cycling

It's been nearly a month since the last "Slow dismemberment" update, and I wasn't expecting to find anything left of the sad bicycle remains locked to a street sign in downtown Riverside. Nevertheless, I was hopeful to find at least something left as I came around the corner from the Transit Center terminal.

Eureka! It's still there. Well, still mostly there. Here's the last picture from May 20th:

What was left of the chain is now gone. The dismemberment continues. More updates as they happen.

Click for wallpaper size.

Wikipedia: Bar-Tailed Godwit

NY Times: "Migrating Thousands of Miles With Nary a Stop"

[...] scientists have tracked a number of other migrating birds, and they are beginning now to publish their results. Those results make clear that the bar-tailed godwit is not alone. Other species of birds can fly several thousand miles nonstop on their migrations, and scientists anticipate that as they gather more data in the years to come, more birds will join these elite ranks.[...]

As more birds prove to be ultramarathoners, biologists are turning their attention to how they manage such spectacular feats of endurance. Consider what might be the ultimate test of human endurance in sports, the Tour de France: Every day, bicyclists pedal up and down mountains for hours. In the process, they raise their metabolism to about five times their resting rate.

The bar-tailed godwit, by contrast, elevates its metabolic rate between 8 and 10 times. And instead of ending each day with a big dinner and a good night’s rest, the birds fly through the night, slowly starving themselves as they travel 40 miles an hour.

“I’m in awe of the fact that birds like godwits can fly like this,” said Theunis Piersma, a biologist at the University of Groningen.

Bicycles galore, buses, light rail, a few cars and trucks. It might be heaven! :)

Morning rush hour in the 4th largest city in the Netherlands. Streets look like this when 33% of ALL trips are made by bicycle!

This is an ordinary Wednesday morning in April 2010 at around 8.30 am. Original time was 8 minutes that were compressed into 2 minutes, so everything is 4 times faster than in reality. The sound is original.

This is one of the busiest junctions in Utrecht a city with a population of 300,000. No less than 18,000 bicycles and 2,500 buses pass here every day. And yet Google Street View missed it. Because private motorized traffic is restricted here.

Via Urbanvelo.org

Came across what looks to be the sad remains of a bike theft in downtown Riverside a couple of weeks ago:

Eight days later, the front fork was gone:

We'll have to see how long it lasts.

From About The No No Project.

The premise of the project is quite simple:

Walking around town, you’ll see sign after sign forbidding you from performing healthy outdoor activities. Skateboarding. Cycling. Walking for the love of Mike. It goes to show what’s really important in this society: keeping things comfy for sedentary property and car owners who would deny you your god-given right to breathe outdoors!

So I take pictures of all the signs telling me not to exercise.

In case it isn’t clear, this is very much tongue-in-cheek. I’m just amazed how much effort is put into making verboten what are otherwise wholesome diversions.

In some indirect way, I’m also trying to connect the dots on what are often disparate cultures — cyclists and skaters, for example — to show we are united against The Man Trying to Keep Us Down more than we are apart.

See Submissions if you’d like to join in the fun. You can send me email at robert at the domain name nonoproject.com. Thanks for checking out The No No Project.

Also available on Twitter, @nonoproject.

Via Cyclelicious