Jaysus cycling! (12 Viewers)

[7 - No tomorrow]

They want to tarmac all of those towpaths

Olivia O'Leary was going nuts about it

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Based in Leixlip. I've only gone as as far as Maynooth one way and Clonsilla the other.

And it nearly killed me every time.

I expect it will get easier if I keep it up

I never cycle along the canal but have cycled between Maynooth and Leixlip a lot (it's along my route home). Cycling in and out of Leixlip is a bitch, they got all the hill in Kildare it seems.

 

[therealjohnny]

Anyone know someone in Dublin that sells these?

STYLE
Families Ditch Cars for Cargo Bikes


By LAURA MOSERAPRIL 22, 2015

Photo

Dave Hoverman and his wife, Abby Smith, in Berkeley, Calif., with their cargo bike, which can hold all four children. CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

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• Cetma cargo bike with a trailer hitched to the rear.
  
  “We do all sorts of errands on the bike,” Mr. Hoverman said. “We try not to get in the car all weekend.”
  
  Mr. Hoverman is among a growing contingent of eco-minded and health-conscious urban parents who are leaving their car keys at home and relying on high-capacity cargo bikes for family transportation.
  
  Cargo bikes initially catered to the “hard-core D.I.Y. crowd — people who wanted to carry around really large objects like surfboards or big speakers or kayaks,” said Evan Lovett-Harris, the marketing director for Xtracycle, a company in Oakland, Calif., that introduced its first family-oriented cargo model, the EdgeRunner, in 2012. Cargo bikes, he said, now account for the largest proportion of the company’s sales.
  
  “When we first started selling these bikes 15 years ago, we were the total freako weirdos,” said Ross Evans, the company’s founder. “Back then, a basket on your handlebars was considered fringe.”
  
  These days, cargo bikes are no longer a novelty: They are cropping up not just in the expected West Coast enclaves like Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area, but in cities like New Haven, Tucson and Dallas. “It used to be that if I saw somebody in Boston on a cargo bike, I probably knew them and probably helped them buy their bicycle,” said Nathan Vierling-Claassen, who has ridden a cargo bike since 2008. “Now that’s no longer the case.”
  
  Cargo bikes are also popular in Washington. Jon Renaut, 37, a software engineer at the Department of Homeland Security, said that he is one of more than a dozen parents at his children’s elementary school who commute to school and work by cargo bike. “There have been only two days this whole school year — when it was really, really snowy out — that we left the bike at home,” Mr. Renaut said. What helps keep his 4- and 6-year-old daughters warm, he said, is to have them face backward while riding.
  
  The popularity of cargo bikes has given rise to more variety. Cargo bikes come in two main types: longtails, which look like a regular bike with a large rack extended over the rear wheel, and the Dutch-style bakfiets, which has a cargo box mounted in front of the handlebars. While longtails are considerably cheaper (a Yuba Mundo starts at $1,300), bakfiets (which start at about $3,000) can generally hold more.
  
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  “The thing I love about cargo bikes these days is that there is such an amazing selection,” said Shane MacRhodes, 43, who manages a school transportation program in Eugene, Ore. “People are finding bikes that really fit their lifestyle. Some people like the sturdiness of a Yuba Mundo, and some people like the sporty zippy ones. It’s almost like the S.U.V. versus the sports wagon.”
  
  Cargo bikes are making inroads into New York, too. It is not unusual to see them parked outside Whole Foods in Gowanus, Brooklyn, or Union Market in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
  
  Joe Nocella, who owns 718 Cyclery, a bicycle shop in Gowanus, joined the bandwagon last year and expanded his cargo bike selection. “Our shop was up 21 percent over the year before,” he said, “and a good chunk of that was from our focus on cargo bikes.”
  
  “It’s such a great transaction because here’s this family that’s ditching the car and transforming itself, and you get to be a part of that,” he said. “I love when the kids come in and jump all over the bikes.” (When parents show up without children, he lets them test-ride bikes with sandbags.)
  
  Manuel Toscano, 42, a design consultant who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, commutes to his son’s preschool in Chinatown and his job in TriBeCa on a Bullitt bicycle. “Every time we tried to take the kid into the subway, it was an ordeal,” he said. “People don’t move or let you sit when you have a kid.”
  
  “We finally decided we’d had enough,” he said. “The only sustainable way to have kids here is not to get in the subway.”
  
  Biking in New York has its share of challenges. “New York is not an easy place to have a family, and it’s not an easy place to have a cargo bike,” Mr. Toscano said. The bike-path approach to the Manhattan Bridge, he said, is not for the faint of calf muscle, and the bridge’s narrow entrances are difficult to navigate.
  
  “The other challenge is where to put my bike,” he said. “I garage mine, and they charge me the same as any other bicycle: $38 a month plus tax, even though it’s longer than a Smart car.”

A girl I know is returning home to Ireland after living in Holland for the last few years. She uses one of these yokes regularly and was asking what the cycle is like along the canal around where we live. Unless she puts caterpillar tracks and an engine in that thing she'll find it tough going.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

A girl I know is returning home to Ireland after living in Holland for the last few years. She uses one of these yokes regularly and was asking what the cycle is like along the canal around where we live. Unless she puts caterpillar tracks and an engine in that thing she'll find it tough going.

What is the surface like?

 

[therealjohnny]

It's well worn but it's pretty rough in places. A far cry from the purpose built. Well maintained bike paths she'd be used to

 

[hydromancer]

Biking on the canal is great sometimes you can end up chasing the herons a bit they fly off when you get close but only land a bit further down until you get close and they fly off again I think they are getting used to cyclists now though. Also you are allowed to bring your bike on the train nowadays which is great too

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Biking on the canal is great sometimes you can end up chasing the herons a bit they fly off when you get close but only land a bit further down until you get close and they fly off again I think they are getting used to cyclists now though. Also you are allowed to bring your bike on the train nowadays which is great too

If I take the Luas/train to work, it takes me nearly 2 hours to get in. If I cycle it takes 1.5 hours. I don't tend to need a shower after the train though.

 

[therealjohnny]

Do you all take a change of clothes to work? Maybe it's just this unusual heat but after yesterday's shweddy mess I decided to bring ordinary clothes in a backpack and wear shorts and a tshirt for the bike ride. It adds a layer of fuss and inconvenience I could do without but what's the alternative?

 

[Lili Marlene]

Do you all take a change of clothes to work?

yes

Maybe it's just this unusual heat but after yesterday's shweddy mess I decided to bring ordinary clothes in a backpack and wear shorts and a tshirt for the bike ride. It adds a layer of fuss and inconvenience I could do without but what's the alternative?

I don't know an alternative, although I moved to actual biking clothes on the bike a year or two ago. I still feel a bit of an eejit in them tbh

 

[therealjohnny]

I moved to actual biking clothes on the bike a year or two ago. I still feel a bit of an eejit in them tbh

This is a concern. I imagined I'd be one of those gentlemen cycling merrily to work in a tweed suit, maybe puffing on a pipe. This is turning into an unplanned exercise regime. It's only 9am and I've had two showers already.

 

[Lili Marlene]

With Dublin's cyclists I do fight a constant psychic battle not to turn into all the pricks who think they're on the tour de france

"Just cycling to work like i do every day"

 

[therealjohnny]

those guys. ugh

 

[Lili Marlene]

Some little scuts through a rock at me yesterday though, that livened up my cycle. Still love U Dublin.

 

[therealjohnny]

With Dublin's cyclists I do fight a constant psychic battle not to turn into all the pricks who think they're on the tour de france

"Just cycling to work like i do every day"

this is how I see them

 

[Space]

I rather enjoy passing the lycra/carbon frame lads while in my jeans and t-shirt on my old steel frame bike, especially when they've pushed past me to get to the front of the group at traffic lights.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I wear the proper cycling gear but would never go into town with it. That stop/start cycling is not the place for a fancy bike and the rest of it. Dublin Bikes and regular clothes in town.

That said, when I cycle to work it's a 70 km round trip so proper bike and gear all the way there.

 

[Space]

I too have a bunch of the proper cycling gear and would wear it on a trip like that.

 

[therealjohnny]

it's a 70 km round trip .

 

[therealjohnny]

oh dear
Cyclists to face fines for dozens of offences | Irish Examiner

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Do you all take a change of clothes to work? Maybe it's just this unusual heat but after yesterday's shweddy mess I decided to bring ordinary clothes in a backpack and wear shorts and a tshirt for the bike ride. It adds a layer of fuss and inconvenience I could do without but what's the alternative?

It's never a bad idea to keep a change of clothes in work no matter what.

How far is the ride in to work?