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5 tips for biking to work – Go By Bike Episode 20

elise — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:51:54 +0000

Try biking to work next week – It’s Bike To Work week!

Next week (May 17-21, 2010) is Bike To Work Week. This is one week in May each year where there are events and activities that encourage people to try biking to work. If you haven’t tried biking to work before, why not try it next week! In today’s video I give 5 easy tips to think about if you want to try a new bike commute.

Below are the details of events in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area. In addition to the events, Cycle 9 is offering FREE inspections of your bike all week and will have some in-store specials going.

There may be events in your area. Check these web resources and your lcoal media to see what’s going on.

http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/events.php

http://biketoworkweek.org/index.php

What other tips do you have for biking to work? Add your comments below.

-Elise

Events in Chapel Hill and Carrboro:

In addition to these events, if you take the Smart Commute Challenge, you could win fabulous prizes! All you have to do is try an alternate form of transportation one time during the month of May. See info at the end.

Saturday, May 15: Bus & Bike Workshops: Information on how to load a bike onto a bus, hands-on demonstrations and information about rules of the road.

- Estes Drive (University Mall) Farmers Market – 8:30 a.m. to Noon

- Carrboro Town Commons Farmers Market - 8:30 a.m. to Noon

Tuesday, May 18: Bike Breakfast Workshop – 7 to 10 a.m.: Meet in the parking lot across from the Open Eye Café for bicycle inspections and small repairs, special drawings and free coffee and snacks!

Friday, May 21: Bike Chapel Hill-Carrboro – An 8-mile cycling event for individuals or families ending with food, bands and other fun activities!

- 5:30 p.m.: Registration at the Wallace Deck (no fee). Bring your bicycle!6 p.m.: Tour begins.

- 6:30: Cyclists stop for water break at Carrboro Town Commons where Chapel Hill and Carrboro leaders will make comments and join the ride.
- 7 p.m.: The group finishes on the Wallace Deck in Chapel Hill with a band, food and informational tables.

Take the SmartCommute Challenge! Use any form of alternative transportation (bike, walk, carpool, bus, etc.) at least once before May 30 and register at SmartCommuteChallenge.org. You will be entered into a drawing for $1500, laptop computers and other great prizes!

Banana Ride Successful!

elise — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:36:08 +0000

Last weekend, local bus driver Dave Deming attempted to carry over 900 bananas on his Yuba Mundo cargo bike. That’s 400 lbs – 10 boxes of 40 lb. each. Why did he do it? How successful was it? Watch the video to find out.

The Soul of City Bikes – Masi Soulville (now on sale)

elise — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:15:40 +0000

Since we love beautiful bikes here, and especially beautiful bikes that aren’t outrageously expensive, we brought in some bikes from the Masi Soulville line.

Masi is an original Italian company known for the tradition of road cycling Remember the Italians in the movie Breaking Away? They weren’t no nice, but they give the idea of italians being big on biking.

The Soulville line is designed in a classic and classy style that is perfect for cruising around town on a beautiful bike. You’ll feel classy just riding these bikes. The graceful lines of the steel frames are matched with simple componentry to make your life easier, simpler, and more comfortable.

The Soulville SS – Single Speed / Fixed Gear

Have fun and look good doing it with the Soulville SS. Flip-flop hub lets you ride single speed or fixed gear. A thrill junky at home on the road or trail, cruise the night streets and hop down to your friend’s house in no time flat. Steel frame, arc handlebar, and 700c tires offer a great ride. Comes with fender and rack mounts if you want to turn it into a real commuter.

(Reg price $697 – On Sale during April for $587)

The Soulville 7

This bike is the same great frame as the Soulville SS, but with a Shimano Nexus internal 7-speed hub. Internal hubs offer low maintenance and clean lines, without the need for derailleur adjustments and less chance of getting out of alignment. 7 speeds helps out with the hills of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Cork grips and a retro-style saddle offer class and comfort. A perfectly simple design proves a sea of calm in an otherwise chaotic world.

Also available in a beautiful Mixte frame.

(Reg. $857 – On Sale during April starting at $697)

These bikes are now available at Cycle 9. Come in for a text ride.

Sign Up to Get Notified of Local Events

elise — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:59:05 +0000

Never miss out on a great ride or class

Get notification of Cycle 9 events right in your email box by signing up below

Cruiser Ride Sunday 4/18

elise — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:18:35 +0000

Join us for our first monthly Carrboro Cruiser Ride, a family-friendly bike ride around Carrboro.

We had a good turn out for our first cruiser ride at the Jon Watts kick-off tour event in March, so we decided to start a monthly ride to keep the energy going! This will be every month the 3rd Sunday of the month and will be a fun, casual atmosphere that bikers of all ages can enjoy.

Bring a bike and yourself, enjoy some tunes from the bike-audio-stereo system, and ride in a casual group around neighborhood streets. We’ll go at an easy pace and ride for about 45 minutes around Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Riding in this group won’t require learning the rules of pace lines and hand signals. We just watch out for each other and have a fun time. After our ride stay and socialize with coffee or tea, beer or wine, treats and the like at the Looking Glass cafe next door.

Here are the details:

When: 3rd Sunday of the month (starting April 18th). 2pm meet time at Cycle 9

What: casual bike ride around town, all ages and abilities welcome

Where: Meet at Cycle 9 in Carrboro, 601. W. Main Street

Why: For fun and to meet others who enjoy casual cycling

Cycle 9 wins GO!Triangle commuter award

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:47:00 +0000

In June, Cycle 9, along with the other bike shops in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, won an award for working together to promote bicycle transportation as an alternative to cars. The award reads:

Go Chapel Hill Commute Challenger Award
Chapel Hill & Carrboro Bike Shops
The Town of Chapel Hill recognizes all of the Chapel Hill & Carrboro Bicycle Shops for outstanding participation in Bike to Work Week events. Rarely do competing businesses put aside their own bottom lines for the bigger cause. Yet, all five of the Chapel Hill – Carrboro hotspot bicycle shops joined together to promote cycling in our area. Throughout Bike to Work Week they offered discounts, ran special promotions, offered free inspections and conducted Bike on Bus workshops. Representatives from all five shops are currently working with the Town of Chapel Hill to develop a more intense promotional campaign for the coming year! Hats off to The Clean Machine, Cycle 9, Performance Bike, Back Alley Bikes and the Bicycle Chain for your teamwork for the greater good!

Just goes to show what a great bicycle town we live in! Keep up the good work.

Solar at Shakori Hills: does it make sense?

Morgan Giddings — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:20:00 +0000

We had the pleasure of making it out to the Shakori Hill Festival today to let the kids participate in various events such as the Paperhand Puppet Intervention, and to listen to a bit of good music.

The organizers had a booth there, asking for contributions towards a solar electic system that would power the event in the future. The card indicates that 10,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity are used to put on the event. I applaud their goal to get off the grid. But the sea of cars I saw in the parking lot left me wondering: how much energy was used in just getting people to/from the event, in comparison to the 10,000 kWh goal?

Here’s my attempt to figure it out. When we were there on Sunday, there were perhaps 700-900 cars around. We can estimate from that a total of about 5,000 cars were driven to/from the event during the course of the four days (that’s an average of 1,125 cars/day, or 2,250 people per day if it averaged 2 people per car, probably a low estimate). The location is 17 miles from Carrboro, 40 mi from Raleigh, 35 mi from Durham, and 10 mi from Pittsboro. So we’ll average all of those at 25 mi (each way), for an average round trip of 50 miles. The fleet average for the US automobiles as of 2003 was 25 miles per gallon, so on average, 2 gallons of gasoline were burned per car trip to/from the festival. If our estimate of 5,000 car trips is accurate (maybe an underestimate?), that’s 10,000 gallons of gasoline burned up (526 barrels of oil).

Now, hold onto your seats. Each gallon of gasoline contains about 37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy. So, we have 10,000 * 37 = 370,000 kWh of energy burnt up to get people to/from the festival in their cars/SUV’s/trucks/motor homes.

That is, 37 times more energy were used to transport people to/from Shakori Hills, than would be saved if the festival organizers reach their goal of going all solar.

Here’s another way to look at it. An efficient generator will extract about 7 kWh of energy out of a gallon of gas (no, they are not very efficient, they only recover a small part of the 37 kWh contained in a gallon). So, to generate the 10,000 kWh of energy that the festival needs to run, that is about 1,429 gallons of gas, if they were to use local generators. Compare that 1,429 to our estimate of 10,000 gallons burned up getting people to and from. I.e., even using inefficient gas generators, generating all that power to run the festival would only take 1/7th the power that is consumed to get all those people to/from the event. 1/7th. That is sobering. (and note: even if everyone drove a super efficient hybrid like the Prius out there, and averaged 50mpg, it would still consume more than 3x more energy to transport people there).

And this is why all the peak oil people are so concerned about our future. They realize how much energy we are just burning up driving around in our gasoline burning cars. But most people don’t think about that. Even very “green” people just don’t realize how much energy is contained in each and every gallon of gas put into their cars. And, while I applaud the goal of Biodiesel, I had a look at the Piedmont biofuels website to see how much they produce. They produce “thousands of gallons per day” – so, basically, if every person going to the festival used biodiesel instead of fossil fuel, there would be none left in this area for any other purpose (such as powering tractors that help grow our food).

I don’t want to come off as overly critical of these efforts. Every small bit helps. But if people think these are solutions to fossil fuel dependency, they are clearly not. They are drops-in-the-bucket.

Anyway, I think if the Shakori Hills organizers can get the solar panels, it will save energy and have a positive effect – not only by the direct power saved, but by the example set. At the same time, they could have a vastly greater effect on energy usage for the festival (and also local pollution/noise/danger created by the cars) by implementing a bus system to/from the event. Or getting people to go out there on their electric bikes