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May
16
Are We There Yet?
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Green Efforts, Interbike, Photos | Comments Off
Now is it high enough now to get people to step away from the car?
Happy Bike to Work Week!
Jun
4
I have to say that I actually like the look of the new Dura-Ace group that’s all the rage this week. The design seems to be very polarizing, judging by the comments I’ve read, but isn’t that true of many great designs?
For pure style, though, you can’t beat Campy’s old Delta brakes that I have on my Bridgestone commuter.
Speaking of the Bridgestone, I switched to rolling in to work on it because there are so many bikes on the train now. My lightweight scandium racer wouldn’t stand up to much more snuggling with all the other bikes and bungy cords crowding the (insanely) limited rack space. Like the high gas prices, I guess this one of those good problems to have in the grand scheme of things, right?
And if you’re keeping score at home, the gas prices this week in San Juan Capistrano, California, are continuing their astronomical climb to unprecedented heights:
Apr
23
Guess the Gas Price…
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Interbike | 3 Comments
If you guessed “obscene”, you win! (I know, Carlton, it’s still a pittance compared to UK and Euro prices…) And we’re all riding our bikes to work and store so it should be irrelevant, right?
The station around the corner from our office in San Juan Capistrano, California, had these prices posted this week as I walked to lunch. We’re well on our way to $5/gallon and there still seems to be no major shift in driving habits. Minor adjustments and more hybrid car sales, yes. But no major impacts that I can see on true alternatives to car use at this point.
Speaking of shifts in driving habits, at Sea Otter I overheard someone commenting on how places with poor weather seem to have more utilitarian bike use than those places with more agreeable weather. Think Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston… Now think L.A., Miami, Phoenix. Which ones come to mind when you think “city with lots of bike commuters”?
Apr
4
This is a Good Thing, Right?
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Green Efforts | 1 Comment
Leaving work at the end of the day earlier this week, I snapped this photo while stopped at a light just around the corner from our offices here in San Juan Capistrano in Southern California. This particular station has always had obscenely high prices, but now premium gas is well beyond the $4 per gallon threshold. And this morning I noticed that they’ve adjusted the price up to $4.13 with super at over $4 now.
While I never buy from this station, the overall trend is now REALLY starting to play with the economics of bike and mass transit commuting options versus driving. SoCal is not exactly designed for easy mass transportation use given the infamous suburban sprawl of the region and car-centric mentality of the original urban planners (effectively the developers and politicians), but I think it will finally start to noticeably affect pocketbooks and wallets.
I’ve got to start up the bike commute again now that there’s enough daylight at the end of the day for the 14 mile bike leg of my multi-modal commute (which includes a train ride up the coast to Orange County). With my kids’ school schedules in the morning and wife’s work, I can only do it two days per week, but gas prices should now make it a financial win as well as a Wilford Brimley-esque “right thing to do”?
So the high gas prices are painful, but it’s a good thing for the bike industry, right?