Monthly Archives: December 2011
The Skinny on Fatbikes
Readers of this blog may have noticed the recent appearance of some conspicuously corpulent bikes in posts written by Communications Director, Dave Schlabowske. These “fatbikes”, as they’re known, are carving out a niche in the the Wisconsin cycling scene faster than Clark Griswold on a saucer sled coated with a non-caloric, silicone-based kitchen lubricant. A [...]
Bicycle Boulevards Evolve Into Greenways
Bicycle Boulevards have proven to be incredibly successful in Portland and other cities where they have been installed. They offer a lot of advantages that bike lanes don’t. In addition to providing a pleasant place to ride a bike, they slow motor vehicle traffic, making neighborhood streets more pleasant and safe for the residents. This [...]
Why Wisconsin Needs A Vulnerable User Law
These are the facts: On July 17th, an 18-year-old man lost control of his car while driving on Nicholson Road in Oak Creek, crossed the centerline and killed 56-year-old Sam Ferrito while he was riding his bicycle. The consequences for killing this innocent man are tickets for two moving violations: reckless driving and crossing the [...]
Santa Cycle Rampage turns 11 in 2011
It was 11 years ago that about a dozen year-round cyclists organized Milwaukee’s first Santa Cycle Rampage to spread holiday cheer while encouraging others to try riding bikes through the winter. At the time, the idea of winter cycling was still new and strange to most of people in Milwaukee. It was rare that I [...]
WisDOT: No Bikes On Hoan
This afternoon, the Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation released the announcement below that they will not accommodate bicycles or pedestrians on the Hoan Bridge. While this is certainly a severe blow to the decade-long efforts to fill the missing link in the 162 mile long Lake Michigan Trail Network, the staff at the Bike Fed have [...]
Light Years Ahead
It’s that time of year again, when the short days force most of us to ride to and from work in the dark. Wisconsin state law requires bicycles to have a white light on the front and a red light or red reflector on the back. There is a blinding array of lighting systems out [...]
Your Carbon Bicycleprint (and the helmet debate)
The European Cyclists Federation recently released a study that compares the CO2 emissions of bicycling to transit and driving a car. The goal of the study is to encourage EU leaders to push cycling rather than things like low emission vehicles such as electric cars as a larger part of their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. According [...]
Inspiration from the Big Apple
Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with how impressed we are at how fast New York City, once a bicycle desert, has been transformed into what is perhaps the most bicycle-friendly big city in the country. After a visit to NYC for a conference earlier this year, I reported in a blog posting [...]
December eUpdate
This is a quick update to let you know about some of the things the staff at the Bike Fed and our members have been doing over the last month to make Wisconsin an even better place to ride a bike. Apologies to the daily followers of this blog as, but most of the Bike [...]
