It’s nice to have a safe, clear bike lane to ride in, especially when you are legally required to do so. I’m focusing on 2nd Avenue as my example here. The lane has seen good years and bad years, but based on observation and the rough numbers of recorded bike lane violations by motor vehicles on the stretch between Houston and 14th street, the past couple of years have been better for cyclists.

Delivery trucks are arguably the biggest obstacle for improving conditions in the lane. As more cyclists use it, more will be inconvenienced and pushed out into traffic by a truck blocking the lane. Many of these people are less experienced riders who might have chosen 2nd avenue specifically because it has a lane and they feel safer there. It would suck to have them ride less because of a few trucks in the bike lane here and there.

A lot of times it’s hard for more experienced riders to wrap their heads around how scary it can be for a novice to take to riding to commuting. Some might remember when they first started riding how each passing car could be really terrifying, but then you get over it after some time riding.

Deliveries also need to be made, and if drivers aren’t willing, or aren’t able to find curbside parking, what are they supposed to do?

According to this document published by the DOT, it is legal, and expected, that they should leave the bike lane clear and park in the outside lane of traffic. This isn’t always totally practical, or even physically possible, but on 2nd avenue it most definitely is.

Manhattan Beer is an intresting example because their drivers so routinely fail to use (or maybe even recognize) available curbside parking. Many times you will encounter one of their trucks entirely blocking a bike lane with a curbside space over a hundred feet long, so it was weird to see them employing this practice, especially when the same crew had really carelessly blocked the same lane a week prior.

As you can see people make us of the now-clear lane. Dozens of rush hour commuters stand to benefit if this kind of parking keeps up. I can’t find any very good reasons it shouldn’t be encouraged. Even better if NYPD traffic cops were educated to not ticket in these situations per DOT regulations – but that would require communication among city orgs. HAH.

From La Gazzetta Della Bici, same place you saw those awesome (or maybe lame) tubulars-repurposed-as-belts, word comes that UNIQLO and Ridley/Pinarello will be selling “off bike casual wear”. Could be really interesting. No idea if we’ll see them at the UNIQLO on Broadway, but if they are, expect a hard hitting news report about it.

Eh. How are they going to make this more than something you can randomly pick up of a team or manufacturer website? If they can’t make it more “stylish”, what’s the point?

Source [1]

A city Harvest van and potential cab-passenger block the “entrance” to the newly installed turning zone for cyclists on the Bowery at Prince.

I used the 6th Avenue lane for my commute uptown this morning. It’s a good example of a lane that has seen a marked decrease in vehicular intrusion rates over the past couple of years. It’s not hard to remember how bad things used to get weekday afternoons between 10th street and 23rd street – it still happens but the violations are not quite as careless and egregious as 2006, 2007, 2008.

I saw only 1 truck blocking the bike lane between 10th street and 42nd this morning. If you’ve ridden in this lane for more than a year you’ll understand how remarkable that is. And the one truck was blocking the lane for no reason other than that the driver was too lazy to pull up in the easy curbside spot while he got coffee.

Beyond a motorcyclist using the lane as a shortcut, I saw 17 other cyclists commuting uptown in the lane, and none going the wrong way. All in all a pretty tame experience compared to what I remember from commuting in it during 2008.

The lane has gotten a repainting where the construction has finished up between 24th and 25th street. The area was a big danger spot for a couple years. Check back for more HARD HITTING BIKE LANE RAW NEWS.

Team Katusha has done like Quickstep and opened up an online webshop to offload excess team apparel and equipment. Wait for the euro to drop to the dollar or less and you can probably get a deal out of this. If you’re into rider cards, nows your chance for those as well.

I saw this outside Bleecker Street Pizza. Bridgestones are almost always a sight for sore eyes, but I found this setup particularly appealing.

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