Bike Blog Pic of the Week – Double Whammee

Since we didn’t post one last week, we’ve got two for you today: one is happy, one aint. Here’s the first, taken on a recent Critical Mass (the Saturday one) ride. The group, which promotes safety in numbers via mass bike rides, meets this Saturday, 10:00 AM at University Metrorail…

Bike Blog: This Man Says Miami’s Ahead on Biking. Is He Nuts?

Apology: Somehow, this post got cut short, making it look an obnoxious rant against the very people whose work I meant to highlight. Sorry, Herb! A few nights ago, the Bike Blog was chatting with Herb Hiller, the Southeast Regional Program Consultant for the East Coast Greenway Alliance. The group’s…

Bike Blog: Pic of the Week

The Bike Blog is proud to introduce a new weekly feature: The Bike Blog’s Pic of the Week! Submissions are welcome — We’re kicking it off today with this picture of Barbara, whom we met, on a recent steamy day, peddling around in a ridiculously small Next aluminum bike, which…

FU, SUV!

Just last week, the Bike Blog wrote about summer bike mayhem – yesterday, we got an email from Tricia Vanderkooy, who got hit by an SUV on her way home from last Saturday’s Critical Mass bike ride. It wasn’t just a freak accident, either. Here’s one pretty detail: before hitting…

Summer Means Strange Days on Bikes

It’s hot. Everyone who figured out a way to do so has fled Miami. Bike news is especially slow. Gone from the Bike Blog’s inbox are calls to meetings, the rallyings of the troops for this or that bike cause. Instead, hurricane season seems to have ushered in a rash…

Bike Blog: Do Helmets Make People Want to Kill You?

This is the first in a series of posts on the Bike Blog’s Bike Fears – those niggling questions that we try to avoid every time we mount that two-wheeler and ride into battle (or traffic). We start with this one: Do Helmets Make People Want to Kill You? They’re…

Out of the Fiery Furnace of Miami, a New Group is Formed

A few weeks ago, the Bike Blog was peddling down Coral Way with Chris Alphin, a bike messenger and nice guy to boot, who organizes the Miami Beach Take Back the Streets Meetup Group. We were engaged in one of the Bike Blog’s favorite activities – ragging on Miami –…

The Sail Bike

While I was riding across the country, I had a thought – actually, I had lots of thoughts, some of them very weird indeed, but this was one of them: what if my bike had a sail? The idea had particular appeal to me as I was crossing Nebraska, where…

Miami 21 Leaves Bikes by the Curb

Forty-six public meetings and nearly two million bucks in, Miami 21 got canned last Thursday to be reconsidered for 90 days, during which Miami can look forward to – surprise surprise – more meetings, and more costs. So, the Bike Blog decided to do its part and reconsider how Miami…

Kid’s Ride, Critical Mass, and Hashing

Lots to do! First, the pan-activist group Emerge Miami, the Liberty City-based community nonprofit Weed and Seed, and the City of Miami Police Department will be hosting a kids’ bike ride this Saturday. David Chiverton, CEO of Weed and Seed, describes the ride as an attempt to bring together kids…

Some Good News — Surprise! — For Cyclists

After a brief respite – the Bike Blog got bike clogged, you might say – we’re back. And to make up for last’s week’s missing dose of grumbling and mockery, the Bike Blog presents two bits of hope, progress, and downright democracy. The first comes from the City of Miami…

Screw the Hummer. Buy a Tango.

What gets 70 miles to the gallon, cruises along at 50 mph and runs on three wheels? The RTM Tango, a little egg-shaped scooter-car. The company, RTM Group Inc. is based in Miami and builds the three-wheelers in Uruguay. Although the vehicle cannot travel on the interstate, it does sport…

The World Naked Bike Ride Cometh

A month or two ago, the Bike Blog mentioned that the time of the World Naked Bike Ride – a worldwide event in which cyclists take to the streets in the buff — was neigh. After endorsing it wholeheartedly, we promptly forgot all about it and therefore didn’t have to…

Cruisers and Cruisers

Now that’s a cruiser You got your cruisers, and then you got your cruisers, you know? Let’s talk police cruisers first. After last week’s Take Back the Road Ride (a.k.a. Critical Mass – this is getting confusing) was crashed by City of Miami Police, the Bike Blog called around to…

Cops Crash Alternative Critical Mass Ride

The Bike Blog couldn’t make it, but last Friday’s tenuous Critical Mass-esque ride did, in fact, materialize. The event was fashioned after Critical Mass rides in other cities, which generally take place on the last Friday of every month. Assuming this event continues on a monthly basis, this means that…

Some Cyclists are Critical of the Mass

Celebrating Mass Some time ago, the Bike Blog wrote about our city’s burgeoning Critical Mass, noting that Miami’s is a pretty tame incarnation of the worldwide pro-biking event. The confrontational nature of Critical Masses in some larger cities – in which riders completely stop traffic – is absent in Miami’s…

Chaos on the Rickenbacker! Part Three

Well, it’s been about two weeks since the Great Rickenbacker Fiasco made landfall, and it shows no signs of letting up. Last week, the Bike Blog reported on a number – we still don’t know how many — of accidents on the Rickenbacker as a result of repaving that left…

Rickenbacker Bike Crashes Continue

Earlier this week, the Bike Blog spoke with several people who saw a phenomenal number of bicycle accidents on the Rickenbacker Causeway last weekend, as a result of repaving by the Miami-Dade Department of Public Works that left the bike lane uneven with the road. The Bike Blog took action:…

A Crash Course on Building Bike Lanes

After a few months of ragging on Miami for its pathetic/nonexistent bike lanes, mean drivers, sluggish progress, and general muddle-headedness when it comes to making the city bike-friendly, the Bike Blog resolved to spend a week posting nothing but good news. But not this week. This morning, I received an…