Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art of urban cycling, bicycle chains, bicycling, bike maintenance, chain cleaning, cycling, Falcon, Robert Hurst
My non-standard views on chains and cleaning chains, posted recently on the Falcon.com blog:
Rousseau said: Men are born free but everywhere are in chains. A profound observation which foretold the bicycle craze. Then Aretha came along and said: Chain-chain-chain, chain of fools. Which sums it all up quite a bit better in my opinion.
The invention of the chain drive in the 1880s (almost exactly halfway between Rousseau and Aretha) enabled bicyclists to escape the purgatory of the highwheeler era, during which their pedals were shackled directly to those comically large front wheels. Along with Dunlop’s pneumatic tire, Starley’s addition of a chain and gears to the bicycle was certainly one of the most important waypoints in the entire history of personal transportation. The chain drive was a revolution in personal freedom and human dignity.
Not long after the miraculous chain drive took over, however, inventors were thinking of ways to put it out of business. Chains were hardly perfect, after all. They were greasy and needed frequent lubrication, and occasionally tried to take your finger off, realities that diminished the marketing glow of the new form of transportation.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Art of Cycling, art of urban cycling, Energy Benchmarking reports, energy efficiency, energy use in large buildings, EPA, Greener Greater Buildings Plan, LEED, NYC, NYC Finance, plaza, Seagram Building, urban cycling
As part of the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, Finance is required to publish a benchmarking report that shows the Energy Utilization Index (EUI) and Energy Star ratings of city government buildings.
via NYC Energy Benchmarking Reports.
The Seagram Building (1958) scored a 3. Out of 100. I wrote a paragraph about this influential building in Art of Cycling.
Filed under: Bike of the Day | Tags: Art of Cycling, art of urban cycling, bicycling, bike, biking, cycling, food, Raleigh, recipe for disaster, transportation, urban cycling, vintage bicycle
Upon closer inspection, looks like a recipe for disaster.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art of urban cycling, bike crashes, streetcar tracks, toronto, traffic accidents, transportation, urban cycling
An impressive tally.
However, 96 of the 690 crashes studied in downtown Toronto and Vancouver directly involved streetcar or train tracks. Eighty-seven of those accidents were in Toronto, accounting for 31.5 per cent of all bike accidents in the city that led to an injury that required a visit to an emergency department.
via Streetcar tracks blamed in one-third of Toronto bike accidents.