Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society

Beginning March 11 and continuing every Thursday evening at 6:00 P.M., EBC will be offering a series of how-to bike maintenance seminars.  We’ll start things off on Thursday the 11th with a basic bike maintenance and tune up class. No previous experience is required.  Bring your bike if you have one or come and practice on our bikes!  All courses are free for EBC members and $5 for non-members.  While registration is not mandatory it is strongly recommended as courses will be capped at ten people. To register, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).  And make sure to check out our calendar for upcoming courses covering topics from wheel care to drivechain overhauls!

Enjoying the unseasonably warm temperatures?  The normals for this time of year are a high of -3°C and a low of -14°C.  So I’m afraid to report that we’re actually pretty seasonable right now.  -3°C with sun and clear roads is fine weather for cycling!  If you’ve never tried biking in the winter before, you might give it a try this weekend.  There are a lot of days like today throughout an Edmonton winter.

But we understand if you’d rather wait for the roads to be swept and the May flowers to bloom.  There’s a joy to rolling your bike out of its long, dark winter hibernation and into spring that you just can’t achieve in February.  So to the 265-day cyclists, we’ll see you in a few weeks, and to the year-round cyclists, happy riding!

Edmonton will be getting its first non-contraflow bike lanes this year.  You’ll like them!  But please don’t use them for parking: doing so puts cyclists in a dangerous position, and interrupts both auto and bike traffic flow.  It’s also illegal.  (VANOC could stand to reiterate this to its own drivers, apparently.)

Sorry for the website troubles.  One minute I’m working on a new point-of-sales system, the next minute the entire website is shut down with a very severe-looking “Forbidden” error, and I find myself lacking the power (permissions, for UNIX geeks) to fix it. I did a bit of folder juggling, though, so here we are, back again.

Now then, on the subject of snow:  the east side of the High Level Bridge is much easier riding than the west side.  Yes, it’s narrower, and the railing is shorter. But you can see pavement!

Maybe it’s all too much for you to worry about which side of the bridge is best to ride on, and you just want to park the bike for a while. Maybe you need to pick someone up from the airport, do a big grocery run for a holiday party, or pick up that new Stockholm chesterfield from the city of IKEA. Perhaps you’d be interested in the Carsharing Co-operative of Edmonton: http://www.carshareedmonton.ca

Carsharing. Because practicality is one of the reasons you ride a bike.

Design and build your own custom bike lights: wearable lights, colourful LEDs, ultra high-power front and rear lights, neon lights, helmet lights, dynamo LED upgrades—we’ll teach you how to make whatever you want.

We’ll go over circuits, LEDs, batteries, soldering, weather-proofing, and help you design and construct your own custom lights. No tools, soldering, nor electronic experience necessary! Just bring your ideas of what you want to build.  You can view the course outline here.

To register for the bike lights workshop, please e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). The workshop shall be on Saturday, February 20, 2010, from 5pm-9pm.

The cost of the workshop is free to members, and $20 to non-members.  You will have to pay for any materials you require for building your lights.  You can look at the preliminary price list, but in general, the most expensive, high-power lights will cost you about $25 to build, and another $25 for a lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack and charger (if needed).

Depending on the complexity of what you design, and the availability of parts, we may schedule later small-group sessions to do the actual light construction.

You can also view a comparison of some of the front lights, some of which are available for immediate purchase (i.e. you don’t have to do any work, but the prices will be higher than what’s listed).

As a bonus, there will be free button/watch/coin cell batteries available, so bring your dead watches, mini-electronics, and valve stem lights for a free replacement. 

Sara, of Tegan and Sara, loves bikes, just like us. On the question of why she doesn’t yet have a driver’s licence:

“I like to think it has less to do with me being lazy, and more to do with my love of bicycles and mass transit!”

See original article in The Gateway.

Here’s their video for Speak Slow, from their 2004 release, So Jealous. The video happens to include a pop can being thrown at a cyclist:

From the hallowed halls of MIT Labs, first unveiled on the streets of Copenhagen (where else), comes yet another innovation: a bicycle wheel that has a motor assist, regenerative braking, GPS, air quality sensors, and wireless connectivity, all built into a single unit.

You can read more at the Wiser is the Path blog, or directly at the MIT project page.

Help Earth’s General Store move to its new location by bike!  Bring your backpacks, panniers, racks and trailers. Don’t have a bicycle trailer? We’ll have some at Earth’s General Store that we can hook up to your bicycle for the move.

Earth’s General Store is located at 10832 Whyte Ave, but is moving to its new location at 9506 Whyte Ave.  Show up between 12:15 pm - 12:45 pm this Sunday, January 10, 2010 at the old location (10832 Whyte Ave) and help us to make the move by bicycle.  Bring whatever you’ve got to carry stuff.  If you want to hook a trailer up to your bike, we’ll have the trailers at the store ready to connect.

See you on Sunday!

So, the Dawson Bridge closed to traffic, pedestrians and cyclists on Monday.

Your best alternatives are the Low Level Bridge and the Cloverdale Pedestrian Bridge (which connects to Riverdale). If you need to head towards Capilano, then you can take the multiuse trail from Cloverdale up to 100 Ave (or follow it all the way to Rowland Road/106 Ave).  We’ve had conflicting reports about whether or not this path is being cleared of snow: if you know its status this winter, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and we’ll post an update here for everyone.

I’m thinking of starting up a city-wide trail condition reporting service.  Would you use this/participate? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Now, you’re always welcome to send us e-mails with your complaints, and we’ll pass them on to the City or whoever’s appropriate.  But if you’re in the mood for some musical complaints, then I’ve got a video for you!  This is from a few years ago. Where was I back then? I don’t know.  Out enjoying the warm summer, likely.

Enjoy! Or, don’t, and leave a comment with your complaint.

http://www.complaintschoir.org/

CBC’s As It Happens organized Canada’s own complaints choir, if you’d like to hear about numb fingers, cell phone fees, and expensive cars that have no signal lights.

Date: Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Time: 6:30pm-9pm
Location: BikeWorks (10047 80 Ave, entrance through back alley only)
Cost: Showing up to talk or ask questions is free. If you want to stud a tire, it costs $5 for members (to cover materials), $10 for non-members. Supply your own tire, or buy used ($5) or new ($10) tires at the workshop.
Registration: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (registration for tire studding is required)

Do you fall down a lot?  Do your fingers and toes go numb in the cold?  Did your eyes freeze shut last night?  Do you think people that ride bicycles in the winter are crazy?  Did you know that the average daily temperature in January 2009 was -10.5C, and that the average daily high in February 2009 was -4.1C?

Come talk with us about how we do it.  While you’re at it, put some wicked studs in your tire.  It took me ~45 minutes the first time I made one (and I’m awful with a drill), and I enjoyed it so much that I studded 4 more tires, and I’d do it again sooner than repack my bottom bracket. Didn’t even get dirty.

The Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society would like to wish everyone a safe and warm holiday season!
Many many thanks to all who have helped contribute to Edmonton’s cycling community in the last year and here is hoping that it continues to grow in 2010.

As well if you find yourself reflecting on things over your holidays and have some input for what you want Cycling in Edmonton to look like please remember to send us an email:

What is your vision for cycling in Edmonton?

Answer in whatever form you feel reflects your vision; essays, point-form dialogues, essay, pictures—all are valuable to us as we begin crafting this document.

To spark your imagination, here is the URL to a couple of cycling websites I find valuable:
http://www.copenhagenize.com and Bicycle Victoria (Australia not BC, and this is probably the complete canon on cycling) http://www.bv.com.au/

Please send your submissions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with “Vision for cycling” in the subject line.

Stay Warm & Happy Cycling!

Over the holidays, BikeWorks will be closed December 24 through December 28th, and on December 31st. So come by and visit us on December 30th, otherwise we might get lonely.  We’ll be back to regular hours promptly on January 2.

Join us for another workshop where you can add retro-reflective material to your clothing in stylish and creative ways or make retro-reflective patches that you can sew onto clothing, backpacks, etc.  The first one was great fun—below you can see some of the designs that were made that evening (without need much technical or artistic skill, even!).

As the nights become longer cyclists increasingly need to use every tool in their arsenal to stay visible to motorists on the road. One tool is silver retroreflective material that, when light (especially from headlights) is shined on it, reflects light back to the source.

Bring:
- clothing you would like to make more visible in the night. Make sure it is clean, and when you wash it, don’t use fabric softener. This process in this workshop isn’t suitable for some materials (like plastic rain coats) that can’t be ironed.
- ideas for designs and motifs, because reflectivity doesn’t have to just mean a big ol’ X on the back. We will have a computer and printer available if you want to bring ideas in digital form.

Hope to see you there!

Location: BikeWorks, upstairs lounge (10047 80 Ave, entrance through back alley only)
Cost: Free for members, $5 for non-members
RSVP: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  - space is limited
Time: 7-9pm
Date: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 (tentative)