John C Woolsey, LEED AP » Commuter Bike

September Critical Mass San Diego

John — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:53:18 +0000

Have you ever heard of this? Until about Monday I hadn’t until I talked to a friend in San Diego about getting together for a bike ride. If you don’t know what Critical Mass is then I will summarize – think 4 hour long bicycling flash mob. No official organizers, word of mouth and internet coordination and no planned route, just the mass of cyclists behaving like one large organism moving down the street. CM riders don’t obey any of the stop lights or signs they encounter, in fact they are doing well to obey the direction of traffic on the street (I don’t agree with everything I saw last night). You can read all about the heart of this thing HERE.

So if you watched the video you get the idea of what it looks like. If you read the Wiki entry you know what the issues are and essentially how it works. Now, for my impressions.

Its a blast! It was a little uncomfortable blowing through red lights with the masses because by my very nature I am a rule follower. When I ride on my own I depend on traffic laws to keep me as safe as possible so ignoring some of the essentials really goes against my grain – but I do understand. You get comfortable riding in the mass and you get good and weaving around other cyclists and riding in VERY close proximity. In fact, you get very dependant on it very quickly. There is safety in numbers.

The message is good. I like what the heart of the event is supposed to communicate. Alternatives to driving cars everywhere. Making motorists aware of the presence of cyclists and how they need to keep an eye out for them even when its unexpected. Cycling is a very entertaining and healthy way to get around. I would love to see more of that mentality here in Murrieta.

In numbers, people demonstrate the worst of humanity… I wish I could say that everyone there maintained the ideals of the event. But instead, I heard cyclists taunting motorists. I heard them calling drivers names and banging on their cars. I saw some disposing of beer cans on the road as they went along their way. I saw too many people blowing an opportunity to show that they are truely different by behaving exactly like the people they want to educate. I have news for you, it doesn’t work like that.

All in all, it was fun and I would love to do it again but I do have my reservations about the behavior of some of the cyclists. I don’t suppose you can get everyone to behave themselves all the time but I don’t know if it should ruin a thing that doesn’t hurt anyone, the police tend to just keep an eye on and definately gets some healthy attention.

Letting My Geek-ness Show

John — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:59:45 +0000

While cruising the internets for cool things people do with commuter bikes I ran into a very neat product from England. Its made by a company called Bicygnals. Its a nifty light assembly that contains headlight, tail light and turn signal LED’s. I was pretty impressed and have thought for a while that bikes should have more options for indicator lights rather than the simple ‘look out – I’m here’ lights. In my hunt I have found nothing that I feel is compact and clearly communicates your intent as a driver/rider on the road. I think its a bit of an improvement to have a series of 16 LEDS that will sequentially blink to indicate a direction rather than have a set blink on the right or on the left. Frankly, as small as a bike is, the turn signals that are available seem indistinguishable right or left, maybe with the exception of the Bicygnal front module. If you don’t know what I mean pay close attention the next time you come up on a highway patrol car on the side of the road from behind. The bright orange lights that blink and give the illusion of the lights steering you in the desired direction. Some big trucks use this, you can’t mistake the intention of the lights.

Considering what the commercial products cost and don’t really deliver I started thinking about making my own sequencer for the bike. Plus, I like the idea of a brake light too! With LED power consumption what it is, you can have it all on a pedal powered machine. I could power it with any number of power cell or battery options. I just need a circuit. I am no circuit designer, save the simpler stuff, but I can work with something someone else has made. Google tracked down a good sequencer for me and I wanted to share it with any of you that have read this far.

Credit where credit is due: I found this write up HERE

Expandable 16 Stage LED Sequencer

The circuit below uses a hex Schmitt Trigger inverter (74HC14) and two 8 bit Serial-In/Parallel-Out shift registers (74HCT164 or 74HC164) to sequence 16 LEDs. The circuit can be expanded to greater lengths by cascading additional shift registers and connecting the 8th output (pin 13) to the data input (pin 1) of the succeeding stage. A Schmitt trigger oscillator (74HC14 pin 1 and 2) produces the clock signal for the shift registers, the rate being approximately 1/RC. Two additional Schmitt Trigger stages are used to reset and load the registers when power is turned on. Timing is not critical, however the output at pin 8 of the Schmitt Trigger must remain high during the first LOW to HIGH clock transition at pin 8 of the registers, and must return low before the second rising edge to load a single bit. If the clock rate is increased, the length of the signal at pin 9 of the Schmitt Trigger should be reduced proportionally to avoid loading more than one bit. The HCT devices will normally provide about 4 mA (source or sink) from each output but can supply greater currents (possibly 25 mA) if only one output is loaded. The common 150 ohm resistor restricts the current below 25 mA using a 6 volt power source. If the circuit is operated with two or more LEDs on at the same time, resistors may be needed in series with each LED to avoid exceeding the maximum total output current for each IC of 25 mA. For greater brightness, individual buffer transistors can be used as shown in the 10 stage LED sequencer on this same page.

Two Wheel Lifestyle

John — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:14:40 +0000

Deep down I must be an environmentalist at heart. Before my break from the world of engineering I was gearing up to get LEED certified and have always been drawn to more efficient technologies. That interest and concern has tended to spill into other avenues of my life. That combined with the increasing cost of energy I am getting very interested in alternatives to driving my truck all over town. When I started getting excited about riding my converted mt bike around as a commuter I started wondering what other people were doing. Were others converting mt bikes or was there such a thing as a commuter bike that is made by any of the manufacturers. In the course of my education I discovered the Xtracycle company. They make a frame extension for almost any 26″ or 700 wheeled bike. Simply remove the rear wheel and hardware, install the FreeRadical and put the rack hardware of your choice on and you have a sport utility bike. It looks like a great idea and offers the rider a TON of opportunities to leave the car parked in the garage.

I won’t be doing anything like this soon. I have only been at this for a week and need to see how it goes. This town isn’t an entirely bike friendly town. I can say that my goal is to see if I can make a tank of gas in my truck last a month. Wish me luck!