So I made one: myBikeBlog.net

And the first live blog at that site is my own, so from now on that’s where I’ll be posting my bike blog entries. If you’ve bookmarked this site, please change your bookmark to http://buffalo2wheeler.mybikeblog.net .

Kyle joined me this year for my annual ride to Niagara Falls. Every mid-October for the past few years I’ve been riding to Niagara Falls on my own, but it was a lot of fun riding with someone today. I haven’t known Kyle for long, but we had a great time.

Another change from the past few rides is that instead of riding up the U.S. side of the Niagara River and over Grand Island, we rode on the Canadian side, which was a much better ride (thanks to Scott for the suggestion). Now I’m super patriotic, but the fact is that the Canadian side of the Niagara River is in better condition than the U.S. side. That, and crossing the Grand Island bridges is a big pain, because you have to walk your bike over them, and that adds a lot of time to the ride.

What a beautiful day it was. Not too cold, just a nice brisk Fall day.

Took a bunch of pictures with my phone, and tried to take some helmet-cam videos, but my helmet cam is being stupid, and I tried taking photos with my digital camera, but the batteries won’t last for more than a few shots (not sure why).

There were a lot of pedestrians, dog walkers, a couple rollerbladers, and a few other bicyclists, too, along the way. We passed one guy who was taking a break from riding his recumbent bike, and we stopped in front of a historic set of wheels that look like they were probably used for moving a cannon around (Kyle took photos of that with his camera, so when he sends me copies, I’ll post them too).

There were so many tourists at Niagara Falls, it was hard to find an open spot on the railing to look over the edge into the river. But when we did find a spot for a view, it was plain to see that very few people visit the U.S. side of the falls. Obviously the view is better looking AT the U.S. side of the falls than looking FROM that side.

My total miles for today was about 60 miles, I am guessing. About 15 of that was just riding to and from work. The temperature was 50 when we got started, and went up to 53 about mid-way through the ride, and then dropped down to 48 by the time I got home.

This is near the water intake for the Ontario hydro-electric plant.

There was a great rainbow over the falls.

Oh yeah, one other big improvement over last year was that there was NO OCTOBER SURPRISE STORM.

Check it out: Buffalo2Wheeler.com. What do you think?

So it’s almost time for my annual special long bike ride. I usually go from my house to Niagara Falls (specifically to Goat Island–which is where I took self-portrait picture to the left of this post) and back, which is about 50 miles. Last year I started out in the rain and ended up riding home as the October Surprise storm hit. With the temperature outside in the 80’s today, it’s hard to imagine how we could experience the same weather as we did last year at this time.

But before I head out on my 50-mile ride, I need to do some routine maintenance. When I was washing the bike the other day after a particularly muddy trail ride my boys took me on, I saw that my derailleurs are being real cranky, and my brakes just don’t want to move smoothly. I really don’t want to dump a bunch of cash at the bike shop, but I think I need some new parts.

And this year I may take my annual special day ride with someone, instead of going solo. In typical Buffalo-six-degrees fashion, my friend’s friend’s boyfriend is a bike nerd like me and may go with me. Hopefully this weekend we can meet up for coffee and make some plans.

Buffalo bicyclists, anyone else want to go for a fun ride? Scenic route to Niagara Falls and back, nothing too challenging, mostly bike paths. The part I enjoy the least is actually the bridges to/from Grand Island, but maybe this year I could go the long way. Or the Canadian way, who knows.

Well for now the price is high, but they expect to be able to reduce the price to a much more reasonable cost. Check it out on the Yahoo “green” web site:

Unfortunately, the bike is still far too expensive for its proposed market, but representatives are saying that the price should drop from $2500 to $500 when they go to mass production. The bikes speed along at 15 mph for 60 miles and, when they run out of fuel, they can be ridden like a normal bike.

She also links to a great web page about bicycle safety that includes this cute graphic:

New bike racks on all UB campuses and on each UB Stampede bus.
Bringing your bike to campus and finding a safe place for it has never been easier. UB now has bicycle racks to securely store 300+ bikes. In addition, bike racks have been installed to the front of every UB Stampede bus so riders may hop on board and keep their bike with them as they travel.

When I went to UB, I drove my car to class. I remember wanting to ride my bike there, but at that time in my life I didn’t think it was feasible to ride 14 miles each way. (But now I know it’s not just feasible, it’s fun.) But there weren’t many bikes on campus, when I was at UB. Most people drove cars, which I think is always going to be the case for that campus, because most of the roads leading into UB are very unfriendly to bikes. But this new bicycling program they’re getting going is a good start.

In 1969, approximately 50% of children walked or biked to school, with approximately 87% of children living within one mile of school walking or bicycling. Today, fewer than 15% of schoolchildren walk or bike to school.

This program may help make that possible for more kids–check it out:

saferoutespartnership.org

I just tried to find the source for it, so I could link back to the original. I found so many wooden bikes in Google’s image search, but not the one I’m looking for. Who would have thought there’d be this many wooden bikes?