This town’s not big enough for the two of us

So it turns out there’s another bike blog in town. I was tipped off to it by a friend of mine, Sandy Zipp. The blog in question focuses on bikes as tools for doing work, thus the name, “bikes can work” To quote from the “about” page:

1. Bikes can do work. They can haul groceries; they can ferry children; they can move things.
2. Bikes can work as an answer to the questions of how to get somewhere, how to do it cheaply, how to enjoy the outside in winter every day.

The cyclist in question has a Bakfiets and an old Raleigh 3-speed which looked mighty familiar when I saw his picture of it:

The other blogger's Raleigh. photo credit: bikescanwork.com

That is definitely the same Raleigh I saw back in February at the farmers’ market. I even took a picture of it and included it in my post about my Spongy Wonder bike seat.

photo credit: me

When Sandy Zipp tipped me off to this blog, and I discovered that I’d seen that bike before, my first thought was, “Uh oh, I hope I didn’t make fun of his bike, because I should probably meet this guy.”

In reading the blog, I see that he has alluded to a road bike as well – interesting that he doesn’t post about it. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen the bakfiets around at all. He probably lives about a mile away from me. This just goes to show that my daily travels take place in a small area.

Now I need to alert him to my presence, and the fact that I WAS HERE FIRST, SO HE’D BETTER STEP OFF.

I kid! I kid! The world needs more bike bloggers, more opinions. Also, the dude bikes around with two toddlers in a Bakfiets – how cool is that? It’s very cool, that’s how cool it is:

photo credit: bikescanwork.com

And there’s no way you could get me to do that. Although it would be cool to try it out with a big load of groceries. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love the idea of the Bakfiets, but for the way I shop, it’s not really necessary, because I prefer to make several small stops at the grocery store during the week and not on big stop per week.  Then again, I don’t have toddlers!

That picture of the Raleigh at the Farmers’ Market reminds me of my favorite cycling topic: The Indignity of Bike Parking. Dear reader, you may remember that I have complained a little about the bike parking situation at my place of employment. My complaints must be understood in the context of the fact that my office building has an indoor bike rack that’s totally awesome and I’m totally glad that it’s there so I don’t have to leave my bike outside in the rain. It’s a rare treat, really. Fantastic. That being said, there’s just a couple of little problems with this rack: 1. it’s a horribly designed bike rack with bars placed too close together and I’ve scraped up my fork getting my bike in there. and 2. A few people who work in the building have left their bikes there for the better part of the year and they left them in the only spaces where I could park my bike and not have to worry about the stupid bars being too close together. As evidenced here:

Close-up of the bike rack in my office building

The employee responsible for two of the long-term bike rack occupants finally moved his bikes out which means I now get the prime real estate:

bike parking dignity achieved

Oh, had I not mentioned that the bike rack features intricate scroll work, bullshit “wheel holder” thingys and a friggin’ Pennyfarthing welded to one end? I love how my Roadmaster looks, snuggled up to its 100 year-old predecessor, the P-Far. Some people like to call it the old-skool fixie.