California governor rejects 3-foot bill for second time; applauds effort for bicycle safety

California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. vetoed a bill for the second time on Friday that would require motorists give bicyclists a 3-foot gap when passing. This time, Brown objected to a provision that allows motorists to cross a double-yellow line if there's no room to give 3 feet of space. Currently, there are 21 states that require drivers to give bicyclists and pedestrians a gap of 3 or more feet when passing (Pennsylvania is 4 feet). ...

Source: http://www.bikingbis.com/2012/09/28/california-governor-rejects-3-foot-bill-for-second-time-applauds-effort-bicycle-safety/

british cycling

What Makes a Good Bicycle Travel Video? Show Us!


Adventure Cycling?s first annual Bicycle Travel Video Contest is now open, organized in conjunction with World Cycle Videos. Between now and the submission deadline on February 28, 2013, we?ll feature guest blog posts from our volunteer judges with insights and tips for creating inspiring bicycle-travel videos. This week?s post is from Blanche van der Meer.

Making videos of your bicycle holidays is a great way to relive your adventures and share your passion with others, as I found out about four years ago when I made my first slideshows of my bicycle holidays. Soon after, I started filming instead of taking pictures. My cycling passion extended to a passion for filming. Three years ago, I founded World Cycle Videos a bicycle-touring video group on Vimeo, a video-sharing platform. I regularly get questions from group members: How do I make a good video? What camera and editing program do I need? Invariably I answer that good technique and good material alone do not guarantee that you will end up with a good video. On the contrary, I have seen very good videos, shot on simple cameras and edited with free editing programs. But what makes something a good cycle-touring video? I personally think that it demands very little technique but a lot of creativity and passion.

A little technique
Of course you need technique! You need a camera to film and a video-editing program to edit your film. But nowadays you get high quality film with a simple compact camera or even a mobile phone. And every computer has a standard video-editing program. On an Apple, you can use iMovie; on a Windows computer, use Windows Movie Maker. But, there are even more options out there. If you are new to editing, it will take some time. But just continue, you will see that you?ll improve. For videography, the same rules apply as for photography. The most important is the Rule of Thirds: Divide your image into three sections by placing two horizontal and two vertical lines. Place your subject where the lines intersect. You?ll create depth by placing something in the foreground like a branch or a blade of grass. For good audio, your speaker shouldn?t be more than 50 cm apart. Otherwise, use an external microphone. These are the basic rules. The rest is practice and watching lots of other videos.

A lot of creativity
Real films are created on paper and are close to the heart of the maker. In fact, a film is a written story, a script that comes to life with a right mix of images, audio, and voice. Your personal creativity determines how well this mix, the film will be. A professional director tipped me once, "Why do you do the things you do? Answer that question in your films!" A film becomes a good film because the viewer and the maker are deeply involved with the subject. So keep your audience in mind and keep your story close to yourself as a person. But how does this work in practice? I?m not a professional, but I can tell you how my last film came about. It?s not always possible to write a script in advance. You don?t know what you?ll encounter while cycle touring. So on my last trip I bought a small notebook to write down the ideas that popped into my mind while riding. These ideas became the basis for the script and a guideline for the images I had to shoot. We went to Ukraine, a country that we barely knew. Western cyclers barely visit it. There it is, the first storyline: How is cycle touring in Ukraine? I also wove in a sweet childhood memory, that I often watched Russian children's films. This probably created my appeal to countries from the former Soviet Union. The amazing thing was that we encountered a lot of things that fit this childhood memory storyline. Once home, I turned all my notes into a full story on paper. And only then I started editing. Whether it is successful, you must decide for yourself.

And lots of passion
And last but not least, a good film needs lots of passion. If you're passionate about something, your passion will affect others. So will your film! Good luck and have fun with the cycle-touring video contest!

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BLANCHE VAN DER MEER has been a keen cycle tourer for over ten years, Blanche is the co-organizer of Adventure Cycling's bicycle-travel video contest. She traveled a great part of the world as a backpacker but always felt something was missing. Since discovering that the missing link was traveling by bicycle, she has cycled through almost all of Europe including the Eastern Bloc countries, Cuba, Morocco, Ukraine, Turkey, and Georgia. A few years ago she started making animated slideshows and then videos of her bicycle journeys. She thinks this is a great way to re-enjoy her adventures. Three years ago she also founded the very successful WorldCycle Videos ? a video group on Vimeo where cycle tourers can share their passion. WorldCycle Videos gets videos on a daily basis and now has more than 1600 videos divided into 12 regional albums and nearly 1000 members from all over the world. The group can be followed on Twitter and Facebook too.


Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/10/what-makes-good-bicycle-travel-video.html

cycling exercise

Unsafe roads: Filmmakers search for answers on cross-country bicycle tour

Three bicyclists are filming interviews and collision scenes as they head down the California coast this week to begin a cross-country bicycle tour. They hope to learn how Americans share the road and why that leads to so many deaths and injuries to people on two wheels. They plan to release a documentary film on the subject in 2014 entitled "Spoke." There's a lot of interest in their work. The three -- Em Baker, Nick Navarro and Lauren Gardner -- recently raised more than $11,000 for the project from 125 donors at Kickstarter.com. ...

Source: http://www.bikingbis.com/2012/10/04/unsafe-roads-filmmakers-search-for-answers-on-cross-country-bicycle-tour/

cycling forums

A little bike racing advice?

I have been asked several times what advice I would give the up and coming cyclist.  Cycling is a beautiful sport.  Not only does it promote health and wellness, but it is also completely liberating.  When approached properly, it is a sport that has longevity and challenge.  It has purity and depth that not many other sports can give. Should you race?  If you want to.  If not, just challenge yourself each day with a goal, even if that goal is to do a local century or beat your friends...

Source: http://alisonstarnes.com/a-little-bike-racing-advice/

cycling fans

Most Popular Places to Cycle in UK

  Cities / boroughs with the highest rates of cycling. Measured by cycling at least once a month. The top three Cycling Cities / boroughs are Cambridge 50% , Isles of Scilly 41%  Oxford. 33% The areas with lowest rates of cycling in England are Barking and Dagenham 8% Hillingdon 8% Blackburn with Darwen 7% [...]

Source: http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/6143/cycling/most-popular-places-to-cycle-in-uk/

winter cycling jackets

Where do you store your bike at night?

I?d be interested in hearing how many people?s hallways look like the one above! Where do you store your bike at night? Leave a comment below. I?ll start us off: As our apartment doesn?t have any secure space for storage and I don?t particularly want to leave my bike outside overnight, my flatmate and I [...]

Source: http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/where-do-you-store-your-bike-at-night/

cycling gear uk

Sébastien Rosseler Wins Three-Day Race of De Panne-Koksijde

Press Release, 31st March 2011: Team RadioShack?s Sébastien Rosseler powered to the victory in the second part of the third stage of the Three-Day Race of De Panne-Koksijde (Belgium), an individual time trial in De Panne over 14.7km/9.2mi. The Belgian rider completed the course in 18:31:83 with an average speed of 47.6 k/h. The race [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/sebastien-rosseler-wins-three-day-race-of-de-panne-koksijde/

cycling clothes

Muravyev Rides Strong at Three Days of De Panne

Team RadioShack?s Dmitriy Muravyev (KAZ) made his presence felt in the opening stage of the 35th running of the Three Days of De Panne, staying with a 4-man breakaway that somehow kept clear of a peloton loaded with expectant sprinter?s teams. Dmitriy crossed the finish line 3rd behind the winner Omega Pharma-Lotto?s André Greipel (GER) [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/muravyev-rides-strong-at-three-days-of-de-panne/

cycling machine

Riding the Rhine River Bicycle Route

I've talked to many Adventure Cycling members who rhapsodize about riding in Europe, including self-guided tours, where a tour company sets up your route and all your logistics (including luggage transport) and all you have to do is ride. I've done every other kind of tour option besides this one so I was excited to get the opportunity to try out a 4-day journey on the Rhine River Bicycle Route, in this case from Cologne to Karlsruhe, all in Germany. The total trip amounted to about 330 kilometers, or just over 200 miles of mostly flat terrain.

The trip was arranged for me (and full disclosure, paid for) by a consortium of 18 government agencies from four countries who are working to improve and brand the Rhine River route as a global cycling destination. I wanted to try it, both because I'm always up for a good bike ride and I wanted to get a closer look at the development and marketing of an iconic cycle route. For Adventure Cycling, this is an important perspective as we develop more of our own cycling routes and help develop official U.S. Bicycle Routes. One other reason is that I was in the neighborhood, just having participated in the first-ever conference on European Bicycle Tourism.


So what was it like? Here's the good, the not-so-good, and the Ortlieb. Mostly, it was awesome. The 200+ miles I traveled went through some beautiful areas, including gorgeous vineyards and rolling countryside. Even better were the very cool cities and towns, so compact, welcoming and colorful. The people were friendly and the late September/early October weather was perfect, with 60-70 degree days and mostly blue skies, with a little river fog in the morning. I was generally able to stay on the route while enjoying the sights, smells, and sounds of the area. There were also many accommodation choices from neatly maintained private campgrounds to 1- to 5-star hotels. Unlike big parts of the U.S., the area is so settled that you don't have to carry much gear because there will always be a shop or restaurant right around the corner, though on Sundays, most of those shops are closed.

What was the not so good? It really depends on your taste, but if you are not keen on riding flat terrain, this may not be for you. But adjacent to the route, there are plenty of quiet paths and roads up into the hillsides, with spectacular views. In the lovely town of Rudescheim am Rhein, there are paved public walkways and bikeways that rise up 1,000 feet to stunning vistas of vineyards, the river, and a huge swath of Germany and France. Another heads-up: You will periodically navigate away from the river and around some major industrial sites -- but these are only occasional and to me, they were part of the route's attraction. Seeing not only beautiful countryside and interesting towns, but also real life, and industry of all kinds is important as it has been part of life on the Rhine for centuries.

Really, the only problem I encountered was that the signage sometimes lost me, and it wasn't just a language issue. The coordinator for the route development project, Melanie Vidin, had alerted me to this issue and told me that they will be revising the signage in a major way next year. So that's good news for folks wanting to experience this always-stimulating route.

Finally, the Ortlieb. In the U.S., you see a McDonald's every few miles. In Germany, you see Ortlieb panniers everywhere! (Of course, I had one for my everyday stuff.) As a veteran bike traveler, it was so wonderful to see so many bikes with such high quality panniers. It was also wonderful to see so many people riding on this route, from seniors down to little kids, for multi-day trips and day rides. If Adventure Cycling and our partners can even come close to this type of popularity on our routes or on U.S. Bicycle Routes, we will have done something magical.

For more information on the Rhine River Bicycle Route, which travels from the Netherlands to Switzerland and also happens to be Route #15 in the EuroVelo continental cycling network, visit the Rhine River route's webpage.  Auf Wiedershen!

Top photo: Early morning fog on the Rhine River not far from Rudescheim am Rhein; middle photo: Jim with dreams of a riverfront castle and vineyard, in the background.; bottom photo: Sample signage along the route, which is due for an upgrade in 2013.

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JIM SAYER is executive director of Adventure Cycling Association.


Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/10/riding-rhine-river-bicycle-route.html

cycling team kits

Klöden 3rd Horner 4th After Day One of Basque Tour

Team RadioShack?s Andreas Klöden (GER) continuing to display exceptional form this season came in 3rd today with ?The Shack?s? Christopher Horner (USA) close behind in today?s 150-kilometer mountainous first stage of the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco, Tour of the Basque Country in Northeast Spain. This first of 6 stages was deemed by some to [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/kloden-3rd-horner-4th-after-day-one-of-basque-tour/

cycling training camps