As posted on RideThisBike.com

“Although a Strida folding bike may not seem like an ideal bicycle for long distance touring, Regis loves his. He has written that the belt drive and simple design makes the bike very reliable.”

You can take a look at  Regis’ blog. There are some stunning images there.

There is also a posting at VivaLaBike.com where they write:

“The Strida that he rides is a folding, single gear, belt drive bike. It’s designer Mark Sanders, designed the bike for urban commuters with the intention that the bike would be used for short commutes. However, we’ve found, and Regis has proven, that the Strida is a more than capable bike for long commutes and can withstand the rigors of the road.”

Currently, University is a difficult commute; vehicles entering, exiting and turning from many angles. And, perhaps because of this excess capacity, they seem to travel faster than other traffic downtown. We know of a couple of GO Train commuters who take their Strida Folding Bikes from Union Station and head up University to work. They describe University Ave. as a “magnificent street, but scary for bikes.”

Here are most of the details from a Toronto Star article.

Number 6 is of course, the perennial best tip if you can’t swing number 2. If you decide to take up Bicycle Commuting, here’s a great resource for that.

Please post your own tips below.

We remind all mayoral candidates that it is time to implement solutions to the city’s gridlock and air quality crises, not simply use hack political judgement, satiating automobile driving voters temporarily to “uptick” your poll results.

A coherent, connected plan serves both bicycling and driver communities. From the  post:

These politicians need to get with the times. The types of folk who bike are not some fringe group of white males who bike because they want a rush. A wide range of people bike, particularly in downtown where the percentage of bike commuters is above 13% in some parts. Before you whip up the hate-on, Rossi, take a look at these people and try to explain to them why they don’t exist and why you think they should just buy a car.

Since lack of bike lanes and safety concerns appear frequently as barriers to bicycle use, one wonders how different the results of the survey would be had the city met its bike lane targets as articulated in 2001.

Here’s some info on Montreal’s Bixis from NY’s Green Inc., and some more from I Bike T.O.

Lot’s of fascinating proposals are here where you can download pdfs of all the entries from Copenhagen’s bike share competition.

Until women feel it is safe and easy to jump on a bike and head through town, the North American ratio of men: women cyclists (now 2:1), isn’t going to inch towards Europe’s ratio (1:1) anytime soon. As the lack of women riders generally indicates relative safety, this is a big part of the reason why North American statistics for trips by bicycle are also so poor compared to those of Europe. Less than 2% of trips are by bicycle in North America, while many European cities are well into double digits.

Have a look at this article from Scientific American.

Thanks to a feed via Momentum Magazine for sourcing this article.