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Refusing To Be Herded Like Cattle 2

Photo courtesy of Mully Children’s Family  A good friend of mine bought a thoughtful gift for me for my Champagne Birthday back in June. The book was written by BikeSnobNYC (Eben Weiss) and it provides an amusing and entertaining dissection of the world of cycling. From the back cover: “In this wickedly funny rant and ...

Wear a Helmet And Get a Cycling Utopia 15

[Photo] This photo of a “frivolous and reckless” Santa Monica cyclist courtesy of Bike by the Sea Shawn Micallef recently wrote an article on the Spacing.ca Toronto blog where he argues that anyone who wants better bicycle infrastructure in Toronto should wear a helmet if they expect to be taken seriously. Micallef claims that anyone ...

Why Do Cyclists Blow Stop Signs? 13

All photos by James D. Schwartz I came across this unique stop sign while walking the dog at the Exhibition grounds here in Toronto. It is a regular stop sign outfitted with a secondary stop sign that reads “CYCLISTS MUST STOP”. The implicit message that I gather from this stop sign is that regular stop ...

Bicycles for Transporting… [fill in the blank] 6

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Earlier this month I posted 30 photos of Utility Cycling in China. That post generated a lot of interest because like me, you are probably intrigued by how the Chinese use their bicycles for practical purposes – like pizza delivery, garbage pickup, cargo shipping, etc. ...

Shanghai Cycle Chic 10

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country During my recent trip to China I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Shanghai. Before I went to China, I promised Mikael Colville-Andersen that I would snap some photos of “Cycle Chic” action while biking around Shanghai. Mikael popularized the term “Cycle ...

Pedaling Haikou City, China 5

Video by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Have you ever wondered what it’s like to ride a bike in China? The short film above shows footage of me pedaling around Haikou City yesterday – the capital of the province of Hainan, China. Haikou’s population is somewhere around 1 million people – and I’d ...

Utility Cycling in China 23

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country (May 2010) In big Chinese cities – like it or not – bicycles are a vital ingredient to keep the cities moving. From pizza delivery, to painters, to garbage pickup, to cargo shipping, to transporting people – bicycles are everywhere in cities like Shanghai and ...

Handicap Bike Parking 14

Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country In Shanghai, there are a lot of bikes.. a LOT of bikes. With the high costs of car ownership, heavy pollution and traffic congestion, bikes are still a great alternative and you can quickly get around the city. However, bikes are still generally considered to be ...

Biking it My Way 13

Some time ago, my friend – the filmmaker and fellow cycling advocate – Mike Rubbo asked me if I would like to engage in international collaboration on two videos that highlight women cyclists who – in Mike’s words – choose different bikes for different hikes. So I set out to find a woman who would ...

Toronto Cycle Chic 4

Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Toronto saw some amazing weather this past long weekend, and Han and I didn’t waste any time in getting out on our bikes. We took our dog Mojo out to Cherry beach using our bike chariot on Friday, and we rode to Chinatown on Sunday for ...