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Your First Hundred Miles

Taking time off from aviation to do a cycling diary. Of course two bicycle mechanics invented the airplane so it all works.In cycling a ride of a hundred miles is referred to as a "Century".It's the...

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Bicycles to the Rescue! Maybe ...

The bicycle is a grand old piece of technology and is reputedly an extremely efficient method of transportation. It can provide pleasure or be used in a purely utilitarian fashion. As a one time bike...

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Asheville Aftermath...A Velocipede Vanguard Meet-up?

The upcoming Daily Kos Meet-Up in Asheville takes place within a few miles of some of the finest mountain biking trails in the country. National Forests, State Forests, and some private land, and lots...

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Interbike Bicycle Trade Show

I went to the big international trade show Interbike on behalf of the Marin Museum of Bicycling and the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. They needed someone to drive a truck with the exhibit to Las Vegas...

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A "People's Bike" for the "People's Pope"

Today the announcement was made public.  Pope Francis has a custom commemorative bike from Breezer Bikes, and in honor of the presentation another 100 bicycles have been given to the city of...

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U.S. Bike Route 21 will be one of the first of it's kind in America

USBR21 There might be a U.S. Bike Route coming to your town or city or suburb in the future. From the Georgia Department of Transportation:In the Peach State, U.S. Bicycle Route 21 (USBR 21) is...

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Alberta by bike

I am enjoying a rare treat in my line of work, an 80+ hour layover. Normally I’m lucky to get 16 hours somewhere: which is enough time to sleep, eat, workout and go back to work.This month’s schedule...

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Photo Diary: Houston Bicycle Museum

OK, this is a cool little place. With several hundred bicycles on display, the museum depicts the history of the bike, from its beginnings in the 19th century to today’s carbon-frame racing cycles.Some...

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40 Years of Mountain Biking

On October 21, 1976 I met a few friends on a dirt road at the top of a long, steep hill.  We had modified old Schwinns, and the plan was to hold the championship of the universe in Fat Tire Downhill...

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Bike to work this Friday!

I teach at a Catholic high school and one of our rites of passage for graduating seniors is a Baccalaureate Mass.  As part of the offertory, the graduating class presents symbols reminiscent of their...

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When you can't bring your bike with you

Let’s talk about riding bikes. Why? Because the world is going crazy and riding helps me keep my sanity. It’s good for my health too. Plus bikes are fun.Why ride a bike when you’re on a trip? For one,...

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The Fall

I didn’t see it coming. Nobody ever sees it coming.It was supposed to be an easy trip. Drive to Indy, fly to Denver, sit for the weekend, fly back to Indy, drive home.Since I was taking the car to...

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Commuting by Bike

I started road cycling almost six years ago. I was a teleworker with flexible hours at the time, so it was easy to sneak out during the middle of the work day for an hour-long ride a few times a...

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Working in Tandem

There is no “I” in “Tandem”— Mrs. KongMy wife and I have been riding bikes together since we first started dating. We had to sell her road bike a few years ago when she started having problems with her...

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The Build

For some strange reason I got the idea in my head that it would be fun to build a bike. Now, I have plenty of bikes already so I can’t say I really needed another one. I was looking at pictures of the...

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Bicycling: Barns, Burgers, & Brews

I think this is my fifth year riding the McClinchy Mile.  This is one of those organized bicycle rides.  The ride is put on by BIKES Club of Snohomish County (Washington).  It’s their annual...

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UK Mountain Bike Lecture Tour 2017

UK 2017After years of online communication with UK bike blogs, and after hosting several visitations by UK mountain bikers I met on those blogs, I wanted to go there and ride on their turf.  The excuse...

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Any Bay Area Bicycle Junkies Looking for a New Hobby?

The bane of my existence is that I still have every document I ever had. Because of the places life has taken me, that includes the most comprehensive library on mountain biking before 1990.I have...

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Unknown Rider

What drove me to ride my bike to Cleveland? I don’t know. Midlife crisis maybe? If so, I guess it beats buying a Corvette and chasing Hooters waitresses (Just kidding Honey!)The idea came to me after I...

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Update 8/8/18 #bikingwhileblack. We need all your support in helping Naj K....

It just never ends. This came across my facebook feed this morning.Courtesy of Jennifer Rougeaux at East Bay Bike Party.We need all your support in helping Naj K. Smith get justice! On Friday Aug. 3...

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Crested Butte to Aspen 40 years On

In 1978 I joined my Marin County friends Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Mike Castelli and Wende Cragg on an expedition to Colorado for the ride from Crested Butte to Aspen.  We thought we would find riders...

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Bike Sonoma - or how I learned to love riding up mountains.

So Mrs. Kong and I got to fulfill one of our longtime dreams of doing a bicycle tour of the California wine country. We’ve always loved that area. Probably the closest you can get to Provence or...

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Woman cyclist forced to stop at side of road after she catches up with the men

Switzerland’s former national road champion cyclist Nicole Hanselmann took an early breakaway lead during the annual Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Her big lead was too big it seems, as she was delayed once...

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Norway decides NOT to drill for oil in the Arctic off of the beautiful...

Norway is walking away from billions of barrels of oil and gasNorway is walking away from billions of barrels of oil and natural gas.To the dismay of the nation’s powerful oil industry and its worker...

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Saving my Schwinn... and other stuff

My garage in Oakland was full. Surrounding my car, every shelf, corner, wall and all available floor space were optimally employed. I had furniture, paintings, bedding, rugs, books, a giant roasting...

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Retro Rocket

When the never ending hell of politics starts getting to me I go ride my bike. So now seems like a good time for a cycling diary.For my winter project I decided to build a “fixie”. I’m not sure why. At...

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For women, if it isn't one thing, its another.

I am a bicycle commuter so it was with some interest I read the results of a recent study out of the University of Minnesota.  You can read a summary of the results of the study here. (Its short and...

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Ebikes ~ affordable and fun commuting

I don't drive. I could never justify the expense of a car, despite needing one, at times (I was a drummer in a past life!).I have always lived near public transport, but it is a time consuming and...

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Cycling Paris (and Dublin)

Every once in a while I win the scheduling lottery and get a sweet trip that I couldn’t otherwise hold, even at my fairly high seniority.This one is pretty sweet indeed. Deadhead to Paris, fly back and...

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It was 40 years ago today...

It was just 40 years ago, late summer of 1979. For a couple of months Gary Fisher had been riding a custom balloon tire bike he had built on a frame made by Tom Ritchey. I had a bike built by Joe...

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Biking the Apocalypse

Someone recently asked me about doing a flying diary but I haven’t been flying lately. I’m currently out on a medical, nothing serious, but I don’t know when it will be sorted out.That means I’m pretty...

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Electrify Your Ride

We talk a lot about electric cars here but I haven’t seen much about electric bikes.For as long as there have been bicycles and motors, people have been trying to attach motors to bicycles. As far back...

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Earth Matters: Study—2-degree temp rise baked into climate change; 3,700-mile...

Earth Matters is a Daily Kos compendium of wonderful, disturbing, and hideous news briefs about the environment.When it’s complete, a 3,700-mile bike path will stretch across 12 states:Nearly 2,000...

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Museums 201: Bicycles (photo diary)

By the 1890s, the bicycle was creating a social revolution in the United States. Nearly two million bicycles were being manufactured each year and were being sold throughout the country. People who...

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Portland by Bike

One benefit of seniority is that I usually get my pick of monthly schedules. Which is how I ended up with 36-hour layovers in Portland. Even better, the trip started and ended in Indianapolis, so I...

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Biden gifts a custom made-in-the-USA bicycle to Boris Johnson at the G7

I don’t know whether it is customary for U.S. Presidents and heads of other states to exchange gifts at the G7 or other international summits, but at the 2021 G7, President Joe Biden decided to give a...

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The Bicycle Museum of America

What to do on a rainy day in Central Ohio? We took a drive out to New Bremen to see the Bicycle Museum of America. New Bremen is about 90 minutes northwest of Columbus or an hour north of Dayton.The...

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Travelogue: Chilly Hilly

I love organized bicycle rides, starting with my first one in 1983, Rosarito to Ensenada, 50 miles and one brutal hill ending in a big party at Hussong’s.  I have a dubious love affair with the Chilly...

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Six Felony Charges for Texas Teen Who Injured Cyclists While Rolling Coal

Hadn’t seen anything about this showing up on the main page. Remember that juvenile (both literally and figuratively) dirtbag-in-training Texas 16-year-old teen who hit multiple cyclists with his truck...

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Ohio Village: Bicycle shop (photo diary)

The Ohio Village, adjacent to the Ohio History Center in Columbus, represents an 1890s village. One of the buildings is the Barrington Bicycles.

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Mind the GAP

The Great Allegheny Passage is probably one of the prettiest bike paths in the country. It runs approximately 150 miles from Pittsburg to Cumberland Maryland through some really beautiful scenery.This...

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Carillon Historical Park: The Dayton Cyclery (photo diary)

One of the buildings in the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio is the Dayton Cyclery. In 1892, the Davis Sewing Machine Company (which would later become the Dayton-based Huffy Corporation) began...

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Oh Canada (In which I screw up badly)

We hadn’t been up to Canada since Covid so we thought we’d take a trip up to Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario for some biking, kayaking and wine tasting.I can remember back when you didn’t even need a...

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Museums 101: Wright Cycle Company (photo diary)

Orville and Wilbur Wright are generally credited for developing the first practical airplane. However, before their first powered flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903, the Wright brothers had a...

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Wright Museum: The Wright Cycle Company (photo diary)

Wilbur and Orville Wright initially went into the printing business: Wright & Wright Job Printers. However, the passion for cycling soon led them to open the Wright Cycle Exchange in 1892, a time...

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A bike named Blue - Part 1

(Note. This is a very long post with a lot of pictures. You were warned.)This is my bike.Well, it’s one of my bikes. You see, after I built this one I kind of got hooked on building bikes. Fortunately...

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A Bike Named Blue - Part 2

Continued from previous.Day 2 of my ride across Ohio will be from Millersburg to my home in northeast Columbus. I like to get an early start on these long rides because one never knows what can crop up...

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A Bike Named Blue - Part 3

Continued from previousDay 3 of my bike trip across Ohio. Columbus to Cedarville.This should be an easy day, or so I thought. As Woody Allen once said “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your...

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A Bike Named Blue - Part 4

Continued from previousDay 4 of my bike trip across Ohio. Cedarville to Cincinnati.It’s the last day and it looks like a good one. No rain in the forecast and my ill-fated rear tire seems to have held...

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Bright, Sunny, Hot Portland

Now for something completely different – Portland has many races/fun rides for bikers every year, all year long – but the big ones are both this up coming weekend – so if you want to drive downtown...

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