On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Upon returning from a trip from KAUST in Saudi Arabia last week I connected through Frankfurt Airport. I was a bit grumpy because security had just confiscated my package of delicious Jeddah figs claiming they were a liquid hazard. It wasn't just that I was to be denied of the chance to share what I'd been finding so delicious during my 6 days at KAUST, but just as equally it seemed wrong for such fantastic fruit to go to waste, all over a ridiculous policy bourne of international paranoia. But my mood was slightly lifted when I spotted in a newsstand across from my gate the golden apple of German journalism: Tour Magazine. Depite a painfully long and even more painfully slow line at the stand, I risked being late to my boarding to buy it. And I wasn't disappointed. Edition 2015.03 of Tour had a quantitative review of 3 of the lightest frames you can buy: Trek Emonda: The Trek Emonda line is actually relatively heavy. Only the top-of-the-line SLX with the pricey vap...

I've been super-busy with a new research position at the University of California at Berkeley. This has been fun, but leaves little time for blogging. But I made time to do my first-ever change.org petition, for the Board of Supervisors ban smoking on San Francisco sidewalks . I've written about this before when I was exposed to smoke while waiting in line at the Bicycle Film Festival. Well, it turns out smoking is already banned for waiting in lines on sidewalks, so I was already justified there in asking the smoker to take it elsewhere had I chosen that approach. But in many cases exposure to smoke on sidewalks is just as unavoidable, in particular for small children who aren't free to go where they want. In some cases the child is even in a stroller being pushed by a smoking parent. This has become a bigger issue with me since I started running more. When running on a sidewalk, running the gauntlet past a group of sidewalk smokers is unpleasant in addition to p...