Angel and I got ice cream from Viva! Vegetarian Grill today. The second greatest vegan ice cream, only to my own. š 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 IĀ 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.
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.
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 otherĀ 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.
I shot some video with my helmet camera riding North Bound on South Willamette, between 24th and 29th. The city is working on plans for South Willamette that are hopefully going to include good facilities for bicycles, pedestrians, and motor vehicles. To read more about the city’s plans, here is more information.
Video was taken going North Bound on the roadway on January 11, 2012 around 3:40pm.
You can see/hear how bad the roads are right now, and that there is no place for cyclists to safely ride. I live right off of this street and find this road very uninviting in its current conditions to both pedestrians and cyclists. When walking on the sidewalks, there are frequent driveways going out into the street, and if you (or a driver) aren’t paying attention you could easily be hit by someone pulling in, or exiting any of these driveways. Angel and I feel like we are cut off behind this road with no side streets that can truly get us anywhere necessary. The road is too narrow to allow for 4 full lanes of cars and bicyclists to ride safely alongside. You can see in the video 2 cars squeeze by me, the second aggressively honking, then squeezing between me and another car quickly only to stop a couple of yards ahead at an intersection. I am an experienced cyclist, and used to conditions like this, but would not recommend for other cyclists to ride on this street in this condition. I myself don’t enjoy riding on this street and avoid it whenever possible. Hopefully the new plans will address some of these problems, making it safer for all to use.
This abnormally warm winter has brought us some great days for bike rides all over town. Here is a video from one of those days, riding along the river bike paths.
I got a pair of Novara Arosa Bike Gloves at the REI Year-End Garage Sale. The gloves MSRP at $29.50. I already have colder weather gloves, the Novara Stratos, but I wanted some suited for cool/dry weather wearing. They are built very similarly to the Stratos gloves. They have synthetic leather palms with nice grip, and a small amount of padding, with added grip on the finger tips of the thumb, index and middle fingers, to allow added grip on brake levers. These are cool weather gloves, so they won’t cut the wind, or repel water, like the Stratos but they are extremely breathable. There are large reflective accents across the whole back, and a nice amount of fleece on the outer part of the thumb for wiping your face. The cuff allows for a good fit, with no bulk or hassle with straps. They have a pull tab to help fit them on and elastic cuffs. They fit very nicely. These are size XL, the same size as the Stratos I own. I think these are great gloves and I am happy I got them. If you are looking for excellent cool and dry weather gloves, you won’t go wrong with these. Disclaimer: I bought these at the REI Year-End Garage Sale so I got aĀ great deal on them, and paid a sale price of $9.83. I would still be willing to pay full price for them. The reason for return on them was “not warm enough”. They might not have realized they are cool/dry weather glove, and they are fine for me, and do what they advertise.Ā If you need gloves warmer than this, think about the Stratos.
Ortlieb has recently added some flair to their beloved Back-Roller Classic Pannier, as mentioned in a previous review on the panniers. (HERE) The new Back-Roller Design-Editions come in 3 new styles: Wave, Dot, and Splash. Each design comes in 3 different colors,Ā MSRP $170 per pair. Angel chose the Splash in the Aubergine (purple) with pink splash graphic. The Design set panniers are the same as the Classic panniers, other then the cosmetic changes, graphic, color, and Ortlieb logo now in the plastic clips. I will say it isĀ interesting to see a crisp, clean, new set compared with my well warn 2 year old set.
This color of pannier looks amazing on Angel’s Sky Blue Linus Mixte 3speed. Angel has wanted to get a set of Ortliebs for a long time, but didn’t love any of the original classic colors. And after seeing these new designs/colors, she knew she would get one of these. Angel loves them now, and hopefully soon she will get a Ortlieb Carrying System to use these more easily off the bike. These Panniers are sure to treat Angel well for many years, just like mine have.
Here is a review I wrote on my Ortlieb Back-Roller Classic Panniers.
I grew up in central Illinois. In August of 2007, I bought my first real āadult bikeā 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 