Yesterday was a bike group bike ride organized by Eugene Bicyclist. It was a great ride even though there was some rain. There were 16 people who showed up, plus 6 kids in tow. We had a great ride around the bike paths around the Willamette River. It was about a 10 mile ride from EWEB Plaza, to the Autzen Footbridge past the Delta Ponds, then on to Ninkasi Brewing for drinks, where we had a nice time talking. It was great to meet all these people and make new friends.
Thank you to all who came. It was a wonderful time; hopefully we can have another meet up.
Angel and I got ice cream from Viva! Vegetarian Grill today. The second greatest vegan ice cream, only to my own. 😉 Viva has the best soft serve, with great flavors to choose from, all organic, with specialty ingredients. They have new flavors every couple weeks. Angel got Mocha and I got Apple Spice. After that, we rode down to the river paths around Alton Baker Park to see the flooded areas. The flooding had receded, but the water is still high enough that some of it covers or reaches the edges of the path. Later saw a Penny-farthing.
Friday I ate pizza with Angel between classes at Pegasus Pizza. Afterwards, I went on a ride out to Fern Ridge Lake. It’s nice to get out on a good ride during the break in the winter weather. I had never ridden out to the lake itself; Angel and I had only ridden out to the end of Fern Ridge Bike Path on the first day we moved to Eugene. It was my First Post on my blog. I didn’t know where I was going to go I just figured if I went west from Fern Ridge Bike Path I would have to run into the lake. So ended up going straight out Royal Ave, right of the bike path, and ran into something I didn’t know existed (it’s not marked on Google Maps) but it was a part of the Fern Ridge Wildlife Area. Royal Ave runs right to the divide of the Royal Amazon Unit and Fisher Butte Unit. It was a great ride and when the weather gets nicer I will have to ride out again and spend more time hiking around the wildlife area.
Here are two panoramas from the ride. Click photo to view fully.
This is a large field of geese; all the black dots are geese feeding.
From a bird watching deck at the Fern Ridge Wildlife Area.
I took this nice little video, it’s so calm out there. Just the wind and birds.
-Sorry there was a mess up and the full 3:47 video posted. I might fix it later.
Cars and bikes sometimes don’t get along that well, but car companies and bikes get along really well together. From sponsorships of race teams, to recently a couple different companies have featured bikes in their ads. Today Volkswagen of America announced the beginning of its 2 year sponsorship of Peopleforbikes.org, which is a good step in the right direction for all.
More about the sponsorship with Volkswagen and People for Bikes. Read it Here
Maybe this will also bring some inspiration from Deutsch, the advertising group that brought us the Star Wars themed Volkswagen at *Supper Bowl ad. This year they will be featuring a new ad with the same theme, and have released a teaser for it.
Volkswagen 2012 “The Bark Side” Teaser for upcomming *Supper Bowl Commercial.
Volkswagen 2011 “The Force” Commercial from last years *Supper Bowl.
*Due to trademarking you can figure out what the *Supper Bowl is.
I like the idea of electric cars, and building them in the heartland of Illinois is great (my home state), but this Mitsubishi’s ad campaign gives Normal, IL an odd feel to me. They’re trying to sell it as small, rural, town America or “Anytown, USA” (a quote in the ad), to promote for their new “i” electric vehicle or MiVE. They show images of corn/soybean fields, small barbershops, quiet neighborhoods and old movie theater. That is not what I know or think of, when I think of Normal.
The MiVE has a MPGe/Range of 112mile, the longest right now for any full electric. This rear-wheel-drive electric vehicle will retail for $29,125 – $31,125.
Back to the ad: Yes, Illinois, outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area (CMA), has lots of corn/soybean fields, small shops, quiet neighborhoods and some old movie theaters. But Normal is way more than that. I grew up 30 miles away from there, and have spent lots of time in Normal.
Normal might have a population of 52,500(7th largest populations outside the CMA), but that doesn’t count the 20,000+ students attending the oldest public university in the state each year, Illinois State University (ISU). That movie theater in the video is located on the newly redesigned downtown area oddly renamed as “Uptown Normal” and is right next to the more lively ISU campus. Along with that there is Bloomington, IL, Normal’s sister city, usually referred to as Bloomington-Normal together. Bloomington has a population of 76,610(5th largest populations outside the CMA). It is hard to tell were one city starts and the other stops. There are other large companies located there other than Mitsubishi. State Farm and Country Financial, and ISU employ loads of people. Not to mention all the car dealerships, shopping, restaurants, and other manufacturing that are located there.
Other than the misleading about Normal being a small town, I actually really like this video, and efficient vehicles. I like when companies refer back to places where I grew up and know well, it works for me, even if some of the information is not all there.
Bikes are even used in the car industry. In the Mitsubishi Normal, IL photo gallery you can see these two Worksman Cycles in action on the factory floor.
PeopleForBikes.org has made a “Shit Cyclists Say” video, inspired by the popular “Shit Girls Say” videos and all the videos that followed from it. This video is more roadie specific, but should still be funny to most cyclists. I hope someone comes out with a video for, bike commuters, touring cyclist, cargo bike, etc. As long as they are cyclist related I’m sure they will be funny.
There is also a “Shit Mountain Bikers Say” by IHTtwo.
Last week (1-16-11), Angel and I decided to go hiking on Spencer Butte for the first time since we moved to Eugene. We can see the butte from our home, with it just being 4 miles away. I have ridden my bike around it, but we just haven’t ever gone hiking there. Eugene seems to have enough inside the town to keep us busy for quite some time. With the snow falling the day before, we really wanted to get in the hills to get good photos of it. I got great use out of my new Merrell shoes in their first real hike, and I used the GoPro with its head mount to get some nice photos and videos on the hike. The video of the hike will be posted later.
Panorama Photos
I also took some great panorama photos. Follow the links below to view them in their entirety.
• 360° spherical view on the path up the butte in the woods on the trail(Here).
• 360° view up at the summit(Here).
SOPA and PIPA Stop censorship on the internet. These acts would effect everyone from large webpages like Wikipedia, Google, and Twitter. As well as small bloggers like you and I.
There is a clip from the “Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!” video featured in a new commercial for Google Chrome. The commercial “Make It Happen” shows videos of “to-do’s” and other teaching videos from YouTube(owned by Google). In the very last clip (at 50sec) you see the kid who just learned to ride his bicycle say “Thumbs Up Everybody, Rock and Roll!” as he is giving the thumbs up, then 2 peace signs, high in the air.
This is a great video that is inspirational to all especially for young kids trying to learn to ride their bike. Showing the excitement of one kid after he first learned to ride his bike by himself.
Today(1-15-12) was the first day it snowed in Eugene, Oregon this season. It didn’t snow much, some heavy flurries, but nothing that sticks. Angel and I walked around a bit and took some nice photos and videos of the day. I wish I could have gotten up in the hills where it looked like it was frosted over, and might have stuck to the ground a little more.
I grew up in central Illinois. In August of 2007, I bought my first real “adult bike” after needing a bike to save money on gas. Since then I have had many bikes. In April of 2010, after moving out to Oregon, I got my beloved Surly Long Haul Trucker. I have put a lot of good miles on the bike. This blog is about my life in Eugene.
Bread Bike 