#SpokesmamaProTip: How to Use Bus Bike Racks

Practicing #bikebusbike at Broadway Station bus loop

Having the option to carry your bike on a bus is great as a backup plan if you have mechanical issuses, terrible weather, or if you're just starting to commute to work & it's a long distance. Being able to use the bus bike rack makes touring--especially with a kid--a lot more possible, & the bus system can help you get through the various tunnels & bridges & highways around Metro Vancouver that you can't or don't feel safe riding on. Translink bus bike racks accommodate bikes from a 16" wheel up to a 700c. That covers the vast majority of two-wheel bikes out there, even folding & children's bikes.

BUT. Big but. How do those racks work? Am I going to be able to figure one out when I need to, with a bus load of people staring at me? Using the bus bike racks can be a bit intimidating at first. It just takes a little practice, however, & then loading your bike on a bus goes much more smoothly!

Here are my top tips for using bus bike racks:

1. Consider starting your trip at the first stop or a layover point if you can, to make the process more relaxed. The first stop means you'll be the first to load, so the two spaces on the bike rack won't be full already.
2. Pack your panniers or basket so they're easy to pull off the bike or unpack before loading it onto the rack. You're not allowed to leave them on the bike as they can impede the driver's view.
3. Watch this video to see how the rack folds down & how the extendable arm works. Then ride your bike to a bus loop or layover point along a route & ask the driver if you can practice with the rack. There are also two practice racks permanently installed outside Main Street Skytrain Station & North Vancouver City Hall.
4. When you lift your bike, grab it on the front fork with one hand (this prevents the front wheel from flopping around & hitting you in the head with your own handlebars) & the seat tube with the other so you can lift it as high as needed. Put your bike on the back spot so another person can use the front one.
5. Be ready at the bus stop pole before the bus arrives & make eye contact with the driver so it's clear you're planning to use the rack. Once you get on the bus, tell driver where you're planning to get off. Stay near the front, so you can keep an eye on your bike. There's usually a luggage rack area just inside the front door where you can stash your bags. When you're going to get off again, let the driver know, & then get off via the front doors.
6. Don't forget to put the rack back up if it's empty!
7. Once you've taken your bike off the bus, move onto the sidewalk to reattach panniers, etc. Don't stand in travel lane or cross in front of the bus.

Visit the Translink Bikes on Buses page for more information.

I hope these tips are helpful in demystifying the bus bike rack! I put my bike on the bus occasionally as part of my commute to work when I'm travelling farther than I want to ride, or I want to avoid a particularly heavy traffic route. (Check out the hashtag #bikebusbike or #biketrainbike to see pics on Instagram.) We have also used transit to make bike touring more doable when we're hauling children & camping gear.

Have you got any other handy #bikebusbike tips or stories to share? Let me know in the comments below.

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5 Ways to Participate in Bike to Work & School Week!!

It's that time again, when everyone has dusted off their trusty steeds--or just got them tuned up since they've been riding them all year anyway--& gets on the bike path. The seawall is elbow-to-elbow riders & all the bikeways are boppin!

Bike to Work & School Week starts tomorrow, May 28th & runs til Sunday, June 3rd.

Here are five ways you can participate:

1. Ride your bike to work & school! Talk to your coworkers, classmates, neighbours, friends & plan to ride together one or more of the days. 
2. Register with HUB's Bike to Work Week website & track your commutes (anywhere you bike--running errands or social calls count too!) on their site. The data they gather on biking in this city is useful for those of us who advocate to make biking better. Entering commutes each day also adds your name to draws for a free bike every day of BTWW! 
3. Stop by a few of the BTWW Celebration Stations on your morning or afternoon commute. There are more than 80 of them around Metro Vancouver this year! Every station is a bit different, but most offer coffee, snacks, free minor bike repair, as well as contests to win prizes. Find them on the BTWW map by day here.
4. Become a member of HUB Cycling! Your membership dollars support HUB's efforts to make biking better for people of all ages & abilities around Metro Vancouver; help HUB run education programs for children & adults in schools & the community; & keep HUB organizing awesome special events like BTWW, Bike to Shop Days, Bike the Night, & more. Also: members get discounts at all kinds of places! You can join on the website here, or in person & get a thank you gift (while supplies last) during BTWW!
5. Join all your fellow bike commuters for a free hot dog barbeque at Creekside Park on Friday, June 1st. There will also be snacks, drinks, & prizes from many local (& some not so local) businesses.

Hope to see you on the bikeways! Or at least on social media--don't forget to post a few bike selfies during the week & hashtag 'em #Bike2Work!

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Review: #Superpedestrian Copenhagen Wheel Electric Assist

I recently got to test out a Superpedestrian Copenhagen Wheel, on a loaner bike from Tandem Bike Cafe. The Copenhagen Wheel is a 350 Watt electric assist hub with batteries, motor, & sensors all in one unit that gets laced into your rear wheel. It's controlled via Bluetooth with an app on your smart phone.

First off, this e-assist is sleek. The Copenhagen Wheel hub is shiny candy red with a silver metal centre where you find the on/off dial, battery charge display lights, & charging port. The Copenhagen Wheel adds 7.6kg to the weight of your bike, which is similar to other add-on electric assist systems out there.

The Copenhagen Wheel is compatible with 26" & 700c wheels, & the app works with Android & iOS smartphones (see the Superpedestrian support site for more details on compatibility). You need to download the 19MB app, then pair it with your phone to use the assist.

Took the Copenhagen Wheel out along the Fraser in Richmond

You can mount your phone on your handlebars--this is what I did so I could have easier access to the display--but it's really not necessary. The Wheel app shows you your battery charge, speed, how much assist you're getting & how much is your own pedal power. You can adjust the level of assist: Eco, Standard, & Turbo, or Exercise, which actually provides extra resistance when you pedal. I found the app quite intuitive & easy to use. I did try to track my routes so I could get stats on my average speed, etc, but it didn't work every time--not sure why.


So this thing is pretty & simple to use, but how does it FEEL, right? I have tried a few other e-assist bikes out, some for a few minutes, one for a couple of weeks, but the Copenhagen Wheel is far & away my favourite at this point. The assist engages seamlessly--I honestly found it difficult to feel when it started. It just made me feel like I had superpowers, even on the lowest Eco setting.

First ride up the steeeeeep Heather Street hill

Unlike other e-assist bikes I've tried, the assist does come on as soon as you start to pedal, so you need to be slightly more careful when starting out (don't have your wheel turned sharply, for instance) but I really didn't find this an issue--it just felt super smooth to me. The sensors read how much effort you're putting into pedalling & adjust accordingly--there are no sudden shifts as the assist comes on (like some ebikes I've tried), nor does the assist continue after you stop pedalling.

I liked the immediacy of the assist, because it meant that I could move through traffic more easily. Crossing arterial roads can be difficult with the heavy cargo bikes that I usually ride, so the majority of the time, I cross only where there's a beg button & a light, usually waiting until the arterial traffic has the red light. But with the Copenhagen Wheel I was able to zip through smaller gaps in traffic & found that riding in with traffic (vehicular cycling) was a lot easier, as I could keep up with city car speeds, maintaining 30 kph fairly consistently.

The first day I used the Copenhagen Wheel I rode about 34 km using mainly turbo & Standard boost, which nearly drained the battery. I did a fair bit of hill climbing, going up & over the "hump" of Vancouver to Richmond Ikea & back to Mount Pleasant, then over to Britannia Community Centre. The smooth assist of the Copenhagen Wheel really does flatten the hills. I found my speed still went down--I wasn't cruising up steep hills at 32 kph or anything--but the assist increased compared to the effort I was putting in, & it didn't feel like much of a hill at all. Starting on a hill was no big deal either, which is a huge contrast to riding without assist. I will do anything to avoid hill starts when I've got my bakfiets loaded up.

Another day of riding was from home to downtown plus a jaunt on the Arbutus Greenway, 25 km total. That was tonnes of fun--couldn't wipe the smile off my face when I realized that I was already at Marine Drive, on the other side of the city in minutes! A few days later I did about 10 km running errands downtown, (without charging it in between) which also nearly used up the entire battery charge. Superpedestrian says that the wheel's range is up to 50km but I didn't manage to get that far at all--35km was the range I found, no matter which settings I used. However, this riding was all during fairly cold weather--zero Celsius to maybe a max of ten degrees--plus the bike was kept in an unheated garage which could have impacted the range of the battery.

I'd like to try the bike out again in the summer when the weather is warmer to see if it does impact the battery range. If I do, I'll definitely add an update to this post!

Plugging in the wheel to charge is super simple

Speaking of battery power, the bike is not necessarily the easiest thing to charge. The cable clicks magnetically into a small port in the centre of the hub--nice design there--& you can get a full charge in about four hours. But you need to have the entire bike with the charger, unlike many ebike systems where you can remove the battery to bring it in & charge under your desk, or wherever. If you don't have an outlet near where you park your bike at home or at work, the Copenhagen Wheel might not be the best system for you.

Superpedestrian tells me that the battery should be good for 1000 charge cycles, which would likely be several years for quite regular use. The Copenhagen Wheel was only released onto the market in 2017, so it will be a while before we see reports of real-world long term usage & battery replacement.

Another feature I started playing with on the day I rode the Arbutus Greenway was the regenerative braking. The Copenhagen Wheel will slow you down if you backpedal a bit, which helps to charge the battery (though I didn't find it helped with battery life significantly) but also allows you to use your brakes less. When I was riding on the greenway or on quiet bikeways, coming up to a stop sign, I was able to use just the regenerative braking without using the bike rim brakes at all. For a sudden stop due to, say a driver not yielding properly, or a pedestrian stepping out in front of you, the regenerative braking is not enough, but it would augment your bike's brakes.

One of the things that has kept me from considering adding electric assist to any of my bikes has been my fear that I wouldn't get as much exercise. However, I found that I was still working hard enough to get my heart going even with the assist on Turbo. The main difference was that I was just arriving sooner. So if I got a Copenhagen Wheel & rode exactly the same distances I did before getting it, then yes, I'd get less exercise. However, because longer rides were a bit less strenuous, I was also riding more than I usually would. So having the Copenhagen Wheel really bumped the trips that I do occasionally by bike but often with a car, into the category of easy to do by bike.

Took the Copenhagen Wheel over to Richmond

If you have a long work commute, it can be a bit of a grind, especially if it's hilly. Adding the Copenhagen Wheel could make your ride a lot more fun & probably save you time too. I found that I usually cut at least 30% off my usual (unassisted) ride times with the Copenhagen Wheel.

The Copenhagen Wheel is compatible with a cargo bike, provided your rear wheel is the right size, though Superpedestrian doesn't recommend carrying more than 150kg of rider & cargo for optimal range & acceleration. Some real-world examples: me, my two children & our Bakfiets weigh about 150kg. My husband Oliver, the two kids, & the Yuba Mundo are about 10kg less than that.

Some other notes on compatibility: the Copenhagen Wheel replaces your rear hub, so doesn't work with internal gear hubs. It also isn't compatible with disc or roller brakes at the back--you'll need rim brakes. I'd say the regenerative braking would probably more than compensate for the difference in stopping power between disc & rim brakes, however.

Locked up with three locks

Next, I wanted to mention security. Because this wheel is so shiny & red, it's going to attract attention, including thieves. & because the entire thing is all on the rear wheel, it would theoretically be easier to steal that e-assist setups with a removeable battery & more wiring. There is a level of security provided by the fact it must be controlled by the smartphone paired with this specific wheel. However, I'm not sure that many thieves would realize this, so it might get stolen anyway. When I locked the Copenhagen Wheel up outside, I used three different locks to secure it, two of them fed through the rear wheel specifically. Of course, security is always going to be an issue with any e-bike, since they're so valuable.

To sum up, I really loved the way the assist worked so seamlessly & I'd definitely consider buying a Copenhagen Wheel for my bike in future. For anyone wanting to flatten out the hills in their city, with a long commute to work, particularly if you're not interested in buying a whole new ebike, this could be a great option.

You can get yourself a Copenhagen Wheel at Tandem Bike Cafe in Vancouver for $1970 CAD, including installation. Talk to Clint John at Tandem if you'd like to borrow the Copenhagen Wheel on a loaner bike & try it out yourself.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for writing this post & was not given any product--I borrowed the Copenhagen Wheel from Tandem Bike Cafe for a couple of weeks. Opinions are my own, & any information on technical specs of the product comes from the Superpedestrian website. 

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Some Inspiration for Winter Biking

Our brief winter back in December

This winter in Vancouver wasn't as cold as last year, thankfully, so we only had to deal with snow & ice for a week or so.

But the rain.

OMG, the rain.

January was brutal for rain & I am glad to see February is slightly better. But there are definitely fewer cyclists out there on the roads & I get a lot more comments about how "heroic" or "hardcore" I am for riding every day in the rain.

The thing is, I don't really have a choice. We don't own a car & picking up a carshare vehicle for the school run would be a hassle, honestly. Plus, driving to get Linny to or from school actually takes longer than biking: while the trip takes ten minutes for either mode, finding parking around the school takes a few minutes longer in a car. Transit from where we live to where his school is means several blocks of walking on each end, or a bunch of transfers. Not worth it.

So on my bike I go, rain or shine, snow or sleet or hail. & it's okay--I haven't melted yet. & most days, I really enjoy it. Even on the worst days--with the exercise & fresh air & that feeling almost like flying--it's a net positive.

For those of you who have an easier way to get where you need to get--maybe you own a car, or the bus routes work better for you--here's a little more visual inspiration to go for it on two wheels. Check out this Flickr set of cyclists just getting where they need to go in wintry Montreal:

Velo d'Hiver, by Zvi Leve.

You'll see riders of all ages from toddlers in baby seats to seniors on trikes. Just ordinary people, just doing their thing. No big deal. :)

& if you're interested in even more intrepid winter biking, you should head over to visit Coldbike: Cycling With Kids, Sometimes in the Cold. Jim heads out on all kinds of adventures with fatbikes in the snowy wilderness. Definitely worth following Doug on Instagram too for a more regular dose of adventure.

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Let's #UnGapTheMap to Make Metro Vancouver Better

Have you ever been riding somewhere, along a lovely separated bike route, then gotten dumped onto a busy highway or narrow footpath? Or had a bike lane just disappear into thin air as you reach a big intersection? Unfortunately, despite the fact that over 40% of Metro Vancouver residents want to cycle more often, they don't because of gaps in cycling infrastructure like this. While the number of people cycling in Metro Vancouver has increased rapidly in recent years, the bike network remains fragmented with tons of gaps across the region preventing people from cycling more often, particularly for transportation, not just recreation.

HUB Cycling--the non profit that I work for teaching cycling education to kids & adults--is working hard to solve this problem. Their UnGapTheMap campaign is focused on identifying, prioritizing & fixing the gaps that--if solved--would increase safety, creating a more connected bike network across Metro Vancouver, getting people to places they need to go.

HUB Cycling’s local committees (click here to learn more & join yours!) have already identified over 300 gaps across Metro Vancouver which are stopping more people cycling. The gaps range from minor ‘spot improvements’, such as adding signage or bike crossings, to building new bike lanes in areas of high ridership like along Powell Street in Vancouver.

In addition to identifying the routes in need of improvement, HUB Cycling is working with municipalities, the Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure, plus TransLink to highlight the priority gaps & encourage government to implement solutions that will help more people bike, more safely.

One of the solutions that HUB Cycling is championing is cycle highways: continuous paved, lit paths, separated from pedestrians & motor vehicles, suitable for people of all ages & abilities. Cycle highways have proved extremely successful in Europe & could work well on routes such as Vancouver to Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal (getting there by bike is a ridiculously epic journey--read my posts on our Galiano bike camping trip for more on that) & HUB Cycling is asking MLAs to support the introduction of them in Metro Vancouver.

People make over 131,000 trips by bike in Metro Vancouver each day but creating safe, connected routes would help many more people to get on their bikes. Just imagine how increasing that could change our cities: less air pollution, fewer cars stuck in traffic, healthier people getting exercise every day, less vehicle noise through our neighbourhoods...

So what can you do to help ungap the map? Adopt one of HUB Cycling’s identified gaps and explain how that gap is stopping you from cycling.

To find out more visit www.bikehub.ca/ungapthemap.

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Making Commercial Drive Better for Everyone

Photo Credit: Canadian Veggie Flickr via Compfight cc

A link popped up in one of my social media feeds today to a British Columbia Cycling Coalition page, asking us to write to Vancouver's City Council in support of adding bike lanes to Commercial Drive. I do occasionally email my various elected representatives, when I get around to it, if I've got the time... You know how it goes. But today I wrote a letter to our city council because it was so easy to do on the BCCC site. They've got a form set up that will email all of City Council--no copying & pasting or clicking through various sites.

There has been a lot of very vocal push back from business owners on the Drive who fear that bike lanes are going to somehow decimate their livelihoods, despite all the research that shows drivers make up a very small portion of their customers. Experience in other cities around the world and research on the separated bike lanes that have been added in Vancouver show that they are a great thing for business and make a neighbourhood so much safer for cyclists and pedestrians too. I fear that the people who support the idea of devoting more of the streetscape of The Drive to all the active transportation that's currently the majority of traffic there are not being loud enough. If you would like to see bike lanes on Commercial Drive, write a quick letter to City Council showing your support.

There's a lot more information on BCCC's site here, including the form to easily write a letter to the city.


Here's what I wrote, mostly off the cuff, this morning:

I'm writing in support of adding bike lanes on Commercial Drive and turning it into Vancouver's first proper Complete Street. This is particularly important to me, as I live in East Vancouver, not far from Commercial, plus walking and cycling are my family's primary means of transportation.

We actually don't shop on Commercial Drive very often anymore, though we would like to, because we don't feel that safe biking there since we've had children. We prefer to shop in areas like Commercial Drive because of all the great independent shops, cafes, and for the community feel to the place. We normally have a few stops to make at various businesses, but on Commercial Drive, that is particularly awkward by bike. We don't feel safe riding *on* Commercial Drive from shop to shop, but riding all the way over to the nearest parallel bike route to go north or south a block or two doesn't really make sense. Walking our cargo bike with the kids in it is heavy & very difficult on narrow sidewalks that are as congested as Commercial Drive can get.

Fully separated bike lanes along Commercial would help us feel much safer riding with our children and make it a lot easier for us to go from stop to stop at the various businesses there. I know the bike lanes would also make it safer for us to walk in the area as well, creating more of a buffer between pedestrians and traffic and narrowing the crossing distance when we do have to cross the car lanes.

Even when we leave the bike at home and walk from place to place around Commercial, the sidewalks feel quite crowded and difficult to navigate with a stroller and small children. Crossing the street at most of the intersections feels risky and I've had many close calls with drivers turning into crosswalks or being rude and aggressive.

My letter has focussed on *our* experience as cyclists and pedestrians on The Drive, but I know there are many other families with young children like us in the city who get around on an ever growing fleet of cargo bikes, as well as pulling trailers and toting child seats on their bikes. Cycling and walking are both growing mode shares in the City of Vancouver, as I'm sure you are aware.

I would love to see Commercial Drive--the space from one property line to the other across the street--devoted more equitably to pedestrians and cyclists, reflecting the fact that walking and cycling make up such a large portion of the traffic through that area. I think this is a great opportunity for the City to show leadership and demonstrate how much better the Commercial Drive community can be when it becomes a Complete Street.

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