A quick update from the Bike Blog for anyone needing a little reaffirmation of human kindness in Miami: Last week, I wrote about a couple of times when I’d gotten a flat while biking through Overtown – in both cases, friendly passers-by had immediately offered their help. This morning, as…
Hazards of the road the Bike Blog has known. Vicious country dogs, dudes hurling beer cans out of pickups, girls (of every race, color, and class, interestingly) hissing at me to get the fuck on the sidewalk; invisible pot-holes, shoulderless bridges, noxious bus fumes, wrong turns into drug deals-in-progress. I’ve…
When I moved into my first apartment in Miami three months ago, one of the first things I asked my landlord was whether it was even possible to ride my bike to work, from the Orange Bowl to the New Times building on 28th and Biscayne. He stared a minute…
Yikes! Critical Mass Miami meets Saturday for a ride down Calle Ocho. Meet at Government Center at 10:00, and dress as a rooster or a chicken, if you can, for a chance to ride with Mr. Clucky himself! On Sunday, the Everglades Bike Club meets at 7:30 a.m. (woof) at…
The bike blog recently wrote about bike shootings and felons on bicycles, and this week brings more news from the world of organized crime on two wheels: Sasha Wright, founder and leader of the local bicycle gang “Bycle Jackson,” is relocating, and likely taking the gang’s logistical core with her…
On April Fool’s Day, Beach Towing Service punked Karl Willman. The unemployed college student pulled into the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy at 1421 Alton Road around 7:45 p.m. He parked his 2005 gray Honda Element, got out and walked next door to Lime Fresh Mexican Grill to grab…
Nobody gives Calvin T. Godfrey a parking in a restricted zone ticket on Jesus’s Birthday. Nodody. I pledged to fight this affront to goodwill. It only took three months to get my day in court, but at 1:08 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I came armed only with a bible. Officer Samaria…
A group of eight cyclists biking around the state stopped in Miami Tuesday to talk about drunk driving and safe driving. The group, called 180 S.A.F.E. Ride, is comprised of five first responders. Stay Alive from Education, based in Orlando, brings its “Street Smart” program into high schools and colleges,…
Windy, yes — and bikable A couple of weeks ago, the Bike Blog was chatting with Miami Beach City Commissioner Saul Gross about the city’s Master Plan for bicycles, a fairly ambitious scheme that would include miles of bike lanes and a much-needed bike path along the beach. Sounds great,…
On Saturday, the Herald reported this shocking bit of bike news: a man found dead in the back of a pickup truck in Little Haiti last Thursday was believed to have been shot by two men riding bicycles. So far, no arrests have been made. It turns out this isn’t…
It was a dark and stormy night — or something like that, anyway — when Mark Buckley took a welding torch to the metal before him, gave it a final blast, and stepped back to survey his creation. Cobbled together from the pieces of five bikes, a tricycle, and a…
Wednesday was an ominous day for three-wheeled taxis. As New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg hesitated over signing a bill which would regulate the Big Apple’s three- to four-hundred strong pedicab industry, the Miami Beach City Commission discussed a possible ordinance which would have established a single-vendor bike taxi business,…
Technically, Bike to Work Week ended last Saturday — but who’s counting? Not Juan, whom I met biking home from his job at a downtown construction site. Juan declined to give his last name and exact place of work because, he said cheerfully, he has no papers — he’s illegal…
Riding off into the sunset In celebration of last Saturday night’s full lunar eclipse, I joined Critical Mass Miami to ride the 16-mile loop at Shark Valley Slough in Everglades National Park. The route, it turns out, is open to the public 24/7 — if you go at night, you…
Carrrrrreful This Sunday, the county Parks and Rec Department and the Florida Bicycle Assoctation will host a “Road 1 Bike-Ed Class” at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center in Crandon Park. Class curriculum includes fixing flats, choosing a bike, and riding safety. The flyer boasts that “Students will gain confidence…
palm this tree For decades, Biscayne Boulevard was a regal stretch of road, a tropical gateway to paradise. Visitors were greeted with smooth asphalt, clean family-friendly motels and towering palm trees. Today, of course, it’s mostly commuters that flow into Miami via Biscayne, and they are assaulted daily by never…
My life is informed by film, and when I am having a particularly terrible terrible awful experience, I often suspend the trauma by framing it through someone else’s celluloid suffering, conjuring an imaginary foil the way Jimi Mistry invented Kyle MacLachlan as Cary Grant in A Touch of Pink. On…
Um, fill it to the top please! Your car is not a phone booth. Your car is not your office. As much as you would like to think you can multitask, the reality is you can’t. That is why the “gods” (Jobs & Gates) created computers… to fill the gap…
From the in case you didn’t notice files, readers and drivers, rejoice! This year is the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. A special site called “Florida’s Interstates – A Half Century of Progress” wants to “Welcome [you] to the party! There’s a nationwide celebration going on in…
Critical Miami recently called “BULLSHIT” on this article (registration required) by Larry Lebowitz about pothole maintenance on I-95. In a post called What’s up with the holes in I-95?, Critical Miami argues that they are man-made, not accidents in need of fixing. [The article] talks all about the difference between…
Muzzled beneath black tarp-like shrouds, traffic lights stand at the ready at 22 on-ramps along the I-95 corridor, from NW 62nd Street north to Ives Dairy Road. Miami’s ”Metered Stop Ramps” were scheduled to go online in 2005; now mid- to late-2007 is the time when motorists aiming to ascend…
If I keep this up, in a year I will have spent one whole month of my life on I-95. I commute about 120 miles a day to Miami New Times from my home in southern Palm Beach County. I know: It’s a misery many of you share. That’s the…
