Yours truly giving the rundown at the start of the ride. Photo by Brock Howell.
125 people hauled over 1,0001,631 pounds of food by bike during Seattle Cranksgiving 2017 (UPDATED 12/5).
Over the eight years that Seattle Bike Blog has been organizing this food drive scavenger hunt by bike, the total amount of food riders have donated to Rainier Valley Food Bank is somewhere around 8,000 pounds of food. That’s the weight of several cars, all purchased locally and hauled by bike to share with neighbors.
Big thanks to everyone who came out November 18 for another unseasonably beautiful day.
Big thanks also to Swift Industries, who donated prizes and hosted the afterparty at their Pioneer Square headquarters. They were vital for pulling off this year’s event.
Other prizes were donated by Cascade Designs, Cascade Bicycle Club, Peddler Brewing, Reuben’s Brews and Kelli Refer.
First, here are a couple photos courtesy of Brock Howell: (more…)
A 61-year-old man was killed this morning in SODO, and Seattle Police are searching for the suspect. Someone driving northbound on 1st Ave struck and killed the man while he was biking near S Andover Street, just south of the West Seattle bridge viaduct.
The suspect then fled and is still on the loose. The victim died at the scene.
Seattle Police are investigating the fatal collision as a hit and run, but do not yet have a consistent description of the suspect or the suspect’s vehicle to share. We will update this post when we learn more. UPDATE 11/22: Seattle police released this updated description of the suspect vehicle: “Detectives were able to confirm that the suspect vehicle is a Toyota Prius (not a Prius C, V, or other model) from model year 2010 to 2015. If you have any information on this vehicle, please contact TCIS Det. Sanders at (206) 684-8923.”
Our deepest condolences to the man’s friends and family.
The circumstances of the fatal collision and the victim’s identity have not yet been released.
UPDATE 11/22: Detectives were able to confirm that the suspect vehicle is a Toyota Prius (not a Prius C, V, or other model) from model year 2010 to 2015. If you have any information on this vehicle, please contact TCIS Det. Sanders at (206) 684-8923.
UPDATE: Detectives are looking for a white or silver colored 4 door compact hatchback, very similar to a Toyota Prius. The vehicle will have obvious right front headlight area damage. Anyone with information on this vehicle is urged to contact SPD’s Traffic Collision Investigation Squad at (206) 684-8923 and ask for Det. Sanders.
Detectives from the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad (TCIS) are currently investigating a fatal hit and run collision that killed a bicyclist early Tuesday morning in the SODO neighborhood.
At approximately 5:45 am, a 61- year- old male bicyclist was travelling on 1st Avenue South near S. Andover Street. According to witnesses, the driver of a vehicle, believed to be travelling northbound on 1st Avenue, struck the cyclist and then drove away northbound on 1st Avenue South. The cyclist was declared deceased at the scene. There were conflicting descriptions of the suspect vehicle, and detectives are working to get a better description of the vehicle involved.
1st Avenue South was closed in both directions while detectives processed the scene. This remains an active and on-going investigation. This information is preliminary and subject to change. We will update this post with any new information on this investigation.
Yours truly about to ride a Bluegogo bike around downtown Seattle
In what is so far the biggest and most dramatic implosion yet in the new global free-floating bike share boom, China-based Bluegogo has reportedly gone bankrupt with big bills, staff salaries and user deposits still outstanding.
Bluegogo was one of the first companies to try to operate in Seattle. They even got as far as bringing a bike to town, which Seattle Bike Blog had a chance to ride around downtown in May. The company planned 3,000 bikes for Seattle, but then abandoned its U.S. expansion plans before ever launching.
The company has barely been operating for a year, but in that time it raised about $90 million in funding and deployed 700,000 bikes across China before abruptly closing shop, the Guardian reports:
But as reports emerged Bluegogo was in trouble, Chinese social media erupted with users complaining they were unable to get their deposits back, and rumours that [CEO Li Gang] had fled the country.
Bluegogo claimed it had 20m users across China at its height in an open letter written by Li this week. That would mean the company at one point had at least 1.98bn yuan (£226m) in deposits, although it is unclear how much the company is currently holding.
Rumors have also spread on Chinese social media saying Li had left China, prompting him to post on his profile: “I have always been in the country, fighting on the front lines for redemption”.
The company’s operations will be taken over by another bike sharing startup, Li said in the letter. Visits by Chinese journalists to Bluegogo’s offices found the doors locked and office space abandoned.
Perhaps the wildest part of the story has to do with a promo campaign the company launched around the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It didn’t go well: (more…)
Cities across America will be holding their own Cranksgivings this coming weekend. What is Cranksgiving? Just about the best thing ever. It’s a bike scavenger hunt where participants pick-up a list of groceries and other goods and then donate them to a food bank at the end of the ride. Organized by Tom Fucoloro of the Seattle Bike Blog and benefiting the Rainier Valley Food Bank, this year’s Cranksgiving in Seattle will be held this Saturday, November 18, starting at Swift Industries’ headquarters in Pioneer Square at 10:30 a.m. and ending at 2pm back at Swift for an after party. If you don’t live in Seattle, check out the Cranksgivings in Tacoma or even Sequim.
Have you ever wondered what “cyclocross” racing is all about? This weekend is your chance to see it in action at Seattle’s Woodland Park. Even if you’re not into racing or sport, watching cyclocross is a ton of fun. Check it out from 9:30-4pm; the fastest races are last in the day.
Attention Sammamish River Trail users: A big King County sewer project that could impact the trail near Redmond is in planning now.
The project is still years away from breaking ground, but now is the time to get involved if you want to support high quality detour options. It is always better to get involved early rather than fighting a bad plan too late in the process.
The project team has picked the sewer route, so the next step is to develop the final design, including construction impacts and detours. That starts now.
And since the project will close sections of the trail over a a period of three years, it’s vital that detours are safe, comfortable and direct so people can keep getting where they’re going on bike. This is a vital regional transportation route, and three years is a long time. The trail serves lot of people who aren’t going to feel comfortable on busy streets without at least a barrier of some kind, for example.
The good news is that there is a lot of time to get the detour plans right.
I asked the project team about the scope of trail impacts, and they sent me the following explanation as well as a couple early detour options: (more…)
Downtown Bellevue could be biking laps around downtown Seattle if it wanted to. Not only is downtown Bellevue much flatter than Seattle, the Eastside city’s streets are very wide, which makes them primed and ready to host a network of protected bike lanes.
With the 520 Bridge Trail nearly open (WSDOT will only say “after Thanksgiving”), there is no better time for Bellevue to rethink some downtown streets to take advantage of this major regional connection.
But downtown Bellevue bike lanes are not just about regional travel or the bridge or even people biking, for that matter. Bellevue is growing, and there is a bigger and bigger focus on its downtown as a place for people to live and play. And protected bike lanes are among the most effective ways to make a street more comfortable for everyone, including people walking or eating at a sidewalk café or window shopping. They improve safety for all road users, but they also make streets more lively and comfortable.
That’s why the city’s plans for a pilot protected bike lane are so exciting. Using low-cost materials, city staff will install at least one stretch of mostly-protected bike lane that they can learn from and easily modify. If it goes well, the city can easily make the lane (or lanes) permanent.
Oh, and they want to have it open by May 2018.
This is a very smart approach. Get something in place quickly so people can experience it for themselves. (more…)
