KT was in Copenhagen!

And I rode the SNAKE!

The Snake - KT was in Copenhagen! from Kristin Tieche on Vimeo.

Complete with musicians cycling, waterways, cobblestones and a serenade from yours truly!

The Rise of Protected Bike Lanes (video)

While the rest of San Francisco is out riding around in this beautiful sunny weather, I'm sick at home with the flu. So what do I do? I'm spending time watching other people bike around on the interwebz! I'm particularly inspired by this video from People for Bikes Green Lane Project about the rise of protected bike lanes in North America, and I think you will be too.

The Rise of Protected Bike Lanes in the U.S. from Green Lane Project on Vimeo.

Yippee!

As one new protected bike lane goes up on Polk Street in my own city of San Francisco, I am grateful for the fact that this trend is happening in other cities across the U.S. like Memphis and Chicago.

There's light at the end of the sharrow!

prioritize the bicycle and they will ride

The Big Picture - 01 - Top 10 Bicycle-Friendly Design Elements in Copenhagen from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

"If you build it, they will come."

Watch Copenhagenize's point by point guide to how to design a modern bicycle city.

tight squeeze?

If you commute up and down busy Market Street every day like I do, you get used to scenarios such as this one:



Many cyclists eeking out their place between other cyclists, busses, streetcars, train tracks, pedestrians, autos and taxis, with a fading sharrow leading our way. Dangerous and intimidating to say the least.

But wait - has our call for help (and justice) been answered? This just in: Bikes Belong has selected San Francisco (among 6 U.S. cities) to receive a protected bike lane. Let us all rejoice (and hold our breath while biking on one of SF's worst streets for cyclists) until our prototype for future bike lanes arrives and some sense is knocked into our administrators' brains when they see how happy and harmonious all commuters are when they each have their own designated space.

And by the way, lady, cute mini!

The Sidewalk Dilemma

Sidewalks are for walking.


So take your bike for a walk.


In San Francisco, it's actually against the law to ride a bike on the sidewalk. However, there are some city streets with neither bike lanes nor sharrows where it's downright scary for a cyclist to ride alongside cars (I live at the corner of such a street).

Providing no bike lane on highly car-trafficked streets therefore gives the cyclist no options - one must stop, dismount and walk - defeating the very purpose of being on a bike!

In these situations, what's a city cyclist to do? Abide the law or defy it?

would carefree bikers = carfree bike lanes?

Can a cyclist, chic or un-chic, really be footloose and fancy-free biking on our city streets?


I would love to believe that San Francisco has a bicycle culture as evolved as Copenhagen's or Amsterdam's, but alas, we do not. Our bicycle infrastructure, even with the incredible giant steps we've made this past year, still forces us to battle cars, parked in our lane like this:

and thereby forcing us to move to the left and into car traffic, which many would-be cyclists may not feel comfortable or empowered enough to do.

Alternatively, we often confront the ominous car door, as illustrated by this clever animated gif from SF Streetsblog.

After I retweeted the above Streetsblog article, we had a short conversation with some friends overseas, notably my pal Marc from Amsterdamize, who says the solution is simple:

@amsterdamized
solution is decades old, really: road<>parking<>buffer<>track<>sidewalk.

Why, then, do we continue to create the same kind of infrastructure over and over, and not improve upon the concept? Isn't there one neighborhood in San Francisco, where drivers, residents and business owners would be cool with a brand spankin' new kind of bike lane - the kind that safely welcomes cyclists of all ages, genders and dispositions like they do in New York, Paris, Copenhagen and Amsterdam?

connecting the city

Remember the days when your parents would let you ride to school alone on your bike worry-free, when the question of safety was not even an issue? So does Stephanie, I believe. Watch this great video from the SFBC's project, Connecting the City and listen to how she imagines better biking in SF.



What's it like to ride in an urban environment for you and, if you have one, your family? What factors would get you out there more often?

What are you willing to do (volunteer? donate? write your supervisor?) to make this vision of connectivity a reality?

Let's Take a Trip Down Townsend

Original post from Wheelright

I am really glad there's a new bike lane on Townsend, it's good for so many things.

Like unloading your car

It's a great place to take a break from driving your taxi to chat with a colleague

I mean it's really great for unloading your car

oh hai, don't worry if the lot is full you can park your Prius in the bike lane

FedEx loves this bike lane

where else to line up for a right hand turn or back into a parking space?

UPS also love this lane and it's a terrific spot to double park a Mercedes

doubles as a loading dock

buses in, buses out

no need to pull to the right to drop off your fare, that's what the bike lane is for

it's a good place for a stroll

good for pulling out

good for pulling in

and it's for bikes too! this scenario is much better than before the bike lane, I assure you.

The Return of the Ring

Now that the Giants have brought San Francisco The Ring, KT returns to the bike lane in technicolor, though if I crash, it'll be Orange and Black pouring out of my veins.

I am eternally grateful to los Gigantes for the BEST SEASON EVER.
Without further adieu, Ding Ding!

Enthusiasm Is Beautiful!

I take a lot of pictures of people on bicycles. Lots of them. I get all kinds of reactions. There has yet to be a time anyone has really protested, but there is definitely a technique to it. The big trick is to keep people talking and never put the camera down. It also helps, if while I am shooting someone, they actually know what it is I am shooting for. When I asked these ladies if they had heard of a blog called Vélo Vogue they went from hesitant to enthusiastic instantly!

I find if I tell people right off the bat they start to pose. If I leave them dangling for just a moment, I get this kind of fantastic picture. What a couple of cuties! Can't get that driving a Prius.

So if you see me out there with my big, fat camera pointed at you, remember that I am taking a picture of you because you look like a fabulous SF bicyclist (unless you are dancing naked with an Elmo doll, in which case I am shooting pictures of you because there is no choice)!

The Jolly Green Bike Lane!

Happy Bike to Work Day! Now is your chance to try out Market Street's new GREEN bike lanes!


Music: Many Moons by Janelle Monáe

And DON'T MISS the Bike Away From Work Party & Fashion Show tonight at the Rickshaw Stop!

Yours truly will be modeling some of Gwen's rad hand-picked outfits!

bling a ding ding

My bicycle proposed to me... and I said, "Yes!"

It's the happiest day of my life!

Salvador Saudade

Like me, David Byrne has visited Salvador de Bahia in Northeastern Brazil. He has [Bravo!] ridden a bike around that town. Although he didn't devote a whole chapter about his Salvador adventures in Bicycle Diaries, to me, the one about Istanbul most references what Salvador is all about. The opening lines for Istanbul could have been written about Salvador:

"Ride a bike in Istanbul? Are you nuts? Yes... and no. The traffic here is pretty chaotic and there are a number of hills... As in many other places I'm almost the only one on a bike. Again, I suspect status might be a big reason for this - bike riding, in many countries, implies poverty."

This city seemed to lack the bike lanes of Rio, and the very active bike communities of São Paulo and Curitiba. Traffic was in gridlock much of the time, and like most cities in Brazil, at night motorists do not stop at stoplights for fear of carjacking.

The brave souls I did see riding their bikes were always men who rode not alongside and with the car traffic, but often head on into the traffic, and not on the sides of the roads, but intermingled across and through the lanes. No blinky lights. No reflective clothing. No helmets. The men who were out there cycling - day or night - seemed to have nothing to lose.

In Salvador, I witnessed the aftermath of a horrible car accident with a cyclist. I also witnessed a hit-and-run with a little boy's dog.

To be quite honest, Salvador is fast developing in a bad way, high-rises spreading like fungus, and bumper-to-bumper traffic clogging most arteries. The streets at night replete with criminals and prostitutes. I really didn't want to die in this city.


And yet. I. Must. Bike. So we took to the Ciclovia.


Carlos is no longer my BF, but I do have him to thank for our loaner bikes during our stay in Salvador. [Obrigada.]

The day we biked to the beach is still a wonderful memory - maravilhosa.

I give the city of Salvador muito credit for building a separated bike lane right along the beach. (But why am I the only one using it?)


Beach + Bikes = KT is a happy girl!



We found an oasis in this sugar cane juice stand. (A common and welcome sight along the sun-drenched Ciclovia.)


Bike @ Beach.


This cute dog guarded our bikes while we took in the sea and sunshine.


Back to the Ciclovia. You'd like to see a few more shots, yes? Oi ciclistas!


Exclusively for cyclists. Way better than battling those automobiles!


And this one: Your leisure with safety. (OK, so biking isn't just a leisure activity folks! Your mode of transport and your life with safety!)


Tchau Ciclovia. Tchau Salvador. Tenho saudades de você.

But I'm happy to be home.

ghost bike - long live marcia

I was told that in São Paolo, 85 cyclists are killed in hit and run accidents with cars each year.


And that's only what's reported. The actual numbers of deaths and injuries to cyclists caused by motorists are far greater. There is little to no accountability for these deaths.


As in most cities in Brazil, in SP, cars don't stop for red lights for fear of being carjacked. So obviously a person riding a bike is considered crazy, risking his or her life out there on the road. A bike (and logically the person on the bike) is in the way of car traffic. If there's no space for bikes, then there's no space for bike lanes. Where would a bike fit into this picture above?


Despite the opposition, Paulista cyclists bravely and tenaciously paint their own bike lanes onto roads in their city. This "bike lane" was stenciled onto Avenida Paulista right in front of Marcia's monument.


A bike lane serving as a reminder to respect the living. A ghost bike serving as a reminder to respect the dead.

When in Rio, Ride in Red (in the Rain)

Summer in Rio de Janeiro, obviously means beach days, but who knew it also meant rain. Wet weather frequented many of my vacation days, though as is typical of tropical showers, they never lasted more than an hour or so. So flocks of bronzed people are on and off the beach as if it had a revolving door.


We decided not to make any excuses for the weather and take some rent-a-bikes out for a spin. In our hood, we found Mr. Bike For Rent, who lives at Rua Miguel Lemos, #10, just a couple blocks from our "hotel" (read Love Motel with hourly rates, thanks for [NOT] telling us, Lonely Planet) in Copacabana, who fixed us up with some shiny mountain bikes for R$30 per person for 4 hours.


Holly and I had quite coincidentally selected red dresses for the ride, so to make the greatest impression from the bike lane, we insisted that Linda and Tamika coordinate accordingly.




Rio is one of the few cities in Brazil with bike lanes, not just along the tourist beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, but all along Guanabara Bay to the Botafogo and Flamengo districts. I already told you about crossing the tunnel to get from Copacabana to Botafogo.



The bike lane in Rio did not disappoint. Not only were the views of the Cidade Maravilhosa just that - marvelous, but the scenery on the bike lane itself was quite amusing as well.




I call this Rio de Janeiro Cycle Cheek.


We met Fabio somewhere in Botafogo as we all pulled to a halt at the bike stoplight.


Because he was dressed appropriately, we let him join our group.


Fabio lives in the hillside neighborhood of Santa Teresa and bikes to and from work in Ipanema. His boss even installed a shower for bike commuters! He also leads large groups of cyclists on bike tours on Sundays.


Then came the flood.


We stopped for a beer at a barraca when it started pouring, waiting for the rain to cease.


After about five beers and no signs of dry weather, we were too drunk to care about getting wet, but didn't want to be drunk and not so in charge of our bicycles in the dark in the City of God.


By the end of the ride, all the ladies in red had to wring out their dresses. A great first bici-aventura in Brazil, with many more to come!