Bicycling, Photography and Programming

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Bellingham, Squalicum Field, 2012

Walking with Eloise

Lego!

Pacific Northwest Eclipse Times, Dec 10

My sister passes along the OMSI planetarium manager’s  useful local timeline:

“For the Pacific Northwest viewers, the penumbral eclipse begins at 3:33 a.m. PST and the umbral shadow takes a small, dark bite out of the left edge of the moon starts at 4:45 a.m. PST. For 66 minutes of the partial phase, the darkness engulfs more of the moon’s disk as it slides into the shadow. The partial eclipse ends and totality begins at 6:06 a.m. PST and the point of the greatest eclipse occurs at 6:31 a.m. PST. The eclipse’s total phase will lasts for 51 minutes. The moon will be only 6.5 degrees above the north western horizon at the instant of the greatest eclipse.”

So setup your camera tonight!

Details of Male Pneumatic Bike Hitch

I tacked the inner tube strips on to the copper pipe and chain stay with electrical tape. This keeps the assembly in place while tightening the hose clamps on.

Kids Bike Picnics Postponed

Back injury. The chiro will let me know when I can start cycling again.

Cancelled. Kids Bike Picnic 11/12, From Farmers Market to Marine Point

Updated 2011-11-09: cancelled due to back injury.

We will be heading to Marine Point after stocking up at the Farmers Market. BYOL. You could meet us at our house, the f/m, or at the park. Prepare for possible low tide, magnifiers or collecting buckets and wellies might be a good idea.

Kids Bike Picnic 11/5

Saturday morning. BYOL. Contact me if interested. Location dependent upon age of participants.

How to Report on Civilized Cycling

Marc at Amsterdamize enters a conversation with Matthew, the UK Gaurdian’s Bike Blogger, and I see this great pull quote:

Thus, when you sell bad infrastructure to the public that even ‘avid cyclists’ wouldn’t want to use, you’ve generated a negative sentiment that’s hard to spin your way out of, no matter the millions of pounds you spend on marketing that message. You can’t ‘encourage’ anyone to cycle when you give them a knife to a gun fight. It’s that simple.

However, the adventure goes sour after Matthew writes an unexpected post. Marc calls him on it and demands to know why Matthew is engaging in sloppy journalism.

Cars Passing Bikes: Do Gutter Bunnies Dress in Wigs?

Interesting news about how drivers act around bicyclists…there seems to be a space about 3 feet away from the curb. Too close to the gutter, and they assume they can pass closer. Also, lack of helmet and having long hair apparently promote further passing distance. Read more at cyclious and streetsblog. Remember — be conspicuous and predictable. Don’t duck between parked cars, cycle in a straight line as if you had a bike lane besides parked cars…otherwise you’re constantly mergine back into a lane of traffic.

Seattle Street Safety Numbers (Crosscut)

Here is a rather precise article comparing Seattle pedestrian, bicyclist and auto accidents with the citation rate between 2008-2010. It’s one thing to promote “share the road” but it’s also another thing to actually make streets safer. It appears about 10x more dangerous to be a pedestrian than a cyclist, and traffic citations appear to have dropped over some periods. The comments in the article are cogent.

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