Bike Commuting

Norway’s Fyllingsdalen tunnel is a showstopping piece of urban cycling infrastructure — for a city where car-centric development still dominates.

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Bergen’s most recent attraction is a unique one: In April, the city of around 270,000 opened the Fyllingsdalen tunnel, a three-kilometer bike-pedestrian pathway that was bored through a mountain. Local officials proudly declared Fyllingsdalen tunnel to be “the world’s longest purpose-built cycling tunnel.” (The Snoqualmie tunnel in Washington State is lengthier, but it used to be rail line.)

Fyllingsdalen tunnel is about as photogenic as an urban bike path can get. Inside, it offers art installations and creative lighting; at its exit, there are stunning mountain views. CNN and Smithsonian have lavished it with international attention, and visiting cycling advocates like the Netherlands-based authors Melissa and Chris Bruntlett have swooned.

Last month I hopped on a bike to traverse the tunnel for myself, and I can confirm that it is an ingenious piece of healthy, climate-friendly infrastructure; I have never seen anything remotely like it. The tunnel is also practical, providing a car-free connection between Bergen’s bustling city center and a fast-growing neighborhood on the other side of the mountain.

But — there is a big “but.” As awe-inspiring as Fyllingsdalen tunnel is, it is still only a Band-Aid fix for Bergen’s decades of car-oriented development. The tunnel reflects the city’s current efforts to shift local trips away from cars, but that goal clashes with a national government whose transportation policies still revolve around the automobile. In such an environment, even the most spectacular bike path can only do so much

The photo is just for the cover :)

Has anyone cycled through Bosnia and Herzegovina? I'm planning my next solo trip and I'm thinking of going from Belgrade to Sarajevo, crossing the border at Bajina Basta Water Power Plant one way, after visiting Sarajevo it looks like I can cross the border at Bijelina. Most of the videos on YouTube are about cycling back through Croatia, but this is not an option for me due to visa restrictions... The whole route (~700km with +-8500m of altitude difference) looks like an interesting challenge and a great opportunity to get to know BiH.

But I have a lot of general questions about road quality, driver culture in relation to cyclists, water accessibility, etc. I'm also worried about the mountains near Sarajevo: from the border to Sarajevo and from Sarajevo to Tuzla. How good are these mountain roads for cycling? Is it possible to zigzag on the most difficult climbs?

Thanks in advance!

A common frustration in my part of the world is that transit does not run very often, and there are only 2 spots for bikes on the front of buses. There have been many times when I've had to wait an extra hour just to see if the next bus happens to have a spot for my bike.

Every time this happens, I promise myself that I'm going to someday spend the money to buy a folding bike (which can be taken on the bus if it's folded).

In my head, riding a folding bike is a joyous experience, partly because of Dr Sharon riding a Brompton in Ted Lasso, but I'm curious what it's actually like.

My dream folding bikes are any model of Brompton, a RadExpand 5, or a Tern Link D7i.

As summer nears its end, I'm very curious to know what everyone does to handle the rain. For myself, I throw on a pair of rain pants over rubber rain boots with a GoreTex rain jacket.

At my work desk I have an old pair of Toms shoes that I bought at Goodwill that are super comfortable - I slip into them when I arrive and out of them when I leave.

I have a waterproof Timbuk2 saddlebag-style pannier, which I use to bring my lunchbox.

If you're intimidated by riding in the rain, give it a try! It's really quite invigorating and people will think you're either crazy, or a badass. Both seem fine to me!

Now, the Federal Highway Administration has finished drafting a new, 11th edition of the MUTCD. The document is being reviewed by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Once the OMB approves the new Manual–likely later this summer or fall–it will be published and go into legal effect, shaping the design of U.S. streets for years to come.

When it's hot during the day and cold at night, I sometimes find myself under-dressed for late evening riding. I can pedal harder to generate body heat, but on flat ground that creates wind chill & doesn't help. Pedaling hard while lightly holding the brakes works really well to warm up!

But the downhill-biking folks warn about the hazards of overheating brakes (mostly disc brakes but also rim brakes / V-brakes). I have V-brakes.

I imagine just pedaling into brakes transfers heat into them much slowly than controlling downhill descents, since I can go down hills much faster than I can go up hills (it takes much longer to transfer one hill's worth of energy from my muscles into having climbed the hill than to transfer the same one hill's worth of energy into the brakes/rims while descending it).

Do I need to worry about this at all?

Hello, community! I saw in one video that tires and wheel weight are critical for the fast cycling. But how important is it for the tourism? For example, I'm using "hard" slick tires from Kenda (on the photo) that are great for asphalt roads and are very strong against small stones, plant spines and glasa pieces. The problem is weight about 600g (700x32c). I also have 700x32c soft and lightweight gravel tires with only 300g weight. But how important is it for cycling if I have about 10 additional kilograms of bags on top of my bike when I go into a long trip? Does it make sense to lose the durability and dril resistance of Kenda Kwest 700x32c for decreasing the weight of tires twice? Thanks in advance!

I recently found out that Racktime makes little snap-on bracks that let me turn anything I can drill holes in into snap-on modules for my bike.

The Bike is a rental so it took some time to figure out how to add a rear rack so that I can take it off if I need to return it but I am incredibly happy with the results!

I was going to upgrade my bike (Decathlon Triban 100) and ordered the whole new groupset (Shimano SORA). It will be delivered soon, so my question is how hard is the replacing process? It is not a problem to pay in local bike service for the replacement but I'm also interested in trying by myself. I have a repairment kit and all the things, I like to make some maintenance of bike by mysleft but I didn't do so complex maintenance before.

Today, I'm feeling a bit bad about myself. I'm new to cycling, and to be quite honest, I was going too recklessly and almost got myself hit by a car or two. I could absolutely learn how to check my turns better.

What are your favorite tips for learning how to cycle safely in the city?

Does anyone have any experience with these?

Just starting to bike commute and looking for a way to carry my pocket essentials. What's your favorite way to carry?

Crossgeposted von: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/432318

Hi everyone!

If anyone of you is interested in Bromptons, we are starting a small space for you and your stories over at !brompton@discuss.tchncs.de

Hope to see some of you there!
Keep on riding.

About three years ago I upgraded from a cheap MTB bike to an upright dutch-inspired urban bike.

For the equivalent of about $300 USD on sale, I got an aluminium frame, front and rear mudguards, internal 7-speed hub, extended handlebars, and all-weather rollerbrakes. They're nowhere near as powerful as diskbrakes, but they do the job.

The pie chart data is from a bike expenses spreadsheet I keep, was surprised actually to find out how little I've spent on maintenance, in comparison to completely optional accessories for the bike...

About my previous and current commuter

My cheap MTB had served me well for 4 years prior, despite being a bit neglected in the maintenance department. Don't get me wrong - there was chain cleaning and re-lubing after wet weather, replacing diskbrake pads and all that stuff, but it wasn't perfect and sometimes it was just plain tedious to do.

The upgrade made a lot of sense at the time, and after 3 years of owning the Dutch-inspired bike I've not needed to do much maintenance at all. However, it's a little difficult to get parts for the bike outside of the Netherlands, worsened slightly by the original retailer no longer selling consumables such as the rollerbrake grease and internal gear grease. Despite that the bike has been rock solid, still shifts and stops like new. I'll need to give the internal hub an oil bath at some point though - not looking forward to that...

Nobody will ever convince me that this is not pronounced "Bike-ee town".

Great video from Tom Babin about bike racks

I was shocked on my commute to work last week when a couple blocks worth of bike lane had broken glass strewn about.

I just can't stop wondering if it was on purpose you know? Normally cars are parked or pedestrians are walking in the bike lane so it seems counter intuitive if it was on purpose.

I mean all winter people were shovelling snow directly into the bike lanes so I'm pretty pessimistic at this point.

I love commuting by bike! I just wish it felt safer.

BMC Alpenchallenge Road 1 with Herkelmann Wingees Fender/Rack combo and Lupine lighting.

I sort of created a system where the tiny bag in the front will contain my personal stuff like phone charger, water bottle, wallet, earphones, etc.

The first bag in the back contains the tech stuff like laptop, audio interface, and microphones (if any), and the larger bag contains the heavy lifting stuff like the cables, smaller table mic stands I can fit inside it, duct tape, scissors, AC/DC adapters and so on.

Last time I did 20km each way on it, and although I got home pretty tired, it also felt super rewarding as well.

Its a RadWagon 4 that I bought last year to haul my kiddo around (before he was even born lol). The bike's name is Clementino.

I found the berry flat on the side of the road and then zap strapped it to the front for extra grocery carrying capacity. Its a beast of a bike for sure, but hopefully not too ugly 😄