Blogs

Jonathan Dasani

Mrs. Petersohn

IB English AI Part 2 – Set 8

8 October 2007

“To be or not to be” Parody

To bike or not to bike – that is the question:

Whether ‘tis truer on the feet to suffer

The gorges and mountains of serrated asphalt,

Or to mount wheels against a hostile terrain

And, by riding, crush it. To walk, to stride –

No more – and by a stride to say we end

The potholes and the thousand angry drivers

Over a year ago in response to the on going problems with bike theft in Philadelphia a Facebook page was created where people could post stolen bikes in the hopes of recovering them, Philadelphia Stolen Bikes. Reading through many of the posts it seems that they have had success in recovering stolen bicycles, where the thefts have been happening, stolen bicycles that have been sighted, and the possible neighborhoods bicycle thieves live in.

It was an extremely HOT day, but the thrill of riding over the Ben Franklin Bridge along with 4000 other riders was amazing. Thanks to all of you that rode and/or donated money to this great cause.

Throughout my years of cycling around the city, I always notice these abandoned bikes locked up to the bike racks. Where do they come from? How long do they stay locked and wasting away? Who finally cuts them free in the end? Is it someone from the department of transportation or a bike thief?

Here are some photos of Temple University cyclists who I've caught looking mighty dapper riding around town. Stay classy, Temple. . . and if you're not classy, at least you look classy riding your bike.

Through this blog I will post up pictures of cyclists--mostly Temple students--riding around Philly looking good on their bikes.

Maybe there will be a collection of pictures of fun-in-the-sun on bikes. Maybe a little bit of caught-in-the-rain shots, it could be anything of dapper cyclists around Philly. Stay tuned and find out.

Max Wojcik

Every year, Americans buy 14 million new bicycles and discard 5 million old ones, leaving many more abandoned and unused in basements, sheds and garages. Project REcycle will rescue these bikes, refurbish them, and provide them, with helmets, to Camden County youth in need. Our goal is to collect and distribute 500 bikes and helmets.  Every Saturday morning through April 9th from 10:00am to 2:00pm, new and used adult and children’s bikes will be collected at 21st Century Storage, 7490 S. Crescent Blvd.

From my experience working on sustainable farms, one of the most common declarations I have heard is that Bamboo and Hemp could save the world in a fight for natural resources. How does this relate to bikes, you may ask? In Brooklyn, NY three tenacious guys have started Bamboo Bicycle Studio, dedicated to teaching and helping folks like you and me how to build a bicycle frame from your own harvested bamboo.

For those of you who haven't heard, there is great news regarding cycling and our campus: For the first time ever, Temple University will be hosting the collegiate criterium race for the annual 'Philly Phyler'... and I couldn't be more stoked.

In previous years, the criterium (a race held on a short distance course - usually no larger than 5km - with multiple laps) was held at the Navy Yard in the southest of South Philly. Penn and Drexel have traditionally overseen the logistics of the event, but this year we finally get a peice of the pie.

Bicycling innovators at Ktrak (http://www.ktrakcycle.com/) have come up with an interesting solution to those pesty snowdays.

I present to you:

While long distance tours on bikes may not be the easiest thing in the world, there’s a social networking site that makes it a bit easier now; it’s called warmshowers.org. This is a site devoted to linking up touring cyclists for hospitality exchange. In other words, when you’re touring you can set up a place to crash along the way after your 100 mile ride for the day, all through the website. I learned about warmshowers.org through my friend who used it when she toured from Baltimore, MD to Santiago, Chile—think about that ride on your next commute to work!