Author Archives: josh

Brad Quartuccio: The Tough Task of Writing About Riding In The City

Posted on April 6, 2011 by josh| Leave a comment


Urban Velo co-founders Brad (left) and Jeff (right). Photo from flickr user Jeff Moser

The North American cycling world has been evolving over the last several years. As more and more people realize cycling isn’t just for sport, they are taking to bikes as their transportation for commuting, adventuring, exploring, and having fun in cities. As bicycling trends have changed, so to has cycling media with new magazines and a nearly infinite number of new blogs popping up to satisfy the interests of riders who would rather know about the best panniers and headlights than the most laterally stiff and vertically compliant race bike. Drawing on his own love of commuting and city riding, Brad Quartuccio co-founded Urban Velo magazine with Jeff Guerrero in 2007. I spoke with Brad about his cycling history, the birth of Urban Velo, the desperate media landscape, and more.

Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Bike Touring, Cycling Media, Interviews

Tagged , , , ,

File Under Bad-Ass Women In History

Posted on April 4, 2011 by josh| Leave a comment


Alfonsina Strada

Though today’s major European stage races like the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France are about as difficult as any form of bike racing, their early incarnations were brutal beasts in ways the modern races are not. Racers would set out for 300km stages over unpaved roads on single speed bikes with little if any organized support along the way. Winning was as much about surviving as anything and the winner would often finish hours ahead of the lanterne rouge. Simply completing these races was an impressive feat. To do so as the only woman in history to race in any of the three Grand Tours elevates Alfonsina Strada to “serious bad ass” status.

Adventure Journal posted a link to the Wikipedia entry on Strada last week. She was a dedicated racer in early 20th-century Italy known for winning nearly every race she entered against women and many of those against men. Her reputation once earned her an invitation to race the Russian Grand Prix. Thanks to some clerical slight-of-hand, Strada was able to enter to enter the 1924 Giro d’Italia.

Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Everything Else, History, Racing

Tagged , , , , ,

PJ Park: The Long Ride To Maya Pedal

Posted on March 30, 2011 by josh| 6 Comments


PJ and his Big Dummy in Antigua, Guatemala. Photo from PJ’s blog.

Last week, I wrote a short post about an awesome organization in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala called Maya Pedal. The group re-purposes old bikes into bicimaquinas—pedal-powered machines used for washing clothing, drawing well water, shelling nuts, milling grain, and more. After I posted it, a friend of mine told me that one of his co-workers at the Mt. Rainier Bike Co-Op in Mt. Rainier, MD is currently volunteering for Maya Pedal. That co-worker is MRBC founder PJ Park who is not only volunteering for Maya Pedal, but rode his bike all the way to San Andrés Itzapa to do so! PJ told me about his work with the organization so far, his long tour from the United States to Guatemala, and what Maya Pedal needs to continue to succeed.

Continue reading →

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Advocacy, Bike Touring, Interviews, Mechanics

Tagged , , , , , ,

Maya Pedal: Progress Through Pedal Power

Posted on March 24, 2011 by josh| Leave a comment


Pedal-driven water pump. Photo from Maya Pedal

Utility bikes have seen a surge in popularity in North America in the last few years. Seeing a long-tail cargo bike or a Dutch Bakfiets go rolling by is no longer cause for a head-snapping, slack-jawed stare—for bicyclists at least; the general population might feel otherwise.  I recently learned of an NGO, however, that puts bikes to work in such remarkable and utilitarian fashions that it puts even the finest smugness flotilla (see BikeSnobNYC for that reference) to shame.

Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Advocacy, Everything Else, Mechanics

Tagged , , , , ,

The Psychology of Cyclist-Hating Drivers

Posted on March 23, 2011 by josh| 6 Comments

It seems safe to assume that you, the reader of this post on a site dedicated entirely to bikes, are intimately familiar with the special vitriol American drivers reserve for bicyclists. The worst rhetoric presents itself in the comments underneath nearly every mainstream media story that so much as mentions bikes (it’s hard to get in a full rant as you speed by that bastard cyclist rudely using the road built for your car. “Get off the rooaaaa” is usually the best they can muster). Comments range from screeds about bikes not paying for the roads therefore not deserving to ride on them to disgusting quips about injured cyclists getting what they deserved for riding where they don’t belong.

The ignorance and faulty logic of bike-hating Internet commenters is frustrating to no end, but it’s somewhat benign in the grand scheme. When that same hatred manifests in the mind of someone behind the wheel of a two-ton vehicle, however, it is incredibly dangerous. Enraged drivers suddenly feel justified as they try to scare cyclists by “buzzing” them, honking, cutting them off, yelling, or throwing something.

What the drivers often don’t take into consideration (at least I don’t think they do) is the razor-thin line between a scared cyclist and a severely injured cyclist that’s been hit by a car or run off the road. Occasionally drivers take that hatred to extremes and try to intentionally injure or kill cyclists. On of the most sickening examples of this happened in late February when a 47-year old man intentionally plowed his car through a large group of cyclists riding in critical mass in Porte Alegre, Brazil.

Continue reading →

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Advocacy, Everything Else

Tagged , , , ,