Results tagged “cycling”

hey finished so close together it hardly seems fair to separate them with something as trivial as names. But yes, officially, Washington's Tyler Farrar finished just a few feet behind Mark Cavendish in Stage 11 of the 2009 Tour de France.

In addition MvB's weekend traffic warning, we must also warn you about Critical Masshole's evening plans. They, being the enormous dick-splashes that they are, will start this evening's ride at 5:30 p.m. at Westlake Center. Route undetermined.

The other morning we were biking west down Aloha between 15th and 14th, and a car caught up to us and swung out to pass. But then the hill gets steep and we picked up speed (not even pedaling), so for 14th to 13th we were neck and neck, until a car appeared heading east and the car on our elbow dropped back--only to zip past us in the backstretch from 13th to 12th, where both of us stopped at a stop sign. To recap: steep, twisty, 3-block stretch of road with a stop sign at the end. The back window of the car read SEE BICYCLES. Now, there may or may not be irony in a car with a biking sticker on it, but Google tells us that drivers with bumper stickers are more likely to be territorial and aggressive. Maybe some truth to that?

No less an authority on exercise than the weight-dropping New York Times is covering the Dutch Bike Company's expansion: "So, with 170 miles of new bike lanes in New York, it makes sense that the Dutch Bike Co. in Seattle should be opening a branch in the city this summer, its third in the United States." Actually, the Dutch bike story is in their fashion section, because apparently the real trick is to look manly while cycling. Money quote: "The only person I know who has a Dutch bike is a girl."

It's been a while since our last guest editorial. Not that you were clamoring for more, but we're just saying. We expected a lot more crank email from people about zoo animal captivity and Pez. This week we have Charles Redell, former Seattlester and Green Man-about-town, with a safety concern near and dear to the hearts of hipsters everywhere.

No really. It's true. According to the League of American Bikes (via the Cascade Bicycle Alliance in our case), Washington is the most bicycle friendly state in the union. According to the LAB, "Washington’s model bike laws, signed and mapped statewide bike route network, dedicated funding from the state for bicycle related programs and projects, and an active statewide bicycle advisory committee" are reasons that the state earned top honors above Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon (numbers two, three and four respectively) and all the others.

In the wake of a brutal tussle between car and bicycle last weekend, it's good that New Belgium Brewing's Tour de Fat, the "traveling celebration of all things bicycle," arrives in town on Saturday, opposite the carbon-spewing, combustion engine worship-fest that is Seafair, what with the supersonic jets and souped-up motorboats.

Not to belabor this story, but we think the issue of the rights of bicycle riders to the road is an important one. We ride on the city streets every day and, though some commenters on our post about changes we'd like to see made to Critical Mass in Seattle think that every driver goes out of his or her way to be respectful to us, we know it's not true. Seattle still has a lot to do for bike riders. Our streets are not very safe, nor welcoming to us.

For the record, this Seattlest is a daily bike commuter who knows and appreciates the rights and responsibilities of biking in an urban environment. We also have a friend who was beaten by cops a couple years ago during a Critical Mass demonstration. While this post isn’t specifically about Friday’s incident at Seattle's Critical Mass on Capitol Hill, the event (and one just as scary in New York City) moved us to share these thoughts.

With the eyes of the cycling world focused on the mountains of southern France, why would one of the best-known names in the sport be in Seattle today? Well, if you've been kicked out of cycling's top event because of your shady past and you describe your own team as "having come to symbolize cycling's doping scandal," the only obvious solution is to deny everything and go on a book tour.

Summertime lunch (pasta, Frascati) with our Paris Pal, and Seattlest carries on about the failures of Velib as if it were the end of Western Civilization. (Velib is the city's brand new, one-way, hourly bike rental program; see "Paris When it Fizzles" entry on our other blog, Cornichon.) When we pass a Velib "station" near the Arc de Triomphe, we triumphantly demonstrate that American credit cards won't work. Then Paris Pal swipes his Amex...the gates of Paradise swing open and a 3-speed bike is released from its stanchion. Blazer and shoulder bag into the bike's basket, and we're off in the mid-afternoon sun, no helmet (this would never fly in Seattle), down the bone-jarring cobblestones of the Champs Elysées, right at Le Fouquet's, past the George V and the American Cathedral down to the Place de l'Alma and across to the Left Bank, passing directly above the Princess Di crash site.

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico.

You be the judge. This Saturday, two wheel-obsessed events face off at Magnuson Park. In one corner we have the Northwest Film Forum's Bike-In, an outdoor event with music, bike-related demonstrations, beer garden, raffle, and screenings of bike-themed films on a large outdoor screen. The event is co-sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club.

It was nice playing along as a wannabe soccer fan for a while. Yes, yes, we know you're not done yet. But, you see, the Tour starts this weekend. And now that the media machine known as Lance Armstrong has left the building, Seattlest is actually (gasp) excited to watch this time around. The past few years of the Tour have been like sex between people who've been married forever--still feels pretty OK, but you know exactly how it all is going to happen. We'd give you the blow-by-blow of who is lined up to win the yellow, but everyone is already doing that, and the best part is that it is a long and varied list of contenders this year. (Apparently there's that whole doping controversy-palooza as well, in case you've been living under a rock.)

Masters of atmospheric drone/psych/whatchamacallit rock Kinski and Oneida put on a powerful show at Neumo's last Saturday, sharing the stage for a final jam session following their individual sets. There's enough stylistic overlap between the two bands that its surprising when people you've never heard of who write about music more often compare Oneida to the more abstract noise efforts of Sonic Youth than with the more obviously similar Kinski. The predominantly instrumental and intense, hypnotic rock sound is perhaps better described by the geniuses at Pitchfork in this less than glowing review of the 2004 release Secret Wars "....Songs are built atop the constant cycling of hyper-minimal progressions, fairly bludgeoning the listener into a state of docility with as minimal an approach as possible." Word.

That giant flaming ball of hot gases is back, and aside from telling ourselves to stop staring at it, Seattlest's mind is on the fence. (It's a small fence.) We haven't had enough ski season yet, but a nice dry bike ride sure would be dreamy. If the extra vitamin D from the past few days has skewed your thoughts to similar memes, or you just want to pick up a bunch of free swag and some dirt-cheap lycra, by all means please head over to Magnuson Park for the 2006 Bike Expo from Feb 18-19.

Seattlest understands--we still have that combo elliptical-stepper/smoothie machine lurking under our bed.

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