Photo of a man and two children with darker skin walking down a dirt road lined with trees on either side. All 3 are wearing dark shorts and light-colored shirts and the sun is shining. At the bottom, text with a quotation from Ram Dass: We are all just walking each other home.

Why I Walk

This post first ran on my personal blog, BikeWalkBake Barb, where I’ve been chronicling my walking habits. Since I’ve been writing about multimodal transportation here, I thought I’d add the post to these archives as well. Walking, like riding my…Continue Reading

Graphic of swirling gray and black curls expressing concept of wind

Riding Thoughts: Privilege Is a Tailwind

I’ve written before about the many ways that privilege I’m not always conscious of underlies my bicycling. Riding my road bike Sweetie and thinking about how that differs from riding my e-bike Zelda gave rise to these thoughts about structural…Continue Reading

Photo of prize ribbons made of chocolate, wth a big 1st prize ribbon in the middle and smaller circles marked 2nd and 3rd on either side.

You know the word as a suffix after some prefix telling you how many events are included (if you remember your ancient Greek prefixes, that is) or something else about the competition: biathlon, duathlon, triathlon, pentathlon, heptathlon, decathlon, aquathlon. Whence…Continue Reading

Photo of a short segment of faded red fence with Mardi Gras beads in bright colors hanging on it like garland. Behind it, a leafy green hedge and a light green house.

Riding Always Makes Me Happy. Yes, Always.

Be honest. If you drive regularly for transportation, how often do you get wherever you’re going and say, “Wow, that was such a great drive! It made me so happy! I had so much fun!” Sure, you might be glad…Continue Reading

Quotation in typewriter font: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. --Arthur Ashe

New Year, New Mode(s)

Over the years I’ve thought about the new year in a variety of ways: A time to reflect on the year’s riding. A time to look ahead at the bike challenges or rides I might choose to participate in over…Continue Reading

Pen and ink drawing of a bicycle with each part made up of the words for that part, so the top tube is formed by the printed words "top tube".

Texting About Biking

Inspired by a tweet a while back on kids “texting about transit” (see below), herewith my guide to some of the messaging shortcuts that are really all about riding your bike. A couple of these are straight-up an accepted meaning,…Continue Reading

Image of blue and white bicycle on bright green background. Text at bottom: My New Year's Resolution: Bike More!

Challenges: Bike Challenges to Try in 2020

Maybe you’re a plan-ahead-er, maybe not. Maybe you’re a mileage tracker, maybe not. This list works for you either way: as something that makes you head straight to your calendar and enter dates for all of these, with a reminder…Continue Reading

30 Days of Biking is obviously a commitment. I realized today when somebody asked me how it was going that riding my e-bike to work results in another kind of commitment: Riding home. When I ride the Sweetie Bike or…Continue Reading

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