Cycling With Candidates update - Stamford: Thanks, Barry Michelson!

Republican Candidate for mayor of Stamford, Barry Michelson, Sept. 14, 2017. Photo by Ronald Morse

Note: I am typing all of this with a big grin on my face

I need to give a big thanks to Ronald Morse of Speakerbike for leading the first #CyclingWithCandidates ride with Republican Barry Michelson - and of course thank Barry for taking part in the ride (and a shout-out to Pacific Cycling & Triathlon on High Ridge Road in Stamford for outfitting Barry with a Specialized bike).

I knew the ride was taking place at 8:00 this morning at the Bedford Street Diner in Stamford. 2,983 miles away, at 5:00 in the morning At precisely the same moment, I was sitting outside my home in San Jose, in the dark, waiting for sunrise, sipping coffee and listening for screech owls* while wondering what was going on. 

As it turned out the ride took place as it was scheduled and photojournalist Michael Cummo of the Stamford Advocate was also there and took some great photographs - please check out Michael's photos - plus one from Ronald's iPhone! - and share the Stamford Advocate story below:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Stamford-mayoral-challenger-participates-in-12198354.php

There will be more to come on this - and David Martin's ride will be coming up soon so keep watching this space. Remember that #CyclingWithCandidates can be done in your home city and that no one (it helps to say this in Bryan Cranston intonation) should run for mayor anywhere without addressing cyclists or cycling issues. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

*My morning routine has changed since moving to California.

Cycling With Candidates - the 2017 Mayor Election in Stamford

I promised not too long ago I'd have something to say about Cycling with Candidates - a campaign I started in 2013 to go biking with mayoral candidates in the city Stamford. 

I live in San Jose, California now but what goes on in Stamford matters a great deal to me. I still have friends I love and business I adore out there and even though I haven't ridden a bicycle in Stamford since May 1, 2015 I'm not ruling out a return someday.

So I decided to hand off the Stamford edition of Cycling with Candidates to Ron Morse - you may know him from his excellent cycling creation Speakerbike and from the Bike Party Stamford rides - and by the way, if you live in Stamford there is a Bike Party Stamford Ride tonight and you should bring a bike and go. 

That's my whole message at the moment: Ron is doing Cycling With Candidates and the two candidates for mayor (incumbent David Martin and challenger Barry Michelson) have already agreed to do the rides. As I write this they are coordinating schedules with Ron to do them. If you are a member of the press and want to know when the rides will be please let Ron know.

Rather than explain things further I'll share with you the email I sent to both the David Martin and Barry Michelson campaigns the other day. If anyone out there also believes that no one should run for mayor in your town without speaking about bike and complete streets issues, please crib whatever you want and start #CyclingWithCandidates in your town - and watch this site as I'll publish a Cycling With Candidates Tool Kit soon. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

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Dear (campaign contact),

(this very same message has been sent or will be sent within a minute of this one to your candidate's opponent)

Thank you and thank (David Martin/Barry Michelson) for agreeing to do a Cycling for Candidates ride! A good friend of mine, Ron Morse, who lives and works in Stamford, is cc'd on this message and he will be your contact for scheduling your ride, which, like last time, will start at the Bedford Street Diner and go right on Bedford, left on Oak, left on Summer, right on Broad and a left on Washington to end at the government center. 

Ron will be writing about the ride for DIYBIKING.COM. Before or after the ride Ron may ask about any plans or issues you may have in regards to bike/transportation issues in the city and your record on this, if applicable. He also has a spare bicycle handy if you need one (let him know beforehand if it is necessary) but I do ask that you bring your own properly fitted helmet and understand you are riding at your own risk. 

Please feel free to have any of your own campaign staff on hand for your own photos/social media fodder if you wish but I do ask that you do not have any volunteers or staffers ride with the candidate and Ron - but please feel free to have anyone along the route or at the government center to take your own pictures if you like. 

An announcement will be made on DIYBIKING.COM Tuesday, Sept. 5 that Cycling with Candidates is back in Stamford. The intent is not to announce when the rides are taking place at that point in case you need more time to schedule one, but I will link to you and your opponent's literature about bike and transit issues if you have pertinent pieces on your web site. If you have published material on this subject on your campaign site by noon on Tuesday, Sept. 4, please send the links my way and I'll be happy to put them up.

This probably goes without saying but the rides will not be scheduled for the same day at the same time (the morning rush is best) and just like last time if anything physically embarrassing happens it will not be covered by DIYBIKING.COM. You will also not be judged on the kind of equipment you ride or the attire you choose to wear. 

I've let a few folks in media know about the rides - you can call them too if you like/when you schedule your ride. 

I would like to thank you personally, regardless of the election outcome, for taking part in Cycling with Candidates. The link to the first one done in Stamford in 2013 is below and some of that years' press coverage is on the Press page of my site. It is not along the route but please have an alfajore cookie for me at Lorca on 125 Bedford.

Sincerely yours,

Michael

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Link to first Cycling with Candidates Ride: 

http://www.diybiking.com/2013/08/cycling-with-candidates.html

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How Stamford and Honolulu Are Making Streets Less Safe

Intersection of Hoyt & Summer Stree in Stamford - Summer 2014. A pedestrian in the crosswalk was killed there shortly before I took this photo.

Motorists in Honolulu - and, sadly, in the city of Stamford - are being given a new tool in their utility belt of Blame Assignment.  

I'm talking about banning the use of cell phones while walking. "Distracted texting" or "distracted walking" as it is sometimes called. We've all probably seen the footage of a distracted pedestrian or two walking into an open manhole or the like and there are cases of a person distracted by a phone and walking into the path of a car - but the practice of banning the use of a cell phone while walking is not the way to make streets safer.

In fact, if I wanted to kill as many pedestrians or cyclists with motor vehicles as possible I'd push for such a law, and push hard.

From Summer 2014. Is the intersection any safer?

Here's why: the balance of power on the street is in the favor of cars to begin with. If I'm walking or biking and a car hits me at 40 miles an hour, chances are excellent I am going to the morgue. The driver - as long as he or she is "remaining at the scene and cooperating" - is going to Maaco. 

Power is also in the hands of the motorist because of the implicit bias in way too many news articles about cars hitting pedestrians. A few years ago, in an article for the Stamford Patch, I pointed out that almost every piece about a car hitting a pedestrian talked about whether or not the person struck was in a crosswalk - and that people want the answer to that question to assign blame to the pedestrian. 

Very, very soon, "Was he/she holding a cell phone?" will augment the old "Was he/she in the crosswalk?" question. Just another way to shift blame away from the motorist and toward the pedestrian. 

Here's my prediction: Streets in Stamford and Honolulu will not see fewer pedestrian deaths. They'll see more because it'll be all the easier for a driver to face little if any repercussions from striking someone. 

Do I think pedestrians and cyclists should take more ownership over their safety - following the rules of the road and looking both ways? Of course I do. But when I put one foot on the street to cross and the approaching driver is going too fast to stop that is a problem with the speed of the motorist - not whether or not I am holding a cell phone in my hand.

That is yet another important thing to remember: even if you follow the ordinance and cross with the phone in your hand - at your side and away from your eyes - that isn't going to matter if you are hit. The driver will be conscious and will be able to give his or her statement to the police that you were holding a cell phone which will be found at the scene. Because you - the unconscious, bleeding pedestrian - can't give your statement to the police that you weren't using the phone, the deck is stacked against you once again. 

It's also a bit unnerving to see a city in Connecticut essentially create an ordinance that chips away at a state law that says drivers must yield to pedestrians who are at a crosswalk. The no-cell-phones-while-walking-rule essentially turns that around. This is motorists - many of whom are also using their phones - saying: you stop what you are doing and you yield to us. 

If you agree and live in Stamford, politely call or email Stamford's Board of Representatives - especially John Zelinsky, an architect of this ordinance - and tell them not to enact this. Do not be rude in any way or use swear words. I am not kidding.  

I know I live in San Jose now, but I miss Stamford. I miss Lorca. I miss Rippowam Labs. I miss Exhale. I miss the art scene and I really want to go to Danger Gallery. I miss free plastic grocery bags. I miss being in the same time zone as 98% of my family. I miss living close to Indian, Greek and Mexican restaurants that deliver. I miss rappelling Santa.*

What I don't miss is the 1970s-style pro-car bias that clings to some people like a disease in the Constitution State. Every road user matters and I have zero interest in telling someone that their much-loved wife, husband, sister, brother, dad, mom or friend isn't coming home because, well, we want drivers to get to where they are going one light faster. 

The aftermath of a bike crashing into a car never, ever looks like this.

By the way, Stamford: I know there is a mayor's race coming up - and friends who still live there know it too. If you are running for mayor (or, running for re-election) I have four words: please check your inbox. Cycling with Candidates is returning. More on this in a few days. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

*In Stamford, that is A Thing - and it is a wonderful Thing. Check out the Stamford Advocate coverage. 

A Parking Spot Isn't As Valuable As What Lorca Wants Instead

From Parking Day 2014, in front of Lorca in Stamford, Connecticut

You might remember a couple of years ago Emily and Meg asked me if I wanted to do Parking Day - which I had never heard of at the time. My role was mainly quartermaster as I provided most of the furniture that we used to make a fun living room in front of Lorca, my spirit animal in coffee shop form. 

I'm hoping not all of my Stamford readers have abandoned this blog even though I moved from Connecticut to California a year ago and haven't had the pleasure of Lorca since a visit in December (also, in spite of finding some good coffee shops here in San Jose, I haven't found a Lorca substitute yet).

If you are a Stamford reader or visit Lorca often, please sign their petition to change one of the parking spaces they have in front of their building into a seasonal parklet. 

This is the parking space in front of Lorca. Shouldn't something more befitting to the image of the finest coffee shop in all the land go there instead? 

I hope the powers that are in Stamford listen to Leyla, the business owner of Lorca. She has given life to the business with every breath and made Stamford feel like the city a lot of people wanted it to be. 

And between figuring out the right bean-to-water ratio and developing recipes for some of the most fantastic cookies in the Western World, she has decided that, as a small business owner, that a rectangle of asphalt meant to hold an unoccupied motor vehicle is not as valuable as a small outdoor space where friends can meet and be outside. 

So if you have been to Stamford, you've been to Lorca, so please sign Lorca's petition and make it easier for businesses to decide how to deal with the legacy of increasingly unnecessary on-street parking. Thanks for reading, thanks for riding, and hope to visit Stamford soon. 

Why You Should Take Part in Park(ing) Day

Photo taken September 3, 2014 - on the way back from my first Parking Day planning meeting

A year ago I was living in Stamford, Connecticut instead of San Jose, California. This meant I had a working knowledge of the cycling quirks in the state I lived in, a memory of what rain looked like, and the ability to carry groceries with complimentary, store-issued bags. 

My Stamford friend and fellow bike activist Emily emailed me and asked if I wanted to take part in Parking Day - an event I had never heard of before that originated in San Francisco in 2005 and takes place on the third Friday of September. I’ve always maintained that if you want a better environment for cyclists and walkers in Stamford (or, for that matter, the state of Connecticut) that you do whatever Emily tells you to do, so I agreed to help.

I met with Emily and Meg (one of the founders of Bike Stamford) at Lorca to discuss what we wanted to do. Thankfully, they gave a rundown of Parking Day that can easily be found on the ParkingDay.org web site: The short version is: you feed a parking meter, but instead of putting a car there, you put a small public space. It can be a living room, a dining area, a mini-golf course - anything you can imagine. This is a fun way to get people to wonder how to best use public space. After all, when you think about it, cars take up a lot of public space.

The name of the new public space is called a ‘parklet.’ This is not a common word. I know this because spell check changed it to ‘parcel’ the first few times I typed it. 

Even still, you’ve probably seen some parklets in your life. The more permanent ones can be pretty elaborate. Here’s one I found when went biking in Germany last year:

In Redwood City, California, I found this near an outstanding Mexican restaurant. The meters are still there. 

But back to the not-yet-built parklet in Stamford: since the jobs of working with the city and promoting the event were taken by people more talented than myself, I volunteered to provide most of the furniture for the parklet. We barely had two weeks to prepare. The big criteria is that we needed to use items that could be put in place quickly and taken away as soon as the meter ran out.  

I used a small vinyl couch from my home office that had big casters on it (it also could fit in the back of my Honda Element) the DIYBIKING.COM signature coffee table, the coat rack I had also welded, a couple of folding chairs and two $20 rugs from Home Depot. Incidentally: two 5 x 8 rugs, when taped together, are about the same footprint as a parked Toyota Corolla.

While mapping this all out in my basement, I realized just how much space a car takes up (a feeling I’d get nearly a year later when I had the not-for-me experience of being in the same room with my car). 

Days before Parking Day, I planned out how we would take the two parking spaces in front of Lorca at the predetermined time.

When it came time to move in, we were annoyed to see an ugly Ford van in the second space hadn’t moved even though its meter had run out. But we pressed forward anyway: I fed our meter and we set up the furniture on the one parking spot.

We worked quickly to put things in place at our parklet - which bore a slight resemblance to my man cave/basement living room. I even brought along my old chess set, and in no time at all we were sitting in our parklet playing a game.

However, a few minutes later…

One of Stamford’s finest stopped to ask what we were doing, and we assured him we had cleared it with the proper people first. Besides: I had added reflective stickers to the back of the sofa to provide more safety after sunset.

After the friendly officer left, more people began stopping by and asking what we were doing. Some brought snacks and a vase of flowers somehow materialized on the coffee table. Emily also provided a board so anyone could stop in and provide their visions for public space (you may have seen Lindsay Perry’s photo of this in the Stamford Advocate with Elizabeth Kim's story). 

Others showed up. I got to meet a nice woman over a chess game that we didn't finish (we finally did days before I moved to California). My wife came over after she got done with work and made a watercolor sketch of the parklet. I even jaywalked through the gridlocked Bedford Street carrying a plate Lorca cookies offering them to motorists. A guy even stopped by on foot playing a guitar.

And then I sat on the vinyl couch with my Lorca cookies, watching friends play board games and talking - laughing, really - with one another.  A few feet away on Bedford Street, cars continued to trundle by. Some of the drivers were staring. Most were smiling. And that ugly Ford van never moved. 

Within a few minutes of the meter running out we packed up. I managed to load the carpet, my coffee table, folding chairs and coat rack onto the vinyl couch and roll the whole lot behind Lorca to stuff them into the back of my legally parked Honda Element. When I returned on foot, I was greeted with a familiar sight.

The car had pulled into the space within thirty seconds of us leaving it - the occupants apparently had no idea how significant the space had been (or wondered who all of these people were who were staring at them when they pulled in). Afterwards, a group of old and new friends went out to dinner at Cask Republic. 

Your own experience with Parking Day may vary but I highly recommend that you get involved with Parking Day and/or make one yourself. As I proved, you don’t need the best or most stylish furnishings to make a Parking Day impression - just a small number of people willing to have fun convincing others that space devoted to an unoccupied motor vehicle may be put to better use. Stamford's Parking Day 2015 will be bigger and better this time around and if you live in the Bay Area: I may have a brown sofa with reflective stickers on it you can borrow.  Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Follow me on Twitter @michaelknorris

The Last Days of Bikeducken (And, by Association, Living in Connecticut)

    First photo of 2015: Sunrise on West Beach in Stamford, January 1, 2015

When you collect - well, not really collect but accumulate - bicycles, you don’t really do so thinking you’re going to have to eventually move them. Suddenly presented with that reality in late 2014 when my wife and I realized we were, indeed, moving from Connecticut to California, I began to look at my collection through an anxious lens.

Over a period of nearly five months I sold, scrapped or gave away bikes, parts and other things I didn’t think I’d need in California. It took a long time mostly because I was busy doing freelance work, fixing up the house and getting it ready for a sale, and flying back and forth to California trying to bond with the place (riding through the area, especially in the Willow Glen ride planned by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, has helped).

Over time I gathered what I thought I absolutely needed and put myself in a mental place to give up the rest. Bike related stuff that never would have deemed non-essential under any other circumstances went to either the Trafigura Work & Learn Center in Stamford or the BikePort Co-op in Bridgeport. Since we had to make the amount of stuff we needed placed in storage fall under a certain threshold (and fairly certain whatever residence we’d end up with in Silicon Valley would be smaller than what we had in Stamford anyhow) I made other, previously unthinkable choices.

Like throwing away the Bikeducken.

The Bikeducken. It began as one discarded Diamondback and ended up as the DiamondSchwinn because I wanted to see if I could cut a bike in half and weld it back together. Later, when I finally found a children’s BMX bike that had a five-speed cassette in the back I created the two-part DIYBIKING.COM Salutes the Cargo Bike feature. By the time I was done eight bikes - all throwaways - had been used to make it. I had to splice two chains of different makes together to make it work - and when pedaling I’d hear the clattering of the chain passing through the derailleur change pitch. 

The bike was used to carry an entire 4 x 8 sheet of plywood six miles from Rings End Hardware in Darien to build the one sheet workbench.

It carried anything I wanted it to, and in the last days of living in Stamford it was essential for bringing stuff to Goodwill - including a trail-a-bike. 

While closing in on Christmas 2014 I made a run to the Domus Work & Learn Business Center that topped all others before it. If Hollywood wanted to do a reboot of The Grapes of Wrath with bikes this has that covered. 

The Bikeducken was even featured on a web site called Hackaday.com this past September. I wondered why anyone would write anything about it, but I took their publicity. I also got a lot of amusement by reading the comments section of the story: one commenter even said: “that’s not welding; more like trying to glue it with spatters of metal” which didn’t make me upset because it was not only an accurate description of the amateur welding technique I had at the time, but it was funny.

As useful and unique as the bike was, I didn’t think it had any value to anyone other than me. Save for the kickstand, bell and derailleur cable the bike was built from what people in Connecticut threw away. With few exceptions, they loaded a slightly-distressed bike into their car, drove it to the Katrina Mygatt Recycling center on Magee Avenue, and dropped it into or around the Metal Only bin without giving it another thought. 

I decided the Bikeducken should return to the scrapheap from whence it came. Even though I thought it might help with closing my relationship with Connecticut I wasn’t going to feel sentimental about it. I decided I’d buy or build another cargo bike when I got settled in California and that was that. 

I removed the rear deck to make it easier to carry up and down the basement stairs (During half of March and the start of April I had to remove all personal belongings every time a realtor came calling) and the countdown to its last ride began. 

As coldhearted as this all sounds, I saw a practical reason for this as well: All but one of my remaining bikes - The City Bike, the Recumbent, The Dahon Matrix, The Mystery of South Norwalk - were being packed up in a moving truck. In fact: I watched it happen.

The mountain bike I built (in fact, the project that led to this site in the first place) won the coveted spot of being the bike that was to come with us for the cross-country drive to California, and it needed to be packed up and ready to travel too. Having a throwaway bike on hand would actually be useful since it could be used right up until the very end. However, as a promise I made to my cycling brothers and sisters in The Constitution State, I reattached a sign (with an updated date) to the frame. 

When I wasn’t biking around Stamford I was biking around Silicon Valley on my Bike Friday, which had been in California since February. As Bike to Work Day closed in on the West Coast, I attached signs I had procured from the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

As stressed out as I was with everything going on, I could at least sleep at night (no matter which time zone that would be in) knowing I was doing what I could to get the word out on Bike to Work Day. 

In addition to promoting Bike to Work Day 2015, the Bikeducken did some irrefutably useful things, such as taking my cable boxes and to the UPS store on High Ridge so I could mail them back to the most incompetent cable company that ever walked the earth. 

It was the last frontier for those cable boxes, I gotta say. 

When my last week in Stamford arrived, I welcomed four guys into my house. I only knew them by their first names and watched them carry everything I owned out of my house and place into a truck  - at one point while the song ‘Love Train’ was playing on an iPod. 

Try to get that image out of your head.

In between their visits, I went to my last yoga class at Exhale - which was even nicer because talented Stamford artist Holly Danger was among my classmates - and sipped my last hot cappuccino at Lorca. 

I also bought some of my favorite cookies - alfajores - for the cross country drive (and enjoyed them all the way through Iowa). The morning I was at Lorca, I treated the Bikeducken to a good parking spot and was reminded of how much cheaper it is to build a place to park many bicycles instead of a place to park one car (the following week, Stamford Mayor David Martin announced a new bike parking pilot program featuring bike hitches welded by a Stamford city worker I never had a chance to meet and thank).

And somewhere in the middle of all this, Jon from Rippowam Labs (where I taught the class on how to fix up your bike for spring), who had heard I was throwing away the Bikeducken, asked if he could have it. I was baffled at why he wanted it but decided not to argue. The night before I left Stamford he stopped in to pick it up. 

Jump ahead a couple weeks: I’m looking at the great Bike to Work Week features written by Elizabeth Kim at the Stamford Advocate and I see Jon holding a familiar-looking bike. 

In Stamford, Two Bike Commuters Launch a Ride-Share Website

It gave me a real smile, and it made me thankful I had put enough value on that strange, wonderful cargo bike to not throw it in the trash. It could go there another day, but maybe, just maybe, that picture in the Stamford Advocate inspired one other person to think one or more of the following:

Maybe I should give away that old bike to Domus or BikePort Co-op instead of throwing it in the trash. 

I have a bike and I can ride it safely. I’ll ride it. 

Rippowam Labs sounds really cool. I should check out their class schedule.

I should bike to Lorca, eat some cookies, and take a class at Exhale Stamford to cancel those cookies out - or at least make me think I did. 

I should bike more and drive less. 

Whether or not any Stamford motorists thought those things or not by seeing the Bikeducken or reading this site, they are going to be thinking those things anyway. After all, there are a lot more cyclists on the roads and a lot more coming. Hope they keep an eye out for them and notice how much faster they’re moving and how much more fun they’re having than they are. 

So farewell, Bikeducken and farewell New England. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

    Last photo I took in Stamford before moving: May 1, 2015

Six Ways to Mitigate the Loss of the Stamford Transportation Center Parking Garage

                       The Stamford parking garage in happier, intact times. 

Breaking news reported by the Stamford Advocate: the parking garage attached to the train station has been closed by the state because, as regular car parkers like myself will attest, the Quikrete combovers of rebar bald spots hasn’t been enough to make the garage safe. 

I’ve parked my car in that station more times than I wished to. I advocated that 700+ space garage to be kept where it is so motorists wouldn’t just drive all the way to work instead of deal with a longer train-based commute. I’m not sure how I feel about the loss, but since I am not in Stamford at this moment (more on why in another post) I can’t go to the station to say a proper goodbye.

But what I can do - in addition to admonishing the city of Stamford and the state of Connecticut for doing an appalling job encouraging bicycle commuters over the years - is present a short list of action items we can all do in the wake of the station suddenly vanishing. 

1. Instead of driving to the train station, #choosethebike

This is pretty obvious. After the kind of winter that would freeze a Tauntaun in its tracks, it’s finally starting to get a little nicer outside so your list of reasons to not bike is shorter automatically. Also: biking is healthier than driving, not much slower, a whole lot cheaper and much more fun than driving a car. 

2. Advocate for better bike parking and bike lockers in and around the station.

Parking a bike is easier and cheaper than parking a car, but at the Stamford Transportation Center (and most of any city, for that matter) it isn’t without its drawbacks. Yes, you can park a bike for free but not without bashing your two-wheeled friend against a metal railing, rack or another bike.

When someone decides to #choosethebike and ride to the Stamford Transportation Center, they leave an automobile parking space for someone who really needs it. But bicycle commuters are going to need more spaces immediately and, as I’ve written about several times on this site, the bike parking at the Stamford station is just terrible - and is much better in other parts of the world. 

     Bike lockers in Frankfurt, Germany

No matter how outlandish some seem, bike lockers and bike shelters can be put in place quickly at a fraction of the cost of a car parking space. Now is the time to do it. 

3. Advocate for sharrows and bike lanes around the station and throughout downtown Stamford. 

A lot of people don’t like to bike in cities because they feel unsafe. I know this because I see passionate cyclists wave at me all the time from behind the wheel of their hybrid cars with nobody in the passenger seats. Every time I tell someone I am going to go biking in a new city the first thing I am usually told is to be incredibly careful - followed by a hug and the tender words of ‘come back safely’ as if I am heading off to war. 

Make cycling safer. I would pay to have those words tattooed on the mayor’s arm or at least written somewhere prominent in the government center at 888 Washington Boulevard. Make cycling safer and everybody wins. Fewer cars on the road, more people getting to work on time. Win-win. Done and done. 

4 . If you’re a legislator, raise the car tax but grant breaks for one-car households.

Sometimes politicians who should know better talk about ending the car tax. I don't like paying that tax as much as anyone but ending the car tax is stupid. There’s no sugar-coating it. If there was a way for municipalities to make up for the loss of not having a car tax we would have discovered it by now and anyone who has driven on I-95 in Connecticut during the morning or evening rush will probably answer ‘no’ if you ask them if the state could incentivize more people to own cars - which is what ending the car tax would do. 

The car tax should be raised, not lowered. Once that’s done, we can restructure the tax to provide breaks for households that have only one car between two adults. If we make the city easier and safer to bike and walk in few will mind. 

5. Make it safer to walk and bike to the Stamford station - starting tomorrow. 

Tomorrow morning in Stamford there are going to be some awfully confused people moving around in and around the station. Some of them, especially people who didn’t realize the garage would be closed, are going to be angry. Angry people are going to drive that way and make mistakes. If you’re a pedestrian, look both ways before you cross the street. If you’re a cyclist, wear a helmet, outfit it with a rearview mirror, and take no chances biking in Stamford going forward. If you’re a police officer, please make the case to be on foot or bike patrol all around the station for the next several days at least. Give written warnings to every illegally parked car on day one but tow them and fine them if there is a day two. 

This situation just feels like trouble so make sure that you and your neighbor, no matter how he or she gets to work, is safe.  

6. When it comes to car parking, remind people to reduce the demand instead of increase the supply.

Searching the Stamford Advocate archives I found a long letter to the editor about why the Stamford parking station needed to be bigger - but the very author of that letter said that we ‘do not need to add more traffic’ around the station - which is what adding more parking does. 

Making the car tax higher, creating ways to encourage walking and biking to work and realizing that we can put public space to better use than temporary storing a car are all things cities needs to do. Stamford: I’m sorry you can’t do it on your own terms now, but maybe this sudden parking garage closure - and the misery that will surely result - will finally move you to action. Everyone please be patient getting to work tomorrow. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

My Workshop at Rippowam Labs: How to Fix Up Your Bike For Spring

Yesterday, six days into the season of spring, I taught a workshop at the Rippowam Labs makerspace called “DIYBIKING.COM Presents: Fix Up Your Bike For Spring.”

It snowed all day. And I thought Mother Nature and I had settled on a safe word. 

I had already committed to biking to the class pulling along the bike trailer I made with my work stand and other bike tools on board (a nearly identical set to what I had during Red Hook, New York’s Bike Rodeo last year). 

I also decided to ride my city bike - and ride it completely untuned from when I rode it last back in early January. I know some skeptics don’t think waiting three months to ride a bike a long period of time to go between tune ups, but many of them did not live through The Day After Tomorrow-like winter Connecticut lived through. 

So I rode the bike to class without tuning it first. I don’t recommend doing that - I just wanted to create a teachable moment that hopefully wouldn’t be too teachable. 

I arrived slowly but safely, got my gear inside, and soon enough was able to talk about a subject I enjoy. But as a service to my readers who didn’t attend here’s a short list of rules I follow when fixing up your bike for spring. 

Clean the Bike 

The first thing to do is clean off the bike. There will be road grime - and depending on what you transport in the bottle carrier, smoothie stains or coffee stains. 

 You don’t need to be all toothbrush/detail oriented, but be thorough. If you take a rag or disposable cloth and wipe down the dust or road dirt from a bike, not only does it look a lot better but it gets your face close enough to the frame so you can see the components better. That way if something is amiss you can fix it before you go riding. If you don’t check the bike out first (as I don’t sometimes) trouble can result. Dangerous trouble, like walk-your-bike-along-a-gravel-trail-for-a-third-of-a-mile-hunting-for-a-missing-bolt trouble. 

Be Subtle 

That’s me on the left adjusting a limit screw on a rear derailleur on a bike someone had brought to the class. You'll notice I'm wearing rubber gloves since I think it's important not to be afraid to get your hands dirty but pack rubber gloves anyway.

It was around this time I talked about how a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done on a bike that needs an adjustment or tune up after a long period is subtle. It’s like R2-D2 fixing the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive by turning a tiny part a little bit to the right. 

If a bike chain rattles through the gears on the lowest or the highest, you need to adjust a limit screw. As I showed with my major overhaul of the recumbent, a tiny turn with a screwdriver is all that’s needed. And do not underestimate the importance of doing that: if a chain jumps between the gears and the wheel it can be bad.  When it happened to me I could have ended up a road pizza but was lucky enough just to have to push the bike home - and replace the chain and wheel. 

Check for Cable Stretch

Brake and derailleur cables go through extraordinary abuse and have to deal with so much force they stretch. Cyclists often don’t notice this until one can’t stop or they have to squeeze the brakes all the way to to the saddle to make the bike stop. Just squeeze the handle and check to see how much distance the brake pads need to travel before the hit the rim. If there’s a lot of space (and assuming your brakes are similar to mine) loosen the bolt holding the cable,  pull maybe an eighth of an inch (remember subtlety) of cable through, and retighten. If you don't know how to do this, find someone who does. 

With Lubrication, Less is More

When I was a kid I remember spraying WD-40 on my BMX chain like I was fumigating a house for termites. 

There’s a reason we grew out of such techniques.

After cleaning a chain, it’s much better to apply lubricant (NOT WD-40) drop by drop on each of the rollers. It takes a bit of patience but it is worth it - and I demonstrated it in the class: I took two pieces of identical bike chain, made the one marked with green wire ties wet, and sprinkled both with the contents of my welding room dustpan. The gritty sand and other debris stuck to the green chain, which means that it would travel through the derailleur and cogs and wear out both quickly - to say nothing of wearing out the chain. Get a small bottle of lubricant at your local bike store and it’ll last all season or longer if you apply it right. 

Don’t Take Chances With Tires

In the maintenance class, I talked about changing tires but I talked even more about ways to keep tires from going flat to begin with. That means keeping them properly inflated at all times (I’m talking to you, co-founder of Bike Stamford) and checking the tire itself for wear. 

On a trip to California last month I failed to do that, and you can see the photo above as evidence: I pedaled from Redwood City to San Francisco and back (more on that and why I was there in another post) but carelessly I did it on tires on last summer's bike trip in Brazil. I may not have gotten a flat during that punishing day, but nicks showed up in the tires and I ignored them.  

Until on the tail end of last month’s San Franscisco/Redwood City trip I suddenly felt a thump-thump-thump-thump sound and noticed my back tire looked like it was digesting a small animal. Thankfully, a mile from Chain Reaction Bicycles, I was able to buy a new tire before the old one could explode through the tread. 

Know When You’re Out of Your Depth

                          Pacific Swim Bike Run, a bike shop and training center on 575 Pacific St. in Stamford 

This is a lesson I still need to teach myself sometimes. Few DIYers can fix absolutely everything and there is no shame when something is above your intellectual pay grade. Not only that, but if there is something really complex that needs to be done (i.e., truing a wheel, replacing a bottom bracket, etc.) it often involves very specialized tools. You have to true a bike wheel quite a few times to come out even on the cost of a good truing stand. So find a local bike shop and bring the bike in. 

So with temperatures in Stamford creeping above freezing, I wish you all the best getting your bike set to go and taking a long ride to cure yourself of this toxic cabin fever. And if you missed my bike maintenance class, pass this link along - and check out the Rippowam Labs class schedule. You'll definitely find something you like. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.