Critical Lass 6: North To Alberta Avenue

We had a gorgeous sunny summer day for our Critical Lass ride yesterday. Angel and I met at Bicycle Bottleneck and rode to our our meeting place. Along the way we rode briefly with Coreen, who took a different route so she could go to the bank, and met a new friend (hi Anon!). We took the bike path north to 103rd Avenue, then took that to Churchill Square, and found our meeting place in front of the Winspear: 

Our new friend, who has asked that we not use her name. She's the coolest, and so her is fab mid-70s Twenty.

As you can see, the Square was packed for Taste of Edmonton! Poor Coreen wasn't sure where we were meeting, and wasn't able to find us in the crowd. We hope nobody else had the same trouble. =(

We all coveted Marilyn's fantastic skirt from H&M.

We waited an extra 35 minutes to make sure nobody else was coming, then started on our route:

down 102 (Harbin) Avenue through South Chinatown,

along Jasper Avenue, where we admired the river valley views at the top of Dawson Park (which you need to enter from the bottom of the valley, so we'll explore it another day),

then along the multiuse-trail that runs parallel to the LRT line,

to the end of Alberta Avenue closest to Coliseum LRT Station, which is the most recent section to have infrastructure upgrades. The site of the old Cromdale Hotel (above) gives a good idea what much of the street looked like a decade ago, when it was best known for its drug-fuelled crime rate. We walked a couple of blocks on the brand-new sidewalks, crowded with people walking in the opposite direction toward Capital Ex, and watched pickup trucks and SUVs whizz past, then decided our best course was to ride on quiet, residential 119th Ave, using the church and community league park as our landmarks to come out onto the sidewalks on 118th. In retrospect maybe we should have taken photos of the parks, too - they both had playgrounds full of families, nice green spaces, and at one of them there was a fenced space with a community garden and dogs playing off-leash. So cool.

Most of the shops along 118th have this sign in their window, for the community-based campaign to reclaim their neighborhood. (Oh look, this is also a self-portrait.)

Our first stop was Handy Bakery, famous for their pastries...

... and their display case didn't disappoint. They had a steady stream of clients coming in to pick up orders.

The Portuguese custard tarts? So. so. good.

They also have half the shop devoted to hard-to-find groceries and spices.

I wonder if the traffic on 118th is always this busy, or if it gets busier during big events like Capital Ex at Northlands?

We unlocked our little bike pile from one of the brand-new racks that line the street, then headed back via 119th to our destination, where Coreen caught up with us:

It smelled amazing inside, thanks to the shisha smoke from hookahs, and meals like this:

Ethiopian food! So tasty, and extremely filling. The injera (flatbread) that you eat with tastes a bit like sourdough. Nom!

Afterward we rode south on the residential streets marked on the map in the last post, past the Mustard Seed and Hope Mission, and along 106th Avenue parallel to where the railroad tracks used to divide these neighborhoods from downtown. We made one little alteration to our planned route, cutting through Grant MacEwan College and down the future Capital Boulevard:

Yeah, the Ledge grounds. After all, it was hot and sunny. How could we resist the chance to go wading?

But first we went into the rose garden for a group photo (which will be in Coreen's post) and admired a bumblebee who was playing in the blossoms. There are more photos from the rose garden in Coreen's ride report!

(Thanks for the sweet photo Coreen!)

I love this photo of Coreen. She sewed her floaty wrap skirt herself.

So refreshing, and such a great way to finish the ride! Afterward we headed our separate ways, with most of us heading over the High Level Bridge to Bicycle Bottleneck.

Thanks to everyone who came out! Those of you who missed it - we'll see you August 28th!

27 July Update: I've been reflecting on the changes on Alberta Avenue. It's definitely way less scary to spend a sunny afternoon there than it was in 1994 when I first visited, on a mission with my roommate to find stuff for our student apartment at the world's sketchiest used furniture shops. I remember lots of boarded-up storefronts and pawn shops then, and not a lot of pedestrian traffic. Now we're seeing families in playgrounds, lots of restaurants, lots of people out walking. There's a farmer's market, gallery space, and a number of festivals held on Alberta Avenue now. I expect, now that the infrastructure upgrades are complete, in the next couple of years we'll see it become an incubator of cool local retail and arts space, in the same way that 124th Street and Whyte Ave have been in the past.
I also commented above that the working-class neighborhoods we rode through were divided until fairly recently from downtown by railyards; Marilyn notes in her blog post that the arena project proposed for the redevelopment of that land could make that division permanent. Go read!

PS: This post is part of our series for the LGRAB 2011 Summer Games! It could qualify in several categories - this was a new part of town and took in new-to-us bike paths - but we'll just call it a group ride. Let the games begin!

Critical Lass July plans

Reminder: Sunday July 24th will be the next Edmonton Critical Lass ride!

So you can check out A Taste of Edmonton before the ride, if you like, we'll meet at 1:30pm in front of the Winspear Centre and depart at 2pm. We'll ride via 95th Street (and Chinatown and Little Italy) to Alberta Avenue, so we can see for ourselves its' revitalization from a neighborhood that a decade ago was best known for pawn shops and drug-related crime problems, now that the infrastructure changes from the Streetscape Improvements program and storefront facade renovations are mostly completed. We'll likely make stops at The Carrot, Bedouin Beats, and Handy Bakery, and have our supper at Habesha (Ethiopian, and we hear they're vegetarian and vegan friendly!).

Originally, our plan was to ride all the way to Northlands, grab a group photo with Gretsky, then take our bikes on the LRT - but since Capital Ex is on, we expect Coliseum Station to be a bit too crowded for bikes. So, now we think we'll loop back to downtown before going our separate ways.

Any feedback on the route, ladies?

20 July UPDATED PROPOSED ROUTE: So. After discussion with Angel, I did a screencap of the bike map then highlighted our new route idea:

We'll be starting about where the blue oval marked 3 is (that's the AGA), taking the on-road bike path on 102 Ave (that's Harbin Road, just north of Canada Place, which stands where the original Chinatown was established 100 years ago) through Chinatown South to Jasper Ave, and take that along the upper edge of Dawson Park (it's not clear whether we can actually enter the park from the top - if we can we can stop and take photos here) to where it turns north and becomes 82nd Street. Where 82nd crosses the LRT tracks at 113th Ave, we can get on the MUP (red) then take the on-street path (green) north on 81st Street (past another wee park) to 118th Ave. This brings us out close enough to Northlands to hear the ruckus and smell the mini-donuts from Capital Ex, close to the eastern end of the section of Alberta Ave that's had infrastructure upgrades. Then we'll ride west on 118th, check out some places, and stop for supper. Afterward we'll take 96th Street south and pick up the on-street path (green) that skirts north of downtown to head to 109th Street, then south via the MUP (red) and across the High Level Bridge to Bicycle Bottleneck. When they reopen for the day I'll call Habesha and ask them about the timing - whether they want a group to show up for the 4pm coffee ritual, or want us to make reservations for later, will determine whether we move our start time a bit later. Our reservation is for 4pm at Habesha. Sound OK?

Bicycle Sunday

On Sunday, Spencer and I set out on the trail-a-bike for a bicycle adventure. Bicycle Sunday is a program run by Seattle Parks, where Lake Washington Boulevard is closed to car traffic on summer Sundays. The weather was good and our schedule was clear, so we decided to try it out for the first time.

Technically, this is not a panda shot since we are beside our bikes, not on them.

Lake Washington Boulevard winds gently along Lake Washington with parks on one side and attractive houses on the other. It was a fun, family crowd, with trail-a-bikes, trailers, training wheels, and wobbly new-to-two-wheelers.

Friendly people from the Cascade Bicycle Club were out, selling and fitting helmets for new riders.
Neighbourhood kids had a lemonade stand. I don't know how much business they did that day, but it was certainly a hit with my kid.

Now, Spencer wants to set up his own stand, so he can earn money to buy more toys.

Spencer: I could ask people for $5 for a glass of lemonade.

Me: No one is going to pay that much for lemonade.

Spencer: Well....what if I gave them lemonade AND let them play with one of my toys?

The protected road ends at Seward Park, home to a very nice playground.
Bicycle parking was at a premium!
And, of course, we had to end the day with ice cream. Hey! I just asked you to HOLD my ice cream while I took a picture!

I'd never gone to a Bicycle Sunday before, so I was curious to see how the experience compared to riding in the neighborhood or on the nearby trails. The combination of wide roads and the complete absence of cars created a remarkably relaxed and fun atmosphere. In comparison, the Burke-Gilman trail is quite narrow and, on a busy day, requires a lot of attention, especially when passing or being passed. Spencer is just learning to ride a two-wheeler (sans training wheels) right now. Once he gets a little steadier, he'll want to move beyond the school playground, but won't really be ready for streets or even the BG Trail for some time. Bicycle Sunday will be the perfect opportunity for him to spread his wings.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and we'll certainly go again. However, it will never be an every weekend activity - I'm not a big fan of driving 12 miles in order to ride for 3. Now, if only we could convince Seattle Parks to do a similar event in north Seattle....

More Japanese Cycle Culture

Although all my coolest cycle-chic photos from Japan have already been posted, I have a few more photos to share with you - I'm especially excited about the ones of an old Bridgestone Cycle rod-brake bike that I'd forgotten all about seeing.

This sign above the sidewalk in Tokyo explains that it's a multiuse path.

Tokyo, May 21st.

A delivery trailer outside a courier company - the same one that delivered our rented cell phone to our hotel.

You can rent bicycles for use on the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo,
so chances are pretty good that this white guy rented his sweet ride.
Rain during the last part of our trip dissuaded us from returning to try this out.

At the Asakusa Kannon Temple in Tokyo.

Notice all the bicycles parked to one side of the intersection!
A lot of the famous neon signs in Shinjuku were still turned off to save electricity at this point.

Parked inside a shop in Hida-Takayama (Gifu prefecture) in the early morning after a rainy day.

The narrow streets of the Edo-period Kami-Sannomachi district before opening time.
Once the shops open, these streets are crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists,
but at this early hour (about 8am) the delivery trucks can have access. May 24th.

By the time we returned, the pretty loop-frame had been moved outside the shop doors.

A narrow alley between houses in a residential district of Hida-Takayama.

I was taking a photo of the shrine, I swear.

This lovely old-timey rod-brake bike was squirrelled away in a storage area in one of the old houses at Hida No Sato, an outdoor architectural museum of mostly Edo-period farmhouses
on the edge of Hida-Takayama.

Bridgestone-stamped plastic (celluloid?) handles with brass caps. As you can see the bars themselves are pretty rusty.

I had to reach over the bike to get this shot of the chainguard. It was definitely not set up as a display.

Even the leather saddle is Bridgestone (Tokyo) branded. I wonder what the top tube is wrapped with?

Headbadge shot. The poor thing could use a good cleaning but I bet it's still in working condition.
Bridgestone Cycle Co Ltd was started in 1949, so it's no older than that.
This headbadge is one of the ones in this photo.
Given the crazy humidity and the fires kept inside each building,
it could be that rusty and dusty without being particularly old.

Cars, electric trolleys, pedestrians, and bicycles share a busy intersection on a rainy day in Hiroshima.
Notice the two ladies riding while holding umbrellas. May 27th.

Margin of Error

What makes good infrastructure? One key feature is that it is forgiving. Infrastructure that requires expert skills and an absolute focus is crappy infrastructure.

Photo courtesy of Michael Snyder via SeattleBikeBlog.

A recent example of this can be found on the Burke-Gilman Trail. This is the grandaddy of multi-user trails in Seattle. It's a major route for bicycle commuters during the week and is thronged with the kids & dogs crowd on the weekend. It's one of my favourite parts of Seattle. However, it does have its flaws, including a spot near NW 41st St. where the trail crosses railway tracks. The trail does try to indicate that cyclists should cross at a 90 degree angle, but the natural path to take is a shallow angle that places cyclists at considerable risk of catching a tire on the track and falling. To try to improve safety, a rubber mat was installed. This does prevent catching a tire, but can become very slippery itself when it's wet or frosty. Not surprisingly, this has been the site of many accidents (well covered by the Seattle Times and SeattleBikeBlog) and I'm happy to hear that SDOT is fixing it.

The response to the story has been fascinating. At some point in the comments, you'll typically see an exchange like this:

• People ride too fast there! I always slow down enough and cross at a 90 degree angle and I've NEVER had a problem
• Well, I'm a VERY experienced cyclist and have crossed that spot thousands of times without a problem before falling and breaking my arm!
• People have to learn how to cross railway track safely. Slow down and cross at a perfect 90 degree angle!

Now, I'm all for safety, and hearing about these accidents certainly reminds me to be careful when crossing the tracks. I also recognize that the city can't find and correct every hazard out there, whether it's gravel, potholes or wet leaves. However, I think people tend to miss the point. When we build and design infrastructure, we can't assume that everyone using it will be highly skilled. We also can't assume that those who are skilled will be paying perfect attention at every moment in time. Our brains do not work this way. We all get distracted by things we see on our way, personal issues, or even thoughts of dinner. If a spot is particularly risky, you can do everything correctly (which we often don't) and still have a significant chance of falling.

If our infrastructure demands perfection, it's only a matter of time before we'll fail. Good infrastructure allows for some margin of error. We demand it in the design of our highways and cars - let's also demand it in our bicycling infrastructure.

Kirkpatrick MacMillan

Did you know who is thought to have invented the bicycle?

I hadn't looked into it until I ran across this story (see above photo) in BBC History Magazine's September 2010 issue, which unfortunately isn't online. However, the BBC have posted Kirkpatrick MacMillan's biography (with the same images used in the magazine) and a photo of the replica of his bicycle, and there's also the usual wiki pages and squidoo lenses on the guy. The best article I've seen about him is "The Devil On Wheels" by Norrie McLeish.

Lucky me, I just added this postcard to my collection via eBay:

What can I say, I'm a sucker for a story about an earth-changing innovation that doesn't make its inventor wealthy. If Kirkpatrick MacMillan had patented his idea in 1839, would it have spread as widely?

Velocino

Ever since I saw this post on Inhabitat a few months back, I've been thinking about this limited-edition Abici reproduction of a 1940s bike design originally commissioned by Mussolini:

Never mind that there's no obvious way to transport any children or cargo with such a compact vehicle (I guess you might be able to rig up panniers or a rear rack). I'm intrigued. It looks like it could be a brilliant alternative to a folder for taking on the train. But nobody seems to have reviewed the darling thing. So, has anyone tried it?

via Italian website Ciclistica
...Notice that Abici have changed the handlebar position from the originals.
There's also a photo of one of the original ones in a museum here.

Or, for my intrepid mechanic readers: do you know anyone who has tried to make a Velocino, like this guy did?

I'm just really curious about how it rides...

Gender Gap?

There's a fascinating discussion going on in bike-blog-land as a result of Elly Blue's Bicycling's Gender Gap post at Grist. She makes an interesting argument that the gender disparity in ridership figures could be a result of economic disparity and additional caregiving and household duties, in addition to the 'fear and fashion' theories - and points out that both cycling infrastructure and appropriate, affordable bikes for carrying kids and cargo are missing in most North American cities. The lively comment section is well worth a read, with additional points about racism, class-ism, street harassment, and public perceptions of cyclists being made. It's also well worth going back and reading the rest of the series of articles, which includes some especially salient points about political pressure to keep the status quo and the actual costs of freeways. The author also followed up on her own blog. Meanwhile the discussion has spun off onto one of our favourite bicycle blogs, Velo Vogue. Go read the links and meet me back here, mmkay?

You've read it now? Good stuff, right? If a bit counter-intuitive based on the explosion in lady-bike availability and number of women writing fantastic bicycle blogs.

So, instead of debating which is the most important, let's say that all those factors are at play in preventing women from riding at the same rate as men do in North America - which they probably are, to some extent. How can we fix that? How do we encourage more ladies to get on their bikes? Can bike blogs like ours, and the social rides and bikey events organized by blogs like ours, actually make a difference?

Angel (my Loop-Frame Love coblogger) and I probably aren't typical cycling activists (if such a person exists). We're moms with 2 young kids each and minivans and small budgets who live in the suburbs - and we'd love for this blog to (eventually) demonstrate that it's possible to live car-light under those circumstances, if not completely car-free - like our blogging heroes at Carfree With Kids, Car Free Days, Chicargobike, full hands, mamafiets, and Totcycle are already doing on their blogs for their circumstances. So let's be honest about the barriers we face to doing that, and how they relate to the factors mentioned above.

(Our coblogger Jen's situation differs from ours in that she's living in a more central neighborhood in a different city, has one child, and is still commuting to full-time work instead of staying home or working part-time... so we hope she'll chime in in the comment section.)

My favourite current setup for easy kid-hauling is the Bobike Junior seat on a Raleigh-built 3-speed (Ms. Trudy Phillips),
but my 8-year-old is a bit too big for the seat and the pretty wicker basket will only hold a small bag of groceries.

We're pretty lucky in a lot of ways. We're middle-class white Canadians, so our experiences are fairly sheltered. Our husbands are not themselves cyclists, but are happy to support our interest in cycling. We're part of a bigger local community of cyclists, advocates, and bike bloggers who are demonstrating through their daily lives and organized rides just how much fun life on two wheels can be. We're social creatures, so it's probably important in helping us stay motivated that we have that support system.

We live in a city with progressive urban planners who are in the process of improving the infrastructure for public transit and active transport, and we live in neighborhoods that have multi-user paths and/or sharrowed bike lanes that we can safely ride to useful destinations. However, we also live in the closest big city to the Oilsands, in a politically conservative part of Canada, in a place where a large proportion of the automotive vehicles using the roads are pick-up trucks and sports utility vehicles. So, when we venture outside the MUPs and sharrows, we don't always encounter drivers who are predisposed to be kind to bicycle users. We have been buzzed and yelled at. We totally understand when our friends who haven't ridden since their teens ask hesitantly about traffic on the route for the next Critical Lass. That said, the infrastructure in our neighborhoods has made that a pretty minor concern for our day-to-day rides.

We're also really lucky to be part of a community with an amazing not-for-profit (EBC) that makes it possible to buy a low-cost vintage bike and turn it into a safe, reliable ride we can wear our regular clothes on; but turning it into a grocery-getter and a good way to get young children from A to B can be a bit of a challenge. We still wish we could get our hands on a longtail or cargo bike without having to blow our budgets. Going car-free so we can increase our bicycle budgets is not in the cards for our families, and we're both still figuring out how we can run bike errands with two kids in tow, since neither of our eldest children are strong solo cyclists yet, despite being too big to be passengers. We'll be actively working on that during the summer holiday from school.

We can testify that how busy our day is and how pressed for time we feel does directly affect how much (or how little) we ride. A quick run to the grocery store without children for a few items is easily managed by bike, but multiple errands with the kids becomes an all-day adventure when you're not properly set up to do it by bike. A longtail or cargo bike would make that much easier, but ferrying the kids to extracurricular activities in other parts of the city immediately after school still would require a car because of the distances involved. If we were commuting for work, public transit would probably be more time-efficient than cycling, because we both live walking distance from major suburban transit hubs (As it happens, my husband has found that taking the LRT downtown is usually quicker than driving, and more pleasant.). So, ability to use our bikes while caring for our children and living our busy lives has been our single biggest barrier to riding more.

Your turn, my friends. What's your single biggest barrier to riding more? Which barriers do you feel apply to your friends (of either gender) who don't use their bikes? How can bike bloggers and cycling advocates help remove those barriers?

Update: I've just been reading Velouria's post on Lovely Bicycle about the different kinds of bicycle commuting, and I wonder how the study that's being discussed accounted for office-job commuters versus freelancers and errand-runners, and how gender might skew which category you fall into?


Update 2: You need to also check out LGRAB's new series of guest posts on commuting by novice cyclists, the first of which was just posted - they'll be talking about their barriers and how they surmounted them, too! I love the ideas from the current post of learning to bike commute in steps, and seeking out social ties to the activity so you have friends and role models. 


3rd July, Update 3: We've been invited to crosspost this piece on the perfectly wonderful blog Lindsay's List, which has necessitated a slight rewrite and the addition of a shout-out to a few of our car-free-and-car-light family blog heroes. I'll also be adding a photo that wasn't originally included, of my current setup, once it's been taken.


10 July, Update 4: http://lindsayslist.org/2011/07/gender-gap/ It's up!