Seattle Bike Blog

Alert 9/7-13: No bikes allowed as construction makes Bainbridge Ferry walk-on only

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 21, 2023

Image from WSDOT.
(EDIT: I changed the headline because some readers thought the change was permanent. Bikes, along with all vehicles using the car deck, will only be disallowed during this construction period.)
Construction work to build a new elevated walkway at the Bainbridge Ferry Terminal will completely close off access to the ferry car decks. The good news is that Washington State Ferries (“WSF”) will maintain walk-on service. The bad news is that bicycles will not be allowed. From WSF:
We separate walk-on and ADA passengers from wheeled vehicles for passenger safety, which is why we cannot accommodate bicycles and electric scooters during the closure. With higher pedestrian volumes, it is not feasible or safe for us to mix pedestrians with bicycles and scooters both inside the ferry and in the terminal waiting areas. For those who want to store their bikes for use on either side of the route, the Kitsap Transit Bike Barn has 79 indoor and 33 outdoor bike parking spaces and we will provide a secure lock up area on the Seattle side or check into bike lockers. Another option is to walk on and use bike share in Seattle.
The closure is scheduled to begin 1 a.m. September 7 and go until 3 a.m. September 13. During this time, they will run single-boat service, though perhaps loading and unloading will be much faster without all the cars. They are also prepared to allow emergency vehicle access as needed.
It’s too bad that they are not accommodating bikes since biking could take a load off the limited car parking and drop off capacity on both sides of Elliott Bay. There are about 112 bike parking spots in the Bike Barn on Bainbridge, which may not be enough given how many people typically bike on board. The Seattle side will be a bit more interesting. WSF says they “will provide a secure lock up area on the Seattle side,” though they have not yet posted the exact details of how that will work and what the capacity will be. Typically, there is no publicly-accessible secure bike parking near the Seattle Ferry Terminal. WSF also suggests in the quote above that you should bike to a closer transit station, use secure bike parking there, then take transit to the ferry. This is a good suggestion if feasible.
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tags: bainbridge ferry terminal, bainbridge island, Bike Route Alert, bike share, washington state ferries

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Watch: Best Side Cycling rides the new Rainier Valley Greenway connection to the I-90 Trail

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 18, 2023

The short but important trail connection between the Rainier Valley Neighborhood Greenway and the I-90 Trail is open, and Hanoch at Best Side Cycling took it for a test ride.
As we noted in July, this short little trail at the end of 28th Ave S has been a long time coming. It never should have been this difficult or taken this long, but SDOT and WSDOT finally figured out a solution to make it happen. This will make it much more intuitive and feasible for people to use this greenway route, which first opened in 2017.
There are still some details still left to be finished, but the trail is open for use.

tags: best side cycling, I-90 trail, rainier valley neighborhood greenway, sdot, wsdot

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Bike News Roundup: ‘Why America is addicted to cars’

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 16, 2023

It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s a look at some of the stuff going around the web that caught my eye.
First up, Answer in Progress took on public transit, and it’s pretty good:

Pacific Northwest News
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tags: bike news roundup

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Pedego Seattle is closing August 31

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 15, 2023

From Pedego Seattle via Instagram.
Folks, support your local bike shops. These are rough times for a lot of them, and competition from online direct-to-customer companies is not slowing down. Sure, you might be able to save some bucks buying online, but that website won’t be there to help you fix it on your way to work or wherever. Supporting your local bike shop is supporting vital bike infrastructure. The experts behind the workbench stocked with all the right tools, they can’t be replaced by any online service.
The locally-owned Pedego Seattle electric bike shop in Ballard will close August 31, the company announced Monday. In a statement, the company said owner Mike Nelson “attributed the store’s closing to personal hardship as well as economic factors driving the ebike industry toward a commodity model, where high-touch white-glove service and the best warranty in the industry matter less than low prices.” Nelson’s first shop opened in Redmond in 2017, and he opened the Ballard location the next year. The Redmond shop was shuttered in 2022. Seattle Bike Blog wishes Nelson and all the Pedego staff the best. The shop’s sale is already on, so head down to their location on Market Street near 26th Ave NW to say goodbye and pick up some deals.
Mainstream bike shops were slow to pick up on the e-bike trend, though they are catching up. But them being slow created lots of space for non-traditional bike sales models, including direct-to-customer discount companies that undercut competitors in part by bypassing the standard retail markup at a local shop. The problem is that bikes require maintenance, and those local shops are lifelines for bike owners. Shops aren’t grifting when they earn money on a sale, they are funding their essential work. And a shop’s warranty, including their warranty on service, is absolutely worth any extra cost in my opinion.
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tags: ballard, bike shops, mike nelson, pedego

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I rode the new Bird bike

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 14, 2023

Scooter share company Bird has quietly launched new shared e-bikes in Seattle in addition to their fleet of scooters, so of course I had to hunt one down and take it for a ride.
The company’s pedal-assist e-bikes are the first direct competitor to Lime since Lime took over JUMP in 2020. Veo also has “bikes” in operation in Seattle, but they are more like throttle-controlled scooters with mostly useless pedals. Bird’s bikes, which the company first introduced in 2021, are much more like the now-familiar Lime bikes. They cost $1 to unlock plus 39¢ per minute, which is 8¢ less per minute than Lime’s bikes as of press time. Note that the companies adjust these prices often.
After a few tries, I was able to ride a fully-functional bike, and it was great. It passed my downtown hill-climbing test, getting up and down the extremely steep blocks of Spring and Seneca Streets between 2nd and 4th Avenues. A bike that can handle these hills can handle any Seattle bike route.
The blue and black bikes have solid tires similar to those common on early private bike share bikes launched in Seattle back in 2017. These solid tires have the obvious benefit of reliability because they cannot go flat, but they do make the ride a bit bumpier than the more familiar tires filled with air that the Lime bikes use. The Bird bikes also have somewhat sluggish brakes, but they are good enough to stop the bike on a very steep downhill. The saddle height is adjustable using a dropper post handle, which is very easy, fast and intuitive.
Overall, the Bird bike is not quite as good as the Lime bike, which had the benefit of consuming JUMP’s many years of bike development. But the Bird bike is cheaper to ride, so the better Lime ride comes with a price premium. 8¢ per minute doesn’t sound like a lot of a price difference, but it adds up. If you ride for 30 minutes, the price difference is $2.40, about the cost of a transit fare. It will be interesting to see if Lime is forced to stop its ongoing price hikes now that they have a direct competitor.
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tags: bike share, bird

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CPSC should eliminate outdated child coaster brake mandate

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

August 10, 2023

I unfortunately missed this story before the 60-day comment period ended in late July, but as a parent of a brand new bike rider I gotta post my thoughts anyway.
There is an old Consumer Product and Safety Commission regulation that requires kids bikes to be sold with a coaster brake, and it is frankly nonsense. Makers of so-called “sidewalk bikes,” which the CPSC defines as bikes with a seat height no higher than 25 inches, must ship their bikes with a coaster brake even if they are designed to have perfectly capable handbrakes. Some bike makers have even resorted to shipping their bikes with three wheels: One for the front, one for the back, and one with a legally-required coaster brake hub that is intended to be thrown in the trash. This is not a great situation for many reasons.
This is why kids bike maker woom filed a request in 2022 to eliminate the requirement. From the rule change proposal summary:
The petition argues that this regulation for sidewalk bicycles is out of date. The petition asserts that it is “hard to compare the relative safety of bicycle braking between children’s bicycles with a combination of handbrakes and a footbrake to those with just handbrakes,” and alleges that there is no evidence that handbrakes are less safe than the required footbrakes—and may be safer than footbrakes. The request also asserts that manufacturers are producing and selling non-compliant children’s bicycles without footbrakes. The petition claims that footbrakes cost more to produce than handbrakes, putting manufacturers that comply with CPSC’s brake regulations at a competitive disadvantage to those who do not comply. The petition also states that European regulations do not require footbrakes for children’s bicycles.
My kid started by riding a balance bike, and her first pedal bike had hand brakes and no coaster brake. She never had any trouble operating the hand brakes. After riding for a while, we got her a new bike that was unfortunately just barely too big for her to ride comfortably. So we ended up borrowing a bike from a friend (thanks Lindsey!) that was a little smaller just so she’d have something to ride until she grew another inch or so. This borrowed bike had a coaster brake, and boy did it give my child trouble. The biggest problem with coaster brakes is that she had a lot more trouble getting the pedals into the “starting position” because she couldn’t move them backwards until they were in the right spot. This was very frustrating to her. Getting started is by far the most difficult part of learning to bike. It’s the final puzzle kids have to overcome before they are riding freely. Any impediment to getting their pedals in the starting position just makes learning to ride harder than it already is.
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tags: coaster brakes, consumer protection and safety commission, kids bikes, woom

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