This seemed to get held up in the queue for the last few months, but here is a piece by JC resident and Grove Street Velo member Ken!
Our bike riding neighbors to the west in Newark are getting a “protected bike lane.” Hope that means Jersey City is next — right Mayor Healy? The word is Jersey Avenue might soon have a bike lane, but the primary goals should be Newark Avenue and Montgomery Street, the two main arteries to downtown Jersey City.
Another nearby city, Philadelphia, hosted a two day Bike Expo during Halloween weekend. Screened during a seminar on Sunday was One Got Fat:
This anti-cycling expression masked as a bicycle safety film has been shown to students in schools in America for decades. My girlfriend saw it in middle school as recently as the late 80’s. Halloween weekend prepared us for fright, but the monkey masks in the film are truly horrific, as is the narrator’s voice. I can’t see how any child would choose to go near a bike immediately after watching this smear campaign. Within 9 blocks to the park, every bike rider was toast, that’s a great message to send our youth. The literal translation for this video would be, “if you ride bikes, you’re a dumb monkey.” The only kid that was spared was the one who chose to walk to the park.
It was screened at the Expo during a seminar by Baltimore’s Sam Fitzsimmons whom I had the pleasure to meet. Read more about Sam at urban velo here.
The point of Sam’s seminar: clearly someone didn’t want kids to ride bikes. Only the crappiest, heaviest, most impractical bikes were being marketed to kids at that time. They were marginalized from viable efficient transportation to toys that collect dust in the garage after the first flat. Someone decided all the practical aspects of cycling were best kept secret.
Sam brought in a couple of examples of such ornamental clunkers, this is what the youth of America typically got for Christmas during those days.
We also took a photo of this guy who, in the spirit of Halloween, showed up at the Bike Snob NYC seminar dressed as Cru Jones from the 1986 bike film Rad.
The lumber yard chase scene at 3:20 is a classic, by the way.
The bike snob was not snobby at all and actually seems like a cool guy. He gave out free stuff to people in a hilarious game of impromptu Bike Snob Trivia. The Snob said, “My stock and trade as a blogger is stupid, goofy cragistlist posts… This is how I make a living… I’ve never written a fake craigslist ad. That would be like doping.”
New York’s bike painting artist Taliah Lempart, as well as Bike Cult author Dave Perry were also spotted in attendance. Check out bikecult.com for more on their work.
Check out the lug work on this custom Waterford on display at the Philly Bike Expo:
These machines were spotted over by Bilenky’s table:
Speaking of the gracious host, here is Mr. Bilenky’s cyclocross bike courtesy of fixedgeargallery.com, they’ve got a slew of photos from the Expo. Thanks to Bilenky for putting the Philly Expo together.
