Fall has come, and it’s time to see who the true rain or shine bikeinshapers are. Let’s joystick around the most ubiquitously dangerous villain of arcade history to kick off Halloween week. We’ll meet outside the Jackalope Lounge (on Willamette St. adjacent to the Amtrak station) at 7pm. Micros are $2.50 on Tuesdays.
We stumbled upon this piece on the World Bicycle Relief by NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof. It’s easy to forget what a relative luxury biking in shapes and other casual biking activities can be. WBR asserts “Bicycles make individuals and economies ‘go.'” Indeed, the positive role bicycle access can contribute to factors of economic development is significant, and dare we say, under publicized. Here are a few other organizations working for this need:
If you know of other organizations and NGO’s working to promote bicycle access in developing countries, please let us know at bikeinshapes [at] gmail. We will continue to add to this list.
Who’s got big ears, a crackly little voice and a spiked hairdo? This Thursday, it’s time to trace the face of The Little Rascals’ Alfalfa. We’ll meet outside of the Ninkasi Brewing Company’s tasting room in the Whitaker at 7pm. Also, we’re hoppy to announce Ninkasi is offering our group discounts on pints. Thanks Ninkasi!
What can we do with the string of streets named after presidents? Turn them into needles of a comb! Oh yes, in two weeks please join us for the “Presidential Comb” BikeInShapes ride. We’ll depart from the Bier Stein at 7pm on Thursday, August 26th. Bring a friend! Click on Calendar for an embedded map.
The NY Times’ Practical Traveler had a piece this week on Google’s ongoing effort to include biking routes in Google Maps. Thankfully Eugene is one of the 200 cities included. For the purposes of BikeInShapes, we have continued to use the walking function for two reasons. (1) The biking function cannot be embedded in links yet and (2) it is still easier to draw a specific shape accurately in the walking function. However, this ease derives from Google programming the biking function to prefer routes with non-traffic bike paths, even if it is not quite as direct. Below is an example comparing a straight walk (above) and bike ride (below) on 11th Avenue. The bike route veers south to capture some of the Fern Ridge path. Generally, this preferable for a biker:
So the message to Google Maps: great start but add embedding capability to the biking function.
Also the article lists several good map route creation resources which we will link to on the right panel.
Let’s meet this Thursday at 7pm at Sam Bond’s on Blair for the June Bike in Shapes. Everyone is welcome. We’ll head up to the Willamette River Biking path and trace the river and “tongue” until the bridge near Beltline.Then we will make a little loop, referencing the “fly” before making our way back on the River Road bank of the river. Visit the Calendar page for a map of the route.
Sam Bond’s will be hosting a couple bands, with a $5 cover starting at 9pm. We should return by 8pm at the latest, giving us ample time for a pre-cover beverage. For those interested, here are the bands’ Myspace pages: One Horse Shy and Brown Chicken Brown Cow String Band. In all, should be a bow chicka bow wow evening!
Concerts, charity runs, international travel…it’s hard to imagine doing anything these days without a t-shirt to prove you were there. Have no fear BikeinShapers, we’ve got you covered. Below is the hand-printed Summer 2010 design, so you better show up to be eligible for acquisition. Not shown: the summer map “tour” on the back.
Trees, trapezoids and Tetris pieces all have at least one thing in common: they’re shapes. Wouldn’t it be pointlessly magnificent to actually bike in the shape of these wonderful shapes?! That is, using a google map, we could trace out these shapes on the a city grid, and follow by biking the designed route. This is to Bike in Shapes.
To view our working mission, click on About.
Bike in Shapes 
