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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 ...

Confessions Of A Bad Driver 27

Confessions Of A Bad Driver
Road Rage photo by Irish Typepad I grew up in a car-dependent town, in a car-crazed family, within a car-addicted culture. It’s no wonder that I first learned to drive at 12-years-old and had already owned 2 cars before I turned 16 years old (the legal age to drive). As such, I often drove faster ...

The Chinese Car Obsession 18

The Chinese Car Obsession
Beijing motor traffic and wide segregated bicycle infrastructure – Photo by Saad Akhtar It is now official: The Urban Country is headed to China for four months this winter, beginning in January. We will be primarily staying on the southern island of Hainan in the South China Sea for the four months in Hainan’s capital ...

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 ...

Long 6-Month Winter Comfortably Above 0C 24

Long 6-Month Winter Comfortably Above 0C
Photo of Vancouver Hornby separated bike lanes by Paul Krueger In an opinion piece posted on straight.com (Vancouver’s Online Source) an ignorant political candidate named Ken Charko has proposed to make Vancouver’s bike lanes seasonal and turning them into metered parking for the “winter”. Defining “winter”, Charko proposes closing the bike lanes down from October ...

Announcing Our Bicycle Art Contest Winner

Announcing Our Bicycle Art Contest Winner
Screenshot of Mike Rubbo’s Situp-Bike-Art.com website In September we announced a bicycle art contest where one lucky winner who submitted a bicycle photo would win a painting of that photo by Mike Rubbo. The painting would be shipped to the winner, and would also be added to Mr. Rubbo’s bicycle art collection at www.situp-bike-art.com. Mike ...

The Parable Of The Bicycling Advocate… 8

The Parable Of The Bicycling Advocate…
Photo of Dr. Behooving courtesy of Dr. Behooving himself / RateMyVelo.com My fellow advocate buddy Dr. Steven Fleming scribed a parable earlier this year that nicely illustrates a topic that we discuss on here often: how do we solve transportation and environmental issues using pragmatic solutions without turning people off. Dr. Steve is an Architectural ...

Toronto Newspaper Columnist Sees The Light 60

Toronto Newspaper Columnist Sees The Light
Photo of James Schwartz cycling through a typical non-accommodating Toronto construction zone – Jack Lakey / Toronto Star In July I posted a response to what I felt was an ill-written newspaper column which antagonized cyclists for their apparent blatant disregard for traffic laws. I felt the article only served to create more animosity on ...