Thursday, July 30, 2015

event: Community Night Out next Tuesday, Aug 4 5-8PM

The Princeton Recreation Department, Princeton Police Department and Princeton PBA # 130 will host Community Night Out at Community Park Pool on Tuesday, August 4 from 5-8 pm.  All Community Night Out activities are free of charge including swimming pool admission, dunk tank, rock-climbing wall and other family-friendly activities. Additional activities will include group zumba, hoola-hoop contest and much more!
Community Night Out will host many Princeton community organizations and agencies including The Princeton Recreation Commission, Corner House, Princeton Fire Dept., Princeton Human Services Commission, Princeton Engineering Dept., Access Princeton and many more.


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

PFW 35th annual Event is this Saturday, August 1


To clarify, PFW isn't "Paris Fashion Week". Au contraire, it's
the Princeton FreeWheelers bike club.  Check out the link below.


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

news round-up



by Cyndi Steiner and Aaron Hyndman of New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition


by Anne Levin of Town Topics



Ford Tries to Figure out Bicycles     by Sarah Goodyear, The Atlantic "CityLab"


 The Bicycle and the Ride to Modern America   by Natalie Angier, NY Times

Saturday, July 18, 2015

pain-o-rama


In her latest dispatch, NYT journalist Juliet Macur writes

"In Lance Armstrong's profile photo on Twitter, he is standing, 
arms crossed, in front of a sign that says "PAIN" in big red letters. 
Never mind that the sign is most likely sitting just outside a French
bakery. Armstrong could be referring to the pain riders are going 
through as they ride the 2,088 miles of this year's Tour de France, 
or he could be pointing out the pain he is feeling after nearly three
years of banishment from all Olympic sports ..."

Armstrong was invited to France by Geoff Thomas, a retired British
soccer star, to raise money for a leukemia charity.

Meanwhile, back to pain, a French word derived from the Latin "panis".

Consider the iconic photo by Elliott Erwitt. Its title is "Provence 1955"
and is so iconic, it's inspired "Béret Baguette" bike rides in ParisVancouver,
San Francisco. Princeton at least has a baguette guru - Denis Granarolo.

Not quite as iconic as his "Invitation au rêve / Share the fantasy" ad for
Chanel N°5, the 1973 ad for Hovis bread by director Sir Ridley Scott was
voted the favorite TV advertisement of all time in a poll of British viewers.
Its central element was re-used from Scott's Boy and Bicycle, and while
conjuring an image of the north of England, was filmed far from there.

In The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread Russell Shorto writes:

     "The advent of bike lanes in some American cities may seem like a big step, 
     but merely marking a strip of the road for recreational cycling spectacularly 
     misses the point. In Amsterdam, nearly everyone cycles, and cars, bikes and 
     trams coexist in a complex flow, with dedicated bicycle lanes, traffic lights 
     and parking garages. But this is thanks to a different way of thinking about 
     transportation. [...] The coexistence of different modes of travel is hard-wired 
     into the culture. This in turn relates to lots of other things — such as bread. 
     How? Cyclists can't carry six bags of groceries; bulk buying is almost nonexistent. 
     Instead of shopping for a week, people stop at the market daily. So the need for 
     processed loaves that will last for days is gone. A result: good bread."

What about carrying the loaves of bread ? You'd need a breadbasket (pannier),
I suppose. Although Depardieu carries the baguette bare-handed, as if jousting,
he might prefer to use the baguette bag from a Kiev-based apparel company, Cyan.

Seeking guidance from TV advertisers, we discover their promotion of the seldom-seen
'tower-of-bread-on-your-head' carrying method -- from Dow Chemical, not the defunct
Dow brewery which enhanced the "head" of its beer by adding cobalt to the brew.

What's the connection between the world of bakeries and the Tour de France ? The
bike racing aficionado will have heard of the aptly-named Raymond Impanis, whose
nickname was "the baker of Berg" after his hometown in Flemish Brabant. It says here
bakerboy examples [...] are Impanis, Hugo Koblet, and Ferdi Kubler. Former butcher boys, 
grocery shop boys and newspaper delivery boys include Merckx, Maertens, VanLooy, Coppi.

Daniel Mangeas, the long-time voice of the Tour de France, worked as a baker for 10 years.

Robert Förstemann, German track specialist, isn't a roadie. He's also been a producer of toast.

A delivery bike featuring a heavy-duty rack over the front wheel is known as a porteur. It's a
type of freight bike, a lightweight alternative to the "cargo" bike. The porteurs of Paris
provides an interesting background. An up-to-date example is the Runwell Porteur model by
Shinola of Detroit.  How many baguettes can the Runwell accomodate ?  Shinola's president
Jacques Panis probably knows the answer.



















Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Planet Princeton op-ed: "Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad?" by Nat B


Please check out the comments thread and consider adding your two bits.



At public meetings lately, there's been a lot of support for bicycling and pedestrian safety improvements, but there's been equally strong resistance. 

A variety of improvements intended to slow traffic and create safer spaces for people on foot and bike have been opposed on grounds that they would, among other things: 
  • Increase traffic hazards and reduce convenience for drivers 
  • Not actually be useful for bike and pedestrian safety 
  • Pose excessive obstacles to resident parking and brush disposal 
  • Reduce access to home services for residents 
  • Jeopardize the health and safety of senior citizens