If You Want To Escape, Pack Light

The first rule of thumb for cycle touring is:  Feel guilty about carrying anything more than your maps and water bottle.

It's the sort of advice I might have given when I was younger.  But I cannot claim credit for it: The honor belongs to Doug Shidell and Phillip van Valkenberg. Their pearl of wisdom came in a book they co-authored:

Now tell me:  Does that book look like it came out of the early '70's, or what?  Well, it did, a couple of years after Shidell and van Valkenberg met.  The former was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the latter was a recent alumnus.  They were a couple of long-haired guys with "hippie tendencies" and a recently-found passion for cycling.

Doug Shidell and Phillip van Valkenberg.  This photo was published on the inside of the back cover of Bicycle Escape Routes.

They also loved their home state of Wisconsin, and their book is as much a billet doux to the Badger State as it is a guide to cycling in it.  In addition to maps and descriptions of rides, it gave sage advice about how to deal with snarling dogs and whatever else a bicycle tourist might encounter, as well as counsel on how to live in the moment:  "Marsh hawks spend much of their time sitting on fence posts in the fields," they wrote.  "If you see a bird sitting or flying low over the fields, stop near a tree or bush to remain inconspicuous and watch him for a little while."

The book also had a sense of humor about everything, including the squeaky bearings on Shidell's bike:  "We were serenaded by this bicycle's version of 'Song of the Volga Boatman' on every upgrade.  Respite of sorts came later when a spot weld let go on one of Doug's racks, creating a squeak that completely drowned out the original noise."

Since that book was published, van Valkenberg, now 73, has written seven more about cycling in Wisconsin.  He has also been a nearly non-stop advocate for cycling in the state, having worked to bring about the Elroy-Sparta State Trail and organized tours, races other rides.  These days, he and his partner, Georgia Kaftan, ride a tandem recumbent bike.

Shidell is 67 and lives in Minneapolis.  He was the first employee of Quality Bicycle Products, from which he's retired.  He also has written about bicycling and bike advocacy for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and started a website and map-publishing effort called Bikeeverywhere.

Interestingly, he says that his cycling and  bike advocacy were motivated by environmental concerns.  He first heard about global warming in the 1970s, he said, and because the "dangers made sense to me", he thought, "I'll just start riding a bike instead of driving around."

I wonder whether either of them carries anything more than his maps and water bottle--and, if he does, whether he feels guilty about it.

To The Beach--By Bike Or Train? Why Not Combine Them?

After work, I did what a lot of other people are doing this week:  I took a trip to the beach.  It's the last "unofficial" week of summer; after Monday--Labor Day--most people will be back at work.

Of course, you know I rode my bicycle to the beach--Orchard Beach, to be exact, as it's the one nearest my job. Other people did, too, but others drove or took the bus.  Still others took the train to beaches on Long Island--or the subway to the Rockaways and Coney Island.

It's probably no surprise that during cycling's first heyday--roughly the last decade of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 21st--people cycled to the beach, especially to Coney Island.  The Ocean Parkway Bike and Bridle path--the oldest extant bike lane in the US-- was constructed during that time.  Also, during that time, construction of the subway system began.  There were, however, smaller, independent railroads that ran from Manhattan and the nearby areas of Brooklyn to the beaches. Some of those railroads later became part of the city's and region's mass transit system.

At that time, it was even possible to combine bikes and trains on a ride to the beach.  Well, sort of.

The Boynton Bicycle Railroad linked the southwestern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend with Coney Island.  It ran for only two years, and inspired a few other short-lived imitations, it is commemorated with Boynton Place, at the intersection of West 7th Street and Avenue X, in Gravesend.

So, what made it a "bicycle railroad"?  Well, it ran on two wheels on a monorail.  So, you may ask, how did it keep it balance?  Well, there were rubber-faced trolley wheels on top of the trains that guided the train along a rail that ran fifteen feet above the rail on which the "bicycle" train ran.

When it debuted, the trains could achieve speeds of 80 mph.  The following years, technical improvements upped the maximum velocity to 100 mph.

The Boynton Bicycle Railroad, as shown in an 1894 issue of Scientific American

Inventor E. Moody Boynton said his intention was indeed to marry a new technology of the time to a newish one:  the bicycle and the railroad.  He was convinced that his system was more efficient than conventional railroads because there was less friction on a single than a double track.  The speeds of his trains seemed to make his case.  Still, he couldn't find investors--possibly because the automobile was on the horizon-and neither the Boynton nor the other "bicycle" railroads survived past the middle of the first decade of the 20th Century.

It could be said, however, that his idea lives on in modern monorail and light-rail systems.  Perhaps one day tourist hubs will have "pedi-trains", much as some places now have "pedi-cabs".

Enlightened Self-Interest?: Uber And Bike Sharing

During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hunk of metal to take one person ten blocks.

Who said that?  An urban planner?  An environmentalist?  Someone involved with a bike-share program?

That last answer would be the right one, sort of.  Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of the company that acquired bike-share startup Jump Bikes.

And that company is...Uber.  Yes, the ride-share company:   one of the companies responsible for clogging the streets of cities like New York with drivers who pull over, seemingly without warning or regard for pedestrians or cyclists.  (I've had a couple of near-misses with Uber drivers who were looking at their screens instead of what (or who) was outside of their windows.)  Believe it or not, they're not only getting into bike share, they will soon offer electric scooters in San Francisco and other cities.

So, what brought about Mr. Khosrowshahi's seeming apostasy?  As he told The Financial Times, "There's a $6 trillion mobility market, and no one product is going to be serving that whole market."  So, while shifting some of the company's resources from drivers to cycling or scooters may hurt profits for a little while, it will pay off in the long run by giving people more options.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi presenting Jump Bicycles in Berlin, Germany.

Interestingly, he says some Uber drivers are even embracing the idea.  The reason, he says, is that bicycles would reduce the demand for short rides and leave drivers to complete longer, more lucrative runs, such as rides to airports.

And, unlike yellow cabs, Uber drivers don't make money if they're stuck in traffic:  Usually, they are paid a fixed or agreed-upon amount of money for a trip, regardless of whether it takes 10 minutes or an hour.  Yellow cabs, on the other hand, have meters that continue to run whether the car is zipping down a side street or idling on the Long Island Expressway. (How can it be an "expressway" if the traffic isn't moving?  Its acronym, the LIE, is more apt.)

So, as Khosrowshahi says, driving a tonne of metal ten blocks isn't a very efficient way to transport one passenger--from a transportation, environmental or economic standpoint. Ultimately, it doesn't even help the drivers' bottom lines.  More bikes, fewer cars, less congestion and pollution...because of Uber?  Who knew?