike Club filed suit, claiming the arbitrary reg violated cy ... More >>

Is the Brooklyn-Bred "Purist" Bike Culture Officially "Over" Now?

​The intensely devoted single-speed and fixed-gear bike culture of Williamsburg has long been a source of fascination for people unbearably attracted to fashionably scruffy, trim, roguish-looking people, as well as the rest of the people who ride bikes in New York, and of course, exploitative ... More >>

Cycling Advocates Say Not So Fast with the Cycling Stats

​Recent reports stating that bike ridership has reached 200,000-plus daily cyclists in New York City (more than any other U.S. city) have now come under fire. Cycling advocates are protesting that biking is not nearly as popular as all that -- yet.

New East Village Bike Lanes: Good for Bikers, Bad for Business

​The new bike lanes on First and Second Avenue that run from Houston to 34th Street are positioned between the sidewalk and a line of parked cars to protect bikers -- which means delivery trucks can no longer double park right next to businesses, causing new frustrations to downtown business o ... More >>

Asian Feastival Comes to Queens for Labor Day

Robert SietsemaM&T's pepper with bean curd sheets.​Food nerds still hemming and hawing about making Labor Day plans, take note: September 6 witnesses the first "Asian Feastival," a smorgasbord of eats in Queens.

Biking While Drunk Is Not Illegal, Just a Really Bad Idea

​We've often wondered whether you could get a DUI for biking under the influence -- or a BUI, as it were -- in New York City. Thankfully, J. David Goodman at the New York Times City Room blog tackles this very question. And the final word is: biking under the influence is not explicitly illega ... More >>

East Village's 16 Handles Commandeers a Public Amenity for Its Private Usage

​16 Handles' trash can is padlocked to one of the rare bike racks, displacing bike parking spots. Bike riders know that, even though the city is now veined with bike lanes, encouraging an increase in the volume of pedal-driven traffic, the number of bike parking spots in the city has actually ... More >>

How to Use a Bike Lane and Not Be an Utter and Complete Shithead: A Handy Primer

The Village Voice: Not blocking the bike lane.​Oh, bike lanes. They are complex. It's so hard to know, for instance, where they stop and start, and how to actually use them. New Yorkers are accustomed to things being difficult, and maybe these new bike lanes are just so easy that our giant bra ... More >>

My Foolproof Rules For Bicycle Safety

​ And I oughta know! *Main thing: Be aware of parked cars flinging their doors open. If you get hit, you will be propelled into traffic and die. This is not advisable. *Also be aware of the traffic itself. Try to ride halfway between the parked cars and the oncoming trucks and you'll probab ... More >>

Staten Islanders Want Their Bike Lanes Back

​Cyclists on Staten Island are getting worked up over a decision by the city Department of Transportation to strip away the bike lanes along Capodanno Boulevard in favor of a bus lane and a parking and turning lane. City officials, including a city councilman, the transportation commissioner, ... More >>

Bike Wars: Angry Fascist Motorists Strike Back

​Discord is brewing in the streets of New York. Or so the New York Times would have you believe, with its piece today on the latest urban conflict that plagues the people of our fair city: bike lanes. Last week, cyclists on Staten Island were mourning the loss of a local bike lane, which they ... More >>

NYPD Hits Bike Riders With 1,400 Tickets in Two Weeks

​The first two weeks of the year saw the New York Police Department crack down on wild bike riders, delivering "an all-time high" amount of tickets for offenses like "going the wrong way, running lights, making illegal turns and riding on the sidewalk," according to a report in today's New Yor ... More >>

Prospect Park Still Doesn't Want Your Damn Bike Lanes

Brooklyn Downtown Star​Listen, Prospect Park. The generous, benevolent Department of Transportation has bestowed upon you a big, green bike lane to keep you safe from all of those scary, lycra-clad cyclists. Big Brother (i.e., the city) says it keeps your babies safe and your Subarus dent-free, so ... More >>

NYPD Now Giving Tickets For Biking on the Wrong Part of the Street

Photo by Alex Goldmark​A blogger for Transportation Nation witnessed two cyclists being pulled over and ticketed in Manhattan for biking not on the sidewalk, but on the street -- just not in the available bike lane. According to the Department of Transportation, "you have the right to ride in ... More >>

Most New Yorkers Like Bike Lanes, But Does Anyone Use Them?

​Despite some very bitter and ugly public battles, a majority of New Yorkers approve of bike lanes, according to a poll released this week. The Quinnipiac University poll found that 56 percent of city voters say bike lanes "are good because it's greener and healthier for people to ride." The b ... More >>

Hopstop: Now Helping You Count Calories, Ride Your Bike

​Hooray for Hopstop, the go-to spot for finding out how to get to wherever you want to go in the New York City area, and elsewhere, too. Just the other day we were calculating how to get to a wedding in Brooklyn (thank you, God, for weddings in Brooklyn) and all of a sudden, after which trains ... More >>

Naked Bike Riders Will Fill the Streets of NYC This Saturday

via​More nudity news you can use: The 2011 World Naked Bike Ride is on Saturday. This has always seemed rather uncomfortable (banana seat?) but it is for a good cause, that is, protesting harmful environmental effects from cars and oil dependencies and promoting alternative transportation. It' ... More >>

Naked Bike Ride Postponed

via​In some more clothing and bike-related news, the World Naked Bike Ride was postponed Saturday due to inclement weather. "We weren't going to get the turnout we were hoping for," volunteer organizer Joe Sharkey told us. "The weather was looking pretty bad."

NYPD Patrol Car Cruises Williamsburg Bridge Bike Lane

In the ongoing debate over bike lanes -- and who's either blocking them to cyclists or not using them properly as cyclists -- comes this video of a NYPD patrol car driving slowly and apparently leisurely along the Williamsburg Bridge bike path, which is ostensibly only for people who are either ridi ... More >>

Cibo Matto+Sxip Shirey

In the ongoing debate over bike lanes -- and who's either blocking them to cyclists or not using them properly as cyclists -- comes this video of a NYPD patrol car driving slowly and apparently leisurely along the Williamsburg Bridge bike path, which is ostensibly only for people who are either ridi ... More >>

Marcia Kramer, Local Reporter: Terrorists Could Use Manhattan Bike Lanes

"A Second Avenue bike lane is next to the Israeli Consulate," notes CBS 2 reporter Marcia Kramer in a sensational report last night on extensions to Manhattan bike lanes. "Imagine if the man on the bike was a terrorist." Just in case you thought this city was getting more sane about the ongoing tra ... More >>

Semi-Nude Cyclists Finally Ride the Streets of NYC for World Naked Bike Ride

Here's footage from the hotly anticipated World Naked Bike Ride, which finally happened this Sunday. "As soon as the cops split the shorts came off," reports WNBR NYC. Seems like a ready-made tagline for next year's event. There was apparently a significant police presence limiting nudity this year: ... More >>

Cyclists Injure 500 People Yearly in New York City; Cars Injure 70,000

via​According to a new study from two Hunter College professors, approximately 1,000 pedestrians are hit by cyclists and sustain injuries severe enough for hospitalization yearly in New York state. About half of those -- 500 -- are in New York City. In reporting these stats, CBS mentions the c ... More >>

Ken Jackson, Columbia University Professor, Teaches NYC History on All-Night Bike Ride

For 37 years, Columbia University historian Ken Jackson has taught a session of his class, "The History of the City of New York," in an unforgettable fashion -- namely, on an all-night bike ride, which comes with the special added benefit of ensuring that none of the students fall asleep while being ... More >>

SPEED DEMONS

How fast can you shop at four grocery stores?

Manhattan Has the Most Hipsters, According to Not Very Scientific Survey

via​According to an important statistical analysis of New York City's hipster makeup, you may be incorrect if you've held to the common perception that Brooklyn is New York's hipster-est borough. In fact, the survey suggests that there may be significantly more hipsters in...Manhattan. WTF, su ... More >>