Handcar Regatta

The fine folks at Google Maps have recently added a most expedient method of planning a bicycle route upon the Aetherwebs in some 150 cities, including Santa Rosa.

Note that dark green lines represent bike-only paths, pale green for marked bike lanes on roads, and dotted green lines show good biking alternatives.

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Not everyone is gleeful about the new service however. The New York Post wonders if there are bona fide “fatal flaws” in the suggested routes. Of course, there are two problems herein:

• The world is full of “fatal flaws”. I remember when America wasn’t a regrettable bastion of hand-wringing safety-mongers bent on plaguing every corner with rubber-baby-buggy-bumbers!
• This is New York we’re talking about. Objecting to danger in New Amsterdam is akin to wishing the pain of shattered teeth from steam dentistry!

We invite any intrepid biking adventurists to explore said Santa Rosa routes and report back. Best of luck!

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Guest author: Joe Greenlee has worked in copywriting for various websites, and currently works for a local, independently owned video store here in Santa Rosa. He has a BA in English literature, and enjoys reading, bookbinding, running, politics and philosophy, and is currently working on his first novel. He hopes to one day own a real rocket pack.

via: Urbanvelo

As an avid bicyclist and someone who prides himself on getting around by bicycle quite a bit, it occurs to me that there are a number of tales regarding its beginnings that many are unaware of. When the U.S. first entered the manufacture and widespread use of bicycles in the 19th century, the Gilded Age was in high gear. That meant that although opportunities to advance ones position in life were available, the gap between rich and poor was fairly obvious. It also meant a lot of horse drawn carriages, ingrained racism, and a society hostile to blacks either making a name for themselves or advancing into white dominated fields. When the bicycle industry began, it was associated with white men with a passion for new technologies.

via: Indianapolis Star

Enter Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor. Born the son of a black horse coachman for a white family, Marshall took his nickname from a military uniform he wore as a child, when he began his career. His beginnings came with a passion for public performance, doing stunts for crowds that gave him automatic (or rather gear-matic) attention for his acrobatic skill. And back then let’s just say bicycle safety was less of an issue for mainstream culture. Bicycles themselves were far less sturdy, often tall and awkwardly proportioned, and no one wore pads or helmets. From there Marshall worked his way into the world of cycling, but alas, he was always bound to a struggle uphill, and the easier downhill cruising was far and further between.

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The Great West End and Railroad Square Handcar Regatta is proud to procure Free & Secure Bicycle Parking in the Chevy’s parking lot!

Do refrain from piloting your noisome motor carriage and indulging a head-ache amidst traffic and a limitless pursuit of parking space. Instead, dear reader and ambitious saver of precious resources, ride your “BIKE”!

We are providing a safe and secure setting for you to leave your bicycle or Pennyfarthing Hi-Wheeler at our grand event, free of charge!

The noble Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, whose lofty goal is to promote the bicycle as transportation and recreation, will be patiently hosting said bicycles and other pedal-powered contraptions of The People.

So, good citizens of Santa Rosa and surrounds: retreat from said motor carriages and debark out into the open air and relish this great event on two pedal-power wheels instead of four!

UPDATE
The response has been overwhelming across the country and beyond! Transport was secured and Hollis has been admitted to Stanford Medical!

My deepest and most heartfelt gratitude to anyone who pooled their time and resources to Ms. Hawthorne. While she is in good care now, there is much to be done and there are certain to be many more expenses beyond this first step of transport. Please consider giving more, or for the first time, if possible as the goal of $200k is far from met.

For further reports and photographs of the Gold Rush fundraiser at Slim’s, please witness the powerful community support recounted at FogCityJournal by Cat Rauschuber.

Also these links:

• Help Holli Get Home
• Friends of Hollis
• KTVU Story on Gold Rush

Coilhouse has a critical post about the intolerable plight of Ms. Hollis Hawthorne, a bicycle dance troupe member of The Derailleurs (which is related to The Sprockettes I happened to see last year).

Please visit Friends of Hollis to read more and to help.

CRITICAL INJURY
I loathe to attend the horrid details, but Ms. Hawthorne suffered a grave accident whilst traveling in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India. Suffice to say that she was riding a scooter and fell victim to a deadly hit-and-run collision with a vehicle. Luckily, she was traveling slowly and wearing a helmet but has suffered critical injury to the stem of her brain.

The current hospital in India is inadequate and Hollis most assuredly needs sophisticated help AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

IMMEDIATE HELP
The good news is an avenue of help is available for anyone who cares, but aid must be immediate! Stanford Medical has offered to help free of charge. However, Hollis’ family and friends must raise the sum for medical transport from India to California.

Stanford Medical is an incredible windfall for Hollis since, like so many of us, she is without health insurance. With our support now, Hollis may reach Stanford for the critical help she needs now.

Please visit Friends of Hollis to read more and click the Donate button in the right sidebar and give anything you can.

COMMUNITY
Hollis is so close to home. Any help from us in her community is essential. Yet, one may ask why Hollis above others? To this I reply that Hollis needs help NOW to survive. Moreover, in my humble opinion, she seems to represent a certain cause for humanity today.

CAST ADRIFT
Hollis, like so many of us, is a strong and determined, free spirit, creative, and beautiful person creating light in this world and inspiring us in the process. Yet, like so many, she has been cast adrift amidst a dire emergency because medical insurance is beyond reach as well as assets for artists in general.

COLLECTIVE SUPPORT
In this light, helping Hollis is like helping each other in roundabout that includes raising awareness for improved medical aid regardless of the individual. Let us support Hollis now and our collective selves in the near future too. My deepest thanks for your immediate support.

With sincerest hopes for our empathy and expediency,
Erasmus P. Kitty

Wired reports that the venerable bicycle turns 90 years old today (in a somewhat loose definition). The Great Handcar Regatta owes much to the Draisine and the many steadfast inventors who built upon each other’s discoveries, leading to the “bikes” we know and love today!

Around February 17, 1818, Baron Karl Christian Ludwig von Drais de Sauerbrun invented the first two-wheeled personal transport vehicle as an alternative to expensive and inconvenient horse travel.

Drais called his patented contraption the Laufmaschine or “running machine” as it had neither pedals nor brakes, forcing riders to use their feet for propulsion and stopping. Flimsy leather shoes of the day and virtually no smooth paved roads ruined any chance of the machine’s popular use.

However, aristocrats found the invention charming enough to buy and race with. Eventually the French, among others, adopted the steadily-improving bicycle, calling it the Draisine, a term that is still used today for human powered railcars.

For a quick tour of the bicycle’s humble beginnings, see the following slideshow from the Institute and Museum of the History of Science: Cycling Through Time

As our kind readers may have no doubt guessed by now, we at the Handcar Regatta headquarters are overjoyed with today’s impetus toward tinkering and the genius of recycling, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) ethos, and mastery of the Tool.

The notion of “no user-servicable parts inside” is a kind of insult and a call to arms against bland commercial proprietary-ness and to sally forth unhindered to take back our world for better with customization, reuse, fun, and IMPROVEMENT!

These and many other reasons of glorious liberation and ingenuity are why we love the esteemed Instructables so fervently.

Where else can one find step-by-step instructions on such divers matters of import as:

• Front-Wheel-Drive Center-Steer Semi-Recumbent Bicycle
• Build a 4 Color T-Shirt Printing Press
• How to Make a Sweeney Todd Vintage Inspired Dress
• And the lasting simple goodness in life: Mom’s Blueberry Crumb Pie

Brilliant! Keep those fabulous and inspiring projects flowing and make a change for the better in your world!

Among the many bike modders and hackers on the Aetherweb, few sites have compiled a more astounding and engaging collection of electro-luminescent graphical renderings detailing such exquisite “Retro” creations as the enviable Rat Rod Bikes.

By far my favorite is the “Rag and Bone” beauty by a fellow known simply as “gaskill”. Good show! These wheels are “bully” as they say and we Regatta folk happily tip our toppers to such style and elegance as shown by all of the hackers at Rat Rod Bikes.

Rideable Bicycle Replicas in Alameda, CA, have been putting “High Wheelers” into high gear since 1973.

In addition to antique replicas of “Hi-Wheelers”, or “Penny Farthing” and “Bone Shaker” bikes as they have been called, Rideable Bicycle Replicas builds Pedicabs, both foot and hand-powered recumbents, tricycles, multi-rider surreys, and tandems.

As their Aetherweb site claims, “The bikes are very popular at festivals, parades, and shows. If you see high wheelers on TV or in films, they are more than likely manufactured by us here at Rideable Bicycle Replicas.”

We wish Rideable Bicycle Replicas many more happy years of high wheeling fun indeed! Oh my!

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Perhaps a few of the said hi-wheelers will be witnessed in the upcoming “Great Race of London Pennyfarthing / Hi-Wheel Cycle Race” Tally Ho!