2011: Year of the Rabbit 3
Photo “Who (Bicycle) Framed Roger Rabbit?” courtesy of John Henderson Welcome to 2011 – the year of the rabbit (officially beginning on Chinese New Year – February 3rd). Rabbits are born in the years 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999 and 2011, and possess the following personality: People born in the year of the ...
2010: Year In Review 6
Photo “Heels and Wind Chill –16” courtesy of Mikael Colville-Andersen To close out 2010, I carried on the annual tradition of compiling a video from the various footage I took on my camera throughout the year. To stay on topic for The Urban Country, this year’s video is less personal/sentimental and more related to bicycling ...
Thousands of Bicyclists Snub Toronto’s New Mayor 3
Photo courtesy of Aviva Cohen for The Urban Country In the face of a new mayor who is intent on removing existing on-street bike lanes in Toronto, more than 19,162 people defy him by riding into downtown core every day. The number comes from an unprecedented study by the City of Toronto to count the ...
Australia Cycle Chic Newcomer 20
All photos courtesy of Tara for The Urban Country Bicycling Newcomers is a section on The Urban Country where we profile people who make the switch from other modes of transportation to the efficient, healthy and fun method of bicycling to go about their daily business. Through our Bicycling Newcomers section, I was fortunate enough ...
Interview With Bicycling Newcomer Tom Schwartz 1
Bicycling Newcomers is a section on The Urban Country where we profile people who make the switch from other modes of transportation to the efficient, healthy and fun method of bicycling to go about their daily business. Our latest instalment of Bicycling Newcomers profiles one Tom Schwartz. Tom is a Corrections Officer and commutes on ...
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. ...
Sketch It: Taking The Lane 6
“Taking The Lane” – by George Pechtol / The Urban Country Sketch it! is a fun section on The Urban Country where we feature random napkin sketches from our resident sketch artist and writer, George Pechtol. In a tweet this week, I called on fellow Torontonian cyclists to take the whole right lane to discourage ...
Bike Sharing in Car Capital of the World?
Photo by Mark Green / The Urban Country (Jan 2010) Can bike sharing possibly succeed in the world’s largest automobile market? It doesn’t sound logical, but it’s a reality on a planet that simply doesn’t have enough space for all of its inhabitants to drive a car. Bicycles are a practical and low-cost solution to ...
Forgetting About the Joneses 5
Back in March 2009, a mock Nissan commercial surfaced on YouTube that pits Hyundai against Toyota, starring Andy Richter and James Adomian. I thought a slight change to the ending of the video would be more appropriate. (Hopefully the lawyers over at Nissan are sympathetic to us cyclists). The video highlights something that we have ...
Bicycle Friendly Workplaces 12
Bicycle-friendly workplaces can help overcome a major barrier to commuter cycling. Although I didn’t list “bicycle unfriendly workplaces” as one of the major barriers to cycling in a recent article, it can be extremely discouraging if a place of business doesn’t provide at minimum, a safe place to lock up your bicycle. Businesses have begun ...