#bikecommuting — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bikecommuting, aggregated by home.social.
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E, per la prima volta in vita mia, sono andato per #Padova in bici. Ho fatto il giro delle mura rinascimentali, molto bello e scenografico, quasi tutto su canali, all'ombra. Parchi, monumenti, tante bici e poche auto.
Consiglio ruote larghe, viste le pavimentazioni sconnesse, in ogni caso la bici è ottima per girare queata città, come è evidente dal loro numero enorme in giro 😉
#mastobikes #bikeToEverywhere #cycling #bicycle #bicicletta #BikeTooter #bikecommuting #bici #fedibikes
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ICE in Minnesota
Oh my friends, ICE has arrived in Minneapolis and the greater Twin Cities metro. They are driving around unmarked SUVs threatening and intimidating people. Contrary to the lies spewing from the President’s mouth, the state is not overrun by Somali gangs, they do not commit most of the crimes, and 91% of them are U.S. citizens, many of them born and raised here, with the remaining 9% having visas, green cards, or protected refugee status. Sure, it’s possible some are here illegally, but if so, they are negligible in number.
Minneapolis is a sanctuary city. The mayor declared city property off limits for ICE to use as staging. A Target store right across the street from the police station that was set on fire during the George Floyd unrest, allowed ICE to use their large parking lot for staging and as a result has seen a drop in business and crowds of protesters. Our Chief of Police publicly announced that if any city police officer sees an ICE agent breaking the law and/or using excessive force, the police officer is to arrest the ICE agent and if they do not, the police officer will be fired.
Area businesses, nonprofits, and community groups have been preparing for the eventual arrival of ICE for months by passing out “know your rights” information and holding information sessions, offering free trainings on how to stay safe and how to be an observer, and creating rapid response phone numbers and teams of people. Now they are handing out whistles, following ICE SUVs around the city, patrolling schools, daycares, houses of worship, and neighborhoods. There are protests at the airport (deportation flights) and protests outside the ICE facility nearby.
I am so proud of my neighbors and city! I wish I could be part of a response team, but I don’t have the means to do that. I do, however, have one of the rapid response hotline numbers on one-touch dial on my phone so I can report something if I see it. My bike commute takes me right by a Somali and East African rich neighborhood and apartment complex so I am keeping alert.
So far there have been no big raids like in Chicago. And local news is reporting that 19 people have been arrested, but that is only the number that ICE has disclosed, there is no information about how many have been detained and released or are in custody awaiting deportation.
As for the lies regarding Somalis involved in the Feeding our Future nutrition aid scandal, there is zero evidence that they sent money to terrorist groups. Also, they have been tried and sent to jail. Apparently if they were white pedophiles or rich white men who stole millions of dollars, they’d be pardoned by the President, but since they have black and brown skin, well, that means that all Somalis and people with black and brown skin are criminals.
Please send out good thoughts to Minnesota, the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and our immigrant neighbors. And if you can, contact your elected representatives and demand they do something to stop ICE operations across the country.
One of the students at the university where I work told me about Jesse Welles the other day. Oh my, he is good. So please enjoy this clip from his recent performance on Stephen Colbert, “Join ICE”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61I4hlig78w&list=RD61I4hlig78w&start_radio=1
Times like these it is still important to find joy. This has been a frigid cold week with dustings of snow nearly everyday. Thursday I biked home in the cold and snow and a wicked headwind with gusts that nearly stopped my forward motion at times. I was so tired there were moments I wanted to pull over, get off my bike, lay down in the snow and cry. But I made it home where James had a hot and delicious dinner ready, and then we had a restful evening.
Friday I felt so much better and the bike commute to and from work was so amazing that it reminded me that biking in winter can be absolutely magical.
But then James told me a rabbit has gotten into the garden. Rabbit has nibbled a few tips off the cherry bushes and they are now surrounded with wire mesh to keep them safe. Today I figured out where Rabbit got into the garden. James has repaired the breaches—there were two—but now we have to get the critter out! You would think getting the rabbit out in winter would be easy since there are fewer places for them to hide, but it is almost harder because James and I have to give chase through the snow.
Ethel and Sia will not walk on snow which means their garden wandering days are done for now. We’ve turned the heat on in the coop a few nights and days, and even when the heat is not on, they spend a good amount of time in there. Can’t day I blame them!
In sourdough news, I can happily report that using a kitchen scale has turned out to be freaking amazing! The pumpernickel sourdough bagels are not going to win a beauty contest, but, wow, did they taste good!
Today I made multigrain sandwich bread. I have made this a couple times before using the estimated cups and tablespoons measurements in the recipe, but this time I used the more precise grams measurements and the loaf is the best one ever!
Why did I resist getting a kitchen scale for so long? I had no idea it would make such a big difference. Now I will never go back!
Over the long Thanksgiving weekend I enjoyed a slow and thorough perusal on the Fedco and Seed Savers Exchange catalogs. So much “new” veg I’d like to try and grow! I’m always conflicted between whether to grow a lot of a few things or a little of a lot of things. I swing wildly back and forth from year to year. This year I’m swinging towards a lot of some things and a little of a few things. Maybe one day I will find the magical middle.
#bikeCommuting #ice #jesseWelles #pumpernickelBagels #rabbits #seedCatalogs #sourdough
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My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.
And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.
One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.
Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.
A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.
Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.
Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.
Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.
And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.
I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.
6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/
#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate
