Bicycle Parkour — More Danny MacAskill

[post 195]

I like bikes.

I like comedy cycling, but I also like just plain old biking. Yes, I'm one of those annoying bike evangelists who bikes everywhere and tries to make you feel bad for not doing the same. Not surprising, then, that I'm awed by Danny MacAskill and his amazing bike tricks — what I am officially dubbing bicycle parkour™ — and which I featured in this previous post.

That ride from 2009 was unbelievable enough, but happily there are two more recent professionally produced videos. Way Back Home (2010) takes our man Dan on an amazing journey from Edinburgh to Skye. Thanks to Martie LaBare for the link!





And from last month (aka August 2011), here's Industrial Revolutions from the project Concrete Circus. Who knew rusting industrial waste could be so much fun?



Don't try this at home, but if you do, wear a helmet!

For more cool stuff, check out Danny's web site and the MacAskill page of his corporate sponsor, Red Bull.

Not Riding in the Bike Lane

[post 152]

So yesterday my sweetie came home from the hospital on crutches after she and her bike had an encounter with a truck in a Manhattan bike lane. No broken bones, but thanks for asking. Then later in the day Daniel Wallace, game designer and former student, sent me this video.

Those who know me well know that I am a torn creature, with at least a tri-polar split between politics, would-be athleticism, and all this goofy comedy stuff. For example, I like to bike all over NYC and all over the world, I try to advocate for the environment, and I've always enjoyed comedy cycling..... but how to combine all three?

Don't ask me, ask Casey Neistat, because that's exactly what he did in this cool video, which I am happy to see is already going viral on YouTube.



Ouch!

Not Exactly Physical Comedy: Inspired Bicycles

[post 093]

No comedy here, but I like biking and this has the most amazing bike stunts I've ever seen — parkour on two wheels!



Here's some background from the YouTube page: Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill (more info at www.dannymacaskill.com) features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike.

“Whenever we don’t dress up like clowns, they don’t move as fast.”

[post 091]

NY Times, March 19, 2010

Bike Lane Blockers, Beware
by Bao Ong

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

The Bureau of Organized Bikelane Safety, on patrol on 6th Avenue Friday.

“Excuse me, sir,” Barbara Ross said to the driver of a black town car parked on Avenue of the Americas near 37th Street. “You are obstructing a bike lane.”

Considering that Ms. Ross, 46, was wearing a white hazmat suit and an orange traffic cone on her head and riding a large red tricycle, the driver, Ross Ravita, took her relatively seriously. He protested that he was making only a quick stop, and though he did at one point tell her, “Hold your horses, lady, this isn’t your street,” he yielded his ground and drove away.

It was another victory for the Bureau of Organized Bikelane Safety, a provisional wing of the environmental advocacy group Time’s Up, which staged a street-theater action Friday afternoon to urge drivers to stop blocking the city’s more than 300 miles of bicycle lanes.

The six riders started at Madison Square Park before crawling up Avenue of the Americas to Bryant Park. While takeout deliverers and messengers zipped past vehicles blocking bicycle lanes, the bike-lane safety team, armed with crime-scene tape and fake parking summonses, set cones around the illegally parked vehicles and reenacted crash scenes.

“It’s a bike lane, not a parking lot,” one member of the group, Benjamin Shepard, shouted to a minivan driver.

Although the city has pushed to make the streets more pedestrian friendly in recent years, cyclists say drivers still ignore the white bike lines and not enough get slapped with the $115 fines.

Ms. Ross said that enforcing fines would help ease the fears of new cyclists. “We want to make biking for everyone,” she added.

Of the half-dozen lane-blocking drivers ambushed by the enforcement team — from a Fresh Direct delivery truck to a silver Lincoln Town Car — all moved without hesitation, except for a cement truck driver who shrugged his shoulders and said he had nowhere else to park.

The cyclists, who carried a boom box blaring ’80s tunes, called their ride a success and ended with a victory dance.

“Whenever we don’t dress up like clowns,” Mr. Shepard said, “they don’t move as fast.”