One of the main YouTube creators that I regularly watch is the BikeFarmer. Mostly he fixes up low-value older bikes for resale at a low price with practical real life biking by regular people. He also rants along in a monologue throughout the process.
He's based in Wisconson, is close to Minneapolis, and previously shared a connection of friends, family and bike shops in the affected area. There was a bike swap event in Minneapolis coming up next weekend that the BikeFarmer was planning to attend, all arranged some time ago.
So this is this weeks instalment of the bike repair vlog. Funnily enough, all he really does in this video is swap out fancy gravel tires for studded winter tires. But that isn't so simple in reality!
https://youtu.be/OZp0_b64R_E
#yegbike
Chip Butty
boosted
I don't usually like turning to videos for anything DIY, but have made many exceptions for Park's Calvin. I appreciate how he gets right into it with no nonsense preamble, and I always find his instructions and demonstrations to be very approachable, concise, and easy to follow.
I'll miss his videos, but wish him the best in retirement.
BIKEPACKING.com: Park Tool鈥檚 Calvin Jones is Retiring
https://bikepacking.com/news/park-tool-calvin-jones-retiring/
I don't usually like turning to videos for anything DIY, but have made many exceptions for Park's Calvin. I appreciate how he gets right into it with no nonsense preamble, and I always find his instructions and demonstrations to be very approachable, concise, and easy to follow.
I'll miss his videos, but wish him the best in retirement.
BIKEPACKING.com: Park Tool鈥檚 Calvin Jones is Retiring
https://bikepacking.com/news/park-tool-calvin-jones-retiring/
Michael Bacon
boosted
And with that bus lane, tha bus is avoiding the traffic jam and getting people to their destinations faster and more reliably than the cars. Without it, we induce traffic. When we don't invest in active transportation, that bus gets stuck in the resulting induced traffic, which makes people think it's not a viable mode of transport for them, thus inducing more and more traffic, causing worse congestion for all.
Remember when you're stuck in construction in Edmonton, that the entire reason roads are being shut down all a once is because we are DECADES behind on sustainable infrasteucture for a growing city. We can only induce so much automobile traffic before our streets shut down, and we reached that point decades ago... but continued on despite because our freedom of transportation and the safety of those who use it, was politicized. If not for the wedge politics against active transportation lanes, this could have been spreadnot over decades, and did not need to be disruptive.
If you are railing against transportation alternatives, then you have no right to complain about traffic congestion. Traffic isnnot caused by construction. Construction is caused by traffic.
And with that bus lane, tha bus is avoiding the traffic jam and getting people to their destinations faster and more reliably than the cars. Without it, we induce traffic. When we don't invest in active transportation, that bus gets stuck in the resulting induced traffic, which makes people think it's not a viable mode of transport for them, thus inducing more and more traffic, causing worse congestion for all.
Remember when you're stuck in construction in Edmonton, that the entire reason roads are being shut down all a once is because we are DECADES behind on sustainable infrasteucture for a growing city. We can only induce so much automobile traffic before our streets shut down, and we reached that point decades ago... but continued on despite because our freedom of transportation and the safety of those who use it, was politicized. If not for the wedge politics against active transportation lanes, this could have been spreadnot over decades, and did not need to be disruptive.
If you are railing against transportation alternatives, then you have no right to complain about traffic congestion. Traffic isnnot caused by construction. Construction is caused by traffic.
alcinnz
boosted
A billboard in Vancouver (not my pic, though I cleaned it up)!
A billboard in Vancouver (not my pic, though I cleaned it up)!
Okay, so this is what happened to me tonight. On my way home I needed to stop at a neighbor's house. I approached the address and signaled to turn off to the left, into the nearest drive. I couldn't because this Ram Sport with Black Appearance Package (I used to make car ads, so I know these models by sight) is bearing down on me from behind and won't let me slow down or turn off. I'm frantically signalling left, but it turns out this moron doesn't even know what a hand signal is (yes, he actually said that!), and he keeps trying to push me forward with his truck, then tries to wedge his truck to my left where my outstretched arm is signalling.
I finally get off into the parking lane and he rolls down his window screaming at me that I'm "in the middle of the road!" and both him and the woman with him scream at me that "You're supposed to be on the side!" Now I must stress that this is a single lane residential road. There's "the lane" and there's parked cars. There is no "on the side" lane for bicycles to use. He just felt that my very presence in the lane meant he could run me out of it.
I tell him that I've been signalling left and show him my outstretched arm, so he says, "What is that? I don't know what that means! You're just an idiot on a bike!" then "Riding a bike is easy, any idiot can do it!"
How does he go straight from "I don't even know what a hand signal is" to "people on bicycles are idiots!"
He repeated this "idiot on a bike" accusation over and over, insisting that it's perfectly okay to hit me because I'm an idiot on a bike and signals on a bicycle aren't a real thing.
Then after telling me to get off the public road he approached me and threatened to take me out or put me down, while puffing out his chest in my face with his hands by his side in order to intimidate me while claiming to not be the instigator (typical angry white man move).
Edited to clarify: Hand signals are in the driver's manual in Alberta and are potential questions on the driver's exam. Always have been. This is "requisite knowledge" for getting a driver's license.
You also can't leave a hand signal on by accident, and you really have to bend over backwards to ignore one.
And not knowing that other vehicles can use the same road you do? I don't think they even considered a need to test people on that knowledge.
Note: statistically cycling is the safest way to get around on these dangerous roads. Most people are killed in a car or motorcycle, either driving or as a passenger (80%), and a disproportionately high number of people (15%) are killed walking, by cars. Cyclists sit around 2%. I always have to remember that when I have these kinds of encounters, because it's not about physical danger, but about the hatred which others don't receive.
On a related note, much earlier on the same trip I tried to signal to turn left into a lot and an SUV "passed" me on the left to turn into the same drive I was trying to get into.