Utility Cycling | Use Your Bicycle.

Pedicabs: Hop On In!

Posted on 29. Jul, 2010 by Melanie Meyers.

On a recent trip to San Diego, CA, for a conference, I was impressed with the enormous number of pedicabs that were carting people around. As a result, I decided it was high time to write a post dedicated to the versatile, human-powered form of transportation that is the cycle rickshaw or pedicab. When we first set out to define utility cycling, pedicabs were categorized under retail and commercial services by bike. However, like many other utility cycling activities, pedicabs are complex and can fall into more than one utility cycling category. I debated whether pedicabs were a bike service, a form of general bicycle transportation, or simply a fun way of getting around by bicycle. In the end, pedicabs are all of these things and more, but they fall most solidly into the category of bike services, since pedicabs drivers provide a service to their riders, even though the riders might be using the pedicab for general transportation or simple a way to get around by bike.

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The City Hub: People-Managed Bike Share

Posted on 18. Jul, 2010 by Stacey Moses.

In March 2010, Revolution Cycles, an independent bicycle retailer in the DC metro area, opened its fifth location. This new shop, the City Hub, is no ordinary bike shop, however. After more than a decade of success in traditional bicycle retail with Revolution Cycles, owners Mike Hamannwright and Santiago “Pinkey” Gonzalez decided to venture into [...]

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Austin Nominated for VH1 2010 “Do Something City” Award

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by Ted Johnson.

Austin. As in Texas.
Here in Arizona, we have great empathy for our fellow Wild West state. We often find ourselves inadvertently competing to be America’s political punch line. But when you get down to localities and municipalities, there’s a lot about which we can be proud, especially when it comes to cycling culture, and [...]

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Analysis of Google’s Bike-There Feature: Part II

Posted on 02. Jul, 2010 by Melanie Meyers.

In April, I wrote the first part of an analysis of Google’s new Bike-There feature on Google Maps. Google announced their game-changing new feature in early March of 2010. When I first reviewed Google’s Bike-There feature, I had some criticisms of the underlying factors and variables that Google used to build the algorithm, which is [...]

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Social Action through Cycling

Posted on 28. Jun, 2010 by Stacey Moses.

Social action, generally speaking, refers to an act performed by an individual or a group to work towards achieving a goal that is valued by society. Bicycles can be used to support different types of social action, such as charity rides in which a bike ride is the main event in an effort to raise [...]

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Community Building: Cycling Organizations

Posted on 23. Jun, 2010 by Stacey Moses.

At Utility Cycling, we’ve discussed how bicycles can bring together people of similar interests to create communities of likeminded cyclists, and how bicycles can be used not only for transportation, deliveries and services, but also for social gatherings and social action, and self-expression. There is a utility in all of these activities, whether the goal [...]

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Getting Around by Bicycle

Posted on 17. Jun, 2010 by Melanie Meyers.

I’m going to especially enjoy writing this post, because the topic is my favorite kind of utility cycling. We have been writing a lot recently about general bicycle transportation, which is distinct from bicycle commuting, as commuting is inherently built around the idea of getting to and from work. General bicycle transportation includes running errands [...]

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Shoes! And pedals.

Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Stacey Moses.

I love cycling shoes. I feel that I need to be completely forthcoming- I delight in fancy road shoes and Lorica Microfabrics and heel security systems. I admit that I enjoy the aesthetics of cycling shoes, and I also believe that the utility of employing a clipless system for regular bike commuting is substantial. However, [...]

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Learning to Ride: Balance Bikes

Posted on 12. Jun, 2010 by John Coe.

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.
Charles Spurgeon
Most of us Utility-Cyclists remember learning to ride. And to this day, most of us who ride with a purpose, whatever it may be, can still recall that initial sense of freedom and the trill that our first rides evoked. In fact, it just might be that long-standing [...]