Bike Tel Aviv Blog: News, Updates & More

The Cyclist Pariah Paradigm

November 26, 2009 – 4:05 pm
Here is a tremendous example of judicial insanity. According to this article, a clearly unhinged man took it upon himself to attempt to murder a cyclist because "he was angry the man was riding with his child on a busy road".   Fortunately for the cyclist and his son, the helmet absorbed the bullet and leaving Charles Diez only a deranged attempted murdered and not a full-fledged one. This took place in July of 2009.  According to TreeHugger, the attempted murder only got a sentence of 120 days because he was apparently such an upstanding citizen and had only a minor break with reality.   Diez is very fortunate that the cyclist was wearing a helmet else he'd most certainly be spending most - if not all - of the rest of his life in prison. What's most stunning and cynically unsurprising about this lax sentence is the general perception that ...

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Bringing Bikes Back

September 15, 2009 – 3:54 pm
As a follow-up to a former post on stolen bikes, an article in the Jpost details some success against the bike thieves and their nefarious ways. The article states: "To nab the culprits, police implanted tracking devices in bicycles and left them around the city in the hope that they would be stolen. The thieves took the bait, and the police moved in on the bike theft network." It's quite a clever and simple operation that yielded some impressive results.  The police managed to recover 2,000 bikes from garages that housed the stolen bikes.   The recovered bikes are now being made available to the public in an attempt to reunite the bikes with their bereft owners. As far as identifying the stolen goods, there doesn't seem to be a very strict ID procedure.  If one simply fingers a bike as their own, the police are willing to let it go.  One such person ...

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Less Stolen Bikes?

September 1, 2009 – 1:40 pm
According to Ha'Aretz, the Tel Aviv police department are providing a registration and engraving service for cyclists who wish to deter thieves.   The officer will etch a number into your bike's frame that should deter thieves from snatching a branded bike. The bike branding didn't appeal to everyone, "'I thought it was a nice idea, but what you get for free looks like you got it for free,' said Lem, who owns a mountain bike worth NIS 12,000," but the article states that even he was persuaded to get his bike tatooed. True, the appearance of an etched serial number may  - prima facie - be a good idea but it's unlikely that it would dissuade a bike thief from an expensive bike.  If the thief is savvy enough to break locks and the like, then he or she would know how to strip a bike and repaint it or somehow ...

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Cycling Zeitgeist: Performance or Fashion

August 13, 2009 – 9:20 am
Most people are cyclists by necessity.   It's much more efficient to ride a bike than to walk and so on.  However, for those serious cyclists who take themselves seriously, it is much more than that.   Cycling is a fashion with a myriad of sub-cultures each of which considers itself vastly superior.  The 'fixie' craze is hopefully tapering off - cyclocross is already on the rise as noted by the number of hipster moustaches accompanying the cyclists.

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Whither Alleycats

August 2, 2009 – 6:48 pm
One thing I miss about cycling in New York are the informal messenger races called alleycats.   Basically, alleycats used to be - before the messenger scene was polluted by the hipsters - anywhere from 10 to 30 messengers meeting somewhere in the city for a race. Someone would have mapped out the checkpoints  - there would be no course, only checkpoints - that the racers would have to pass in order to finish the race.  Usually, the alleycat would have a theme like Halloween or Thanksgiving or movies or anything and at the checkpoints, the racer would have to perform some act related to the theme. The New York Thanksgiving race is called Cranksgiving and the racers would have to buy canned goods at certain grocery stores and based on the amount of goods collected, the distance travelled and the speed at which these tasks were accomplished determined the winner.  The ...

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An Apology for Running Red Lights

July 23, 2009 – 5:31 pm
Riding in Tel Aviv isn't the safest venture since the bike lanes are often broken and divided by any number of obstacles such as bus stops, trees, motorcycles and scooters and should be avoided. The safest place to ride is in the street even considering the maniacal and aggressive Israeli drivers. It's also quite enjoyable to blow past all of the cars and buses standing backed up for kilometers. The most dangerous part of riding in the street, however, is at a red light. Waiting for the light to turn from red to yellow and then to green with the roar of the traffic accelerating behind is not only intimidating but dangerous. The best way to avoid getting caught between accelerating cars and rumbling buses is to run the red light before it has the chance to turn green. This is legally dubious, sure, but it's safer ...

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Cheap Locks Yield Stolen Bikes

July 6, 2009 – 4:28 pm
Despite my deleterious and deliquent attempts at updating this site, I do plan on adding some new material sometime soon. At any rate, it seems that Tel Avivians simply don't understand the rationale for spending money on a good lock. Having lived in New York City and worked as a messenger for a number of years, it is essential to have a durable and trustworthy lock. There's nothing worse than coming out of the Cherry Tavern or some other dive and not seeing your bike. As such, the lock of choice for almost all messengers is the Kryptonite New York Lock which now has the idiotic moniker Fahgettabdoudit. I've been using the lock for almost ten years and my bike has always been waiting for whether it be a few moments, hours or the morning after. Most bike stores in Israel carry knock-off locks that range in price ...

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New Bike & Maybe Some Upgrades

December 28, 2008 – 12:35 pm
I finally got my replacement frame from Cannondale.  It's the 2008 Cannondale Capo frame which is better than the 2009 abomination.  I covered up the Capo logo with some electrical tape because as I previously mentioned, I don't find the name "Capo" terribly tasteful. I'm trying to fix the maps section; Google has finally released the maps for Israel with street names but apparently there's some sort of copyright problem with using the street names on websites with the google maps API.  weird; typical though. The weather is getting cool (for Israel) so it's a good time to ride.  Some riders in Jerusalem are night riding to explore the city which is always an exciting way to cover a city.  I don't enjoy riding in Jerusalem because steep hills and track bikes don't really mix too well.  But when I lived in Jerusalem for a bit it was a pleasant way to ...

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Updates, Browser Fixes and a Broken Frame

September 12, 2008 – 6:42 pm
First the good news.  Bike Tel Aviv should be displayed properly in all modern browsers.  I cleaned up the code and it's been validated by the W3; hence the two certification icons on the sidebar.  So all browser issues should be taken care of unless you're using Lynx; in that case, you're on your own. I updated the contact form so it no longer requires an email client to send the mail.   Just fill in the comment, press submit and it's sent.  Please comment freely about site design, suggestions, and any bike-related questions. And the bad news. So my bike frame is finally kaput.  My Cannondale Track frame has gone from merely being a frame with an increasingly large crack in it to a frame whose top tube is severed at one end.  And to make things worse, my replacement track frame was supposed to be in my hands on September 8.  Clearly ...

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Tall Bikes: Mutant Bike Culture Not Yet in Tel Aviv

September 9, 2008 – 2:17 pm
This is old but funny. First, some background: For those who don't know, tall bikes are part of the nebulous bike culture and residing somewhere in the subculture scene bordering the hipster and fixie lifestyles. Part of the philosophy of the tall bike movement is to recycle and reuse old bikes and parts and recapitulate them as useful, if unreliable and totally impractical, bikes. The philosophy borders on the preachy when the corporate culture tries to incorporate the insular tall bike culture.  Tall bike riders form clubs and drink a lot and talk about individuality and yada yada but if you want to join their clubs - Black Label or C.H.U.N.K. 666 to name a couple - you must pass a vetting process and conform to their norms.  Sounds great. Listening to the Best Show on WFMU's archives, the host Tom Scharpling read a Village Voice article about vandalism in the ...

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