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How Apple’s “Macintosh” Almost Became The “Bicycle” 5

How Apple’s “Macintosh” Almost Became The “Bicycle”
Steve Jobs and Apple’s “Think Different” Campaign Before leaving for China I picked up a Kobo e-reader (comparable to a Kindle) so I could read on my travels without hauling 4-months worth of books along with me. The Kobo has transformed how I read books and I have found myself reading more than I have ...

Bicycles & World War II Spies 10

Bicycles & World War II Spies
Agents practising being interrogated. The rural situation of camp X can be glimpsed from the background. (From the Pelham-Burn collection, reproduced by courtesy of Lynn-Philip Hodgson) On 6 December 1941, just one day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a British spy training camp opened in Whitby, Ontario, some 50 kilometres east of Toronto. The ...

Canadian Cyclist Harassed At U.S. Border 25

Canadian Cyclist Harassed At U.S. Border
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers on the lookout for “terrorists” – Photo by Mateus_27 With the United States mulling over the possibility of building a fence across the Canada-US border and a Secretary of Homeland Security falsely claiming some of the 9/11 terrorists entered through Canada, it’s not surprising to hear about Canadians encountering ...

Toronto’s Urban Repair Squad Strikes Again 12

Toronto’s Urban Repair Squad Strikes Again
Guerrilla bike lane – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country At approximately 10AM this morning, Toronto’s Guerrilla bicycling advocates – the Urban Repair Squad – re-painted the intersection at Dundas and Sterling, the location where cyclist Jenna Morrison was run over by a truck and killed last month. Bike lanes were painted on ...

‘Rethinking Transportation’ Talk 7

‘Rethinking Transportation’ Talk
Today I presented my Rethinking Transportation talk to a group of 50 children at an elementary school in Toronto. The kids belonged to an “eco” group that meets once a month – their ages ranging between 9 and 12 years old. I started out by asking the children how many of them had rode their ...

Is Bicycling Gaining Momentum in India? 6

Is Bicycling Gaining Momentum in India?
Bangalore traffic congestion – Photo by Kiran Jonnalagadda Although bicycles have historically been viewed as the poor man’s mode of transportation in India, there are signs that the working class are starting to view bicycles as an accepted mode of transportation. A recent article in the Indian news publication DNA highlights the rising interest in ...

Avid Urban Cyclist Clothing 44

Avid Urban Cyclist Clothing
Photo by Marc van Woudenberg / Amsterdamize Cycle clothing and gear is a topic I seldom cover here on The Urban Country, for there is no shortage of bicycle blogs out there already reviewing the latest bicycle clothing and gear. But with the winter fast approaching for me here in Toronto, Canada I thought it ...

Trashy Bike Lane 55

Trashy Bike Lane
Photo of garbage bike lane by James Schwartz / The Urban Country On the morning of November 7th, a pregnant woman was killed by the back wheels of a truck in Toronto while riding her bike to pick up her son at school. As a result of Jenna Morrison’s tragic and avoidable death, various cycling ...

Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules 57

Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules
“Cargo Bike” – Photo by Mario Jahn / RateMyVelo.com It was bound to happen. A newspaper column politely asking drivers to share the road and accept cyclists as fellow travellers rather than adversaries, published in a newspaper with a readership of ~1 million people, was bound to stir up some controversy. As expected, I woke ...

The Driver Privilege Checklist 51

The Driver Privilege Checklist
RIP Jenna Morrison – Photo by Aaron Lynett / National Post On Monday morning, a wife, mother and yoga instructor who was 5-months pregnant was run over by a truck and killed in Toronto in a completely avoidable incident. This senseless death has been on the minds of thousands of people in Toronto because it ...