Streetfilms has a new video focusing on women who are new to cycling in New York.
Check it out!
Women In Motion: New Lady Riders Reflect on NYC Cycling from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
Hat Tip to BikeHugger for this one.
Showing posts with label Livability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Livability. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Ups and Downs of Alternative Errand Running
While on foot one lovely day this weekend, Mark and I had pleasant walk up the hill to run errands. We stopped and smelled (and photographed) the flowers.
Admired the garden sculptures.
Said hello to a crow or two.
And had an other wise happy time.
We went to the library, grocery store and pet store. Very productive with heavy packs to show for it. On the way down we enjoyed the view of Puget Sound and The Olympic Mountains and took a short cut. A quieter little side street, that was significantly steeper. With wet washed aggregate sidewalks. This is where the "Downs" came into play and literally at that. One minute I was looking around with a smile on my face listening the happy chirps of birds and watching plum blossoms float through the air and the next I was attempting the half splits with a loaded backpack. All of my weight and that I was carrying came down on one knee. All the while my other leg tried to continue its impatient journey down the hill. The results?
I was not very happy. Wasn't I too old for scraped knees and severely bruised (thank goodness it wasn't shattered) knee caps?! I sat a while to contemplate this and to get a more even breath back.
Then came the fun part of making my way the rest of the way down the hill - in the road where there was no washed aggregate. (WHO thought this slippery material would be a good choice for steep sloped sidewalks in the very wet pacific northwest?!)
My gaping wounds and pouring blood got me plenty of attention. One young child and his toddler little sister were standing next to the sidewalk a little further along waiting for their dad to finish getting things out of the car. When the little boy saw me coming, maybe 20 feet away or a little more, his face went pale, eyes got big and he yelled out "WHY?" very loudly - he was mortified! The father was trying to get there attention and hadn't seen me yet, as I walked up along side them I mentioned that the boy was a bit preoccupied by my scraped knee. When the dad saw it, he smiled. "Oh, yeah, he just got one of those, himself, recently." Poor kid. The sight of my knee brought the whole experience tearing back into his mind. Maybe a first lesson in empathy? A little further along some other neighbors looked over the fence and offered me band aides. But we were close to home now and I was looking so forward to getting gravel out of my knee and pouring witch hazel over it. Oh, yeah.
Admired the garden sculptures.
Said hello to a crow or two.
And had an other wise happy time.
We went to the library, grocery store and pet store. Very productive with heavy packs to show for it. On the way down we enjoyed the view of Puget Sound and The Olympic Mountains and took a short cut. A quieter little side street, that was significantly steeper. With wet washed aggregate sidewalks. This is where the "Downs" came into play and literally at that. One minute I was looking around with a smile on my face listening the happy chirps of birds and watching plum blossoms float through the air and the next I was attempting the half splits with a loaded backpack. All of my weight and that I was carrying came down on one knee. All the while my other leg tried to continue its impatient journey down the hill. The results?
I was not very happy. Wasn't I too old for scraped knees and severely bruised (thank goodness it wasn't shattered) knee caps?! I sat a while to contemplate this and to get a more even breath back.
Then came the fun part of making my way the rest of the way down the hill - in the road where there was no washed aggregate. (WHO thought this slippery material would be a good choice for steep sloped sidewalks in the very wet pacific northwest?!)
My gaping wounds and pouring blood got me plenty of attention. One young child and his toddler little sister were standing next to the sidewalk a little further along waiting for their dad to finish getting things out of the car. When the little boy saw me coming, maybe 20 feet away or a little more, his face went pale, eyes got big and he yelled out "WHY?" very loudly - he was mortified! The father was trying to get there attention and hadn't seen me yet, as I walked up along side them I mentioned that the boy was a bit preoccupied by my scraped knee. When the dad saw it, he smiled. "Oh, yeah, he just got one of those, himself, recently." Poor kid. The sight of my knee brought the whole experience tearing back into his mind. Maybe a first lesson in empathy? A little further along some other neighbors looked over the fence and offered me band aides. But we were close to home now and I was looking so forward to getting gravel out of my knee and pouring witch hazel over it. Oh, yeah.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Car-free weekend out and about
Last weekend, Maurie and I had our first car-free weekend since before we moved to West Seattle that involved more than just staying home and knocking about our neighborhood all weekend.
This being the first ever Seattle Tweed Ride, and the weather was looking promising, we decided that we'd join in the fun on Sunday. After exploding our closet all over the bedroom, and several plastic storage bins as well, we discovered we had little appropriate for the event. Time to visit some thrift & second hand stores. We'd decided that we really didn't want to get in the car this weekend at all, so we caught a bus into town. We spent Saturday busing and walkning through town, hitting thrift shops, and a second hand shop on Capitol Hill (ironically, a couple blocks away from where we'd meet for the ride on Sunday).
After a fairly exhausting day "off the island", as we tend to view our trips into downtown, we returned home and more or less crashed. Shortening my pants to knickers length will have to wait until morning, as will pulling together food and making the rest of the preparations for the ride.
Sunday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed shortly before the alarm and began preparations for the ride. I brought the bikes out of the basement, got the picknick blanket and basket. We prepared food and Maurie shortened my pants. We got into costume and wheeled our bikes to the bus stop, arriving with less than five minutes to spare before the bus arrived. We had a good transfer downtown (less than five minutes to wait) and arrived at Cal Anderson Park for the ride half an hour early. People finally started to arrive right around noon, and continued to gather, drinking tea (and other libations), eating snacks and playing games. Among those who showed up were Julian from Totcycle, Tim & Anne from CarFree Days, and Eric from Tubulocity.
Shortly after 1 when we headed out for the ride itself. North up the length of Capitol Hill and across the University Bridge, then on to Gasworks park where we took a break.
We left the ride here, opting out of the pub stop, to make our way home, via the Seattle waterfront. We made a quick stop at the Fremont PCC to refill water and get some iced tea. While waiting outside, I was noticed by two gals who I worked with in at the state legislature. I must have been quite the sight!
We made our way by bike along Lake Union, and then up through Belltown to the Olympic Sculpture Park, where we rested for a bit looking out across the Puget Sound at the boats and the Olympic Mountains beyond. A deisre for coffee finally rousted us from our chairs and we made our way down the crowded waterfront to a Starbucks. So we didn't have to undo the half mile (hey, it seemed like that) of rope securing the picknick basket to my rear rack, we went in singly to get our drinks. The barista (technically, in this case since we're talking about a make here, shouldn't it be baristo?) had been at the ride until he had to go to work.
We made our way to the bus stop, only to discover that we had a 40 minute wait until the next bus home (really, one hour headways on Sundays for a route that goes to Alki, Metro? What's up with that!). Since it was getting chilly out, we decided to ride home. It was a pleasant ride home, mostly on milti-use path. As we rode along the Elliott Bay shoreline, we really were reminded why we love living here in Seattle so much. The Seattle skyline, the sunset over the Olympics with the ferries crossing the sound in the foreground, the smell of beach fires.
Seven and a half hours, and a nineteen mile bike ride later, we were home...and ready to crash!
You can read Maurie's writeup on the Tweed Ride here.
This being the first ever Seattle Tweed Ride, and the weather was looking promising, we decided that we'd join in the fun on Sunday. After exploding our closet all over the bedroom, and several plastic storage bins as well, we discovered we had little appropriate for the event. Time to visit some thrift & second hand stores. We'd decided that we really didn't want to get in the car this weekend at all, so we caught a bus into town. We spent Saturday busing and walkning through town, hitting thrift shops, and a second hand shop on Capitol Hill (ironically, a couple blocks away from where we'd meet for the ride on Sunday).
After a fairly exhausting day "off the island", as we tend to view our trips into downtown, we returned home and more or less crashed. Shortening my pants to knickers length will have to wait until morning, as will pulling together food and making the rest of the preparations for the ride.
Sunday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed shortly before the alarm and began preparations for the ride. I brought the bikes out of the basement, got the picknick blanket and basket. We prepared food and Maurie shortened my pants. We got into costume and wheeled our bikes to the bus stop, arriving with less than five minutes to spare before the bus arrived. We had a good transfer downtown (less than five minutes to wait) and arrived at Cal Anderson Park for the ride half an hour early. People finally started to arrive right around noon, and continued to gather, drinking tea (and other libations), eating snacks and playing games. Among those who showed up were Julian from Totcycle, Tim & Anne from CarFree Days, and Eric from Tubulocity.
Me, "tweeded-up" testing my stability with that huge picnic basket on my rear rack
My dapper bride, posing with her bike
Shortly after 1 when we headed out for the ride itself. North up the length of Capitol Hill and across the University Bridge, then on to Gasworks park where we took a break.
We left the ride here, opting out of the pub stop, to make our way home, via the Seattle waterfront. We made a quick stop at the Fremont PCC to refill water and get some iced tea. While waiting outside, I was noticed by two gals who I worked with in at the state legislature. I must have been quite the sight!
We made our way by bike along Lake Union, and then up through Belltown to the Olympic Sculpture Park, where we rested for a bit looking out across the Puget Sound at the boats and the Olympic Mountains beyond. A deisre for coffee finally rousted us from our chairs and we made our way down the crowded waterfront to a Starbucks. So we didn't have to undo the half mile (hey, it seemed like that) of rope securing the picknick basket to my rear rack, we went in singly to get our drinks. The barista (technically, in this case since we're talking about a make here, shouldn't it be baristo?) had been at the ride until he had to go to work.
We made our way to the bus stop, only to discover that we had a 40 minute wait until the next bus home (really, one hour headways on Sundays for a route that goes to Alki, Metro? What's up with that!). Since it was getting chilly out, we decided to ride home. It was a pleasant ride home, mostly on milti-use path. As we rode along the Elliott Bay shoreline, we really were reminded why we love living here in Seattle so much. The Seattle skyline, the sunset over the Olympics with the ferries crossing the sound in the foreground, the smell of beach fires.
Seattle evening skyline from West Seattle
Seven and a half hours, and a nineteen mile bike ride later, we were home...and ready to crash!
You can read Maurie's writeup on the Tweed Ride here.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Cycling Friendly Cities
I came across this video today. The resolution on the YouTube version is poor. If you'd like to see a higher resolution version, you can find the video podcast (for iTunes users and those with m4v players) here.
What I appreciate about this is the effort that cities have put to make their cores livable areas; taking the emphasis away from motorized mobility, and putting it on human-powered mobility.
What I appreciate about this is the effort that cities have put to make their cores livable areas; taking the emphasis away from motorized mobility, and putting it on human-powered mobility.
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