I had never ridden a century before. My longest ride up until January 8 was a metric century (62 miles), last March. I did not know whether I was in the right shape or how my body would react to the hours. Sometime in the last year, I flipped through Bicycling‘s issue on mastering “the hundo.” I give anyone permission to slap me if I ever use the phrase “hundo” unironically. I did not know how long it would take, but I estimated eight hours. I wanted to leave from and end at home, so I designed a route that […]
UC Davis bike safety video
UC Davis TAPS BEEP Video from UCDavisTAPS on Vimeo. VUC Davis has a great new bike safety video. Traffic laws and campus customs are clearly explained alongside some nice visuals of campus bike traffic. When the roundabouts get crowded, they really can be intimidating, but the video explains how they keep traffic moving and less confusing than four-way stops.
Dave Wofford: Bull City Bikers
When Dave Wofford (37) tires of preventing forest fires, he designs graphics and presses letters at Durham’s finest fine-art letterpress, the Horse and Buggy Press. Originally a champion of Raleigh’s art community, Wofford has come to see the aesthetic benefits of living, biking, and now blogging in the Bull City. His Critical Mass posters (featured in the far right column) have become an icon within Durham’s two-wheeled community. A decidedly old school and opinionated fellow, he has been known to let loose on City Council as ferociously as Draplin lets loose on Blippo Bold. But perhaps because he knows that […]
Mike Halligan: Bull City Bikers
When Mike Halligan isn’t skating across frozen bridges, he’s reclaiming thrown away objects for recycling. Just last week, the Warehouse Manager at Morgan Imports rescued a Schwinn Suburban from a downtown dumpster after spotting it from a Lull forklift. He’s also an avid paddler, guiding canoe and kayak trips with Frog Hollow Outdoors. Distressed by the amount of trash in local waterways, he started collecting some of it in his down time. And from some of the photos he has shared with me, I’m speechless at the amount of debris he’s hauled out of our rivers and streams. Among the […]
The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Durham man to pedal for peace across Israel
Phillip BarronThe Herald SunJanuary 17, 2008 When Martin Luther King said that true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice, he had in mind the idea that lasting, real peace is possible only when we actively take responsibility for it. Marv Axelrod is tired of hearing promises of peace in the Middle East only to be later disappointed by the dissolution of dialogue. He’s tired of all the news coming out of Israel being about conflict. Axelrod is not someone who complains about something he is not willing to help solve. “I want […]
The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Cyclists don’t like concrete islands
Phillip Barron The Herald Sun Willetha Barnette, of Durham, rode her bike in traffic for the first time on October 4th. Encouraged by her friend Cynthia Ferebee to join the Critical Mass ride, a monthly group bike ride through the streets of Durham, Barnette said that she enjoyed the freedom to ride on the streets in safe numbers, but that she would not feel comfortable riding alone. As the group made its way down Anderson St, Barnette said, “it’s uncomfortable. Drivers don’t seem to be used to sharing the road. They seem annoyed, frustrated that we (cyclists) aren’t going as […]
The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Hybrid car pitch a step backwards
Phillip BarronThe Herald Sun September 14th marked the 108 year anniversary of the first pedestrian death at the hands of an automobile in the United States. On September 13th, 1899, Henry Bliss stepped from a streetcar on Central Park West, in New York, and was struck by a taxicab. He died of his injuries the next morning. The event was reported on the front page of the New York Times. In 2005 alone, 39,000 automobile crashes in the United States accounted for 43,000 deaths. Given the anniversary of Bliss’ death, it’s appropriate to think of September as an automobile awareness […]
Jack and Anne: Bull City Bikers
Jack Edinger, a fellow board member at the Durham Bike Co-op, and Anne Fairchild are the next Bull City Bikers. What bike(s) do you own and ride regularly?Anne: Trek multi track 730 w/ plastic crate attached!Jack: Currently ride a 1983 Trek 630 fixed-gear conversion. I also have an ever-changing fleet of frames and project bikes. I counted nine bikes in my workshop this morning, four of which are built up. What’s your primary flavor of riding?Anne: Commuting, tooling around town, occasionally for fitnessJack: Daily commuter, weekend errand-runner: road bike flavor. I occasionally do some mountain biking, but it’s been a […]
Bike Lane point/counter-point
A few weeks ago, a local listserv debate over the Constitutionality of bike lanes devolved into a rather asinine comparison between vehicular separation and racial segregation. In an effort to raise the level of discussion over whether bike lanes are good for cyclists, local cyclist Steve Goodridge and I wrote point/counter-point Op-Eds for the Herald Sun. Enjoy. Lanes do their job Phillip Barron Guest columnist, The Herald-Sun Just two weeks ago, Main Street was one-way through downtown Durham. City officials closed the street Saturday and reopened it for traffic going in both directions. How do drivers know the difference? City […]
The Outspokin’ Cyclist: New Durham cabs are pedal-powered
On a recent Sunday, while I was dropping off some donated wheels and frames at the Durham Bike Co-op, two of Durham’s newest taxi cabs stopped by for repairs. MarcDreyfors parked his cab on the sidewalk, jacked up the front end to remove the front wheel, and brought the wheel inside the Co-op for aligning. After a few minutes in the truing stand, his wheel was straight, and he popped the front wheel back on his pedal-powered taxi cab. A pedicab, as it is known, is basically a giant tricycle. It looks like a regular bicycle in the front (with […]