Original, but ineffective

This compact, minimalist design can be found on the side of Corti Bros Deli and Grocery.  While I appreciate their effort to include bicycle parking at the store, this design falls short.  The loops just don't go far enough out from the wall, it is impossible to lock both the bike frame and wheel using a good-sized U-lock.

I haven't tried parking a road bike here, with the narrower, drop-bar design.  It maybe possible that a narrower bike can lock completely to this little loop.  In the meantime, a simple fix would be to attach a heavy chain or another welded loop, to give a bit more reach.

Bike Parking Success

This Utilitarian model sits at At 14th and E streets, in front of the Yoga Seed and the Shine Cafe.   It doesn't look like much, but it gets the job done.  Sacramento Area Bike Advocates rejects this model (they call it 'the comb' in their Bike Parking Guidelines) but I disagree--  I think this is a very effective model, as long as you know one simple trick.

 While the comb it falls into a trap I mentioned before: narrow bars, can't slip the front wheel in, it is easy enough to lift your bike up and over the top, allowing you to lock your wheel and frame to the rack.  It's a little inconvenient, but the result is a very secure lock and stable bike position.

A great many bicycles are able to lock up to this rack.  Though the riders choose a variety of ways to do so.  In this picture, at least two other cyclists have discovered the secret of the 'over the crossbar' method of parking.   Another two bikes lock only their wheels, and a final rider has chosen to lock to the side of the rack, as is sometimes best.

Protect Your Ride

Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates has published a series of Bicycle Theft Prevention Guidelines that  resemble the ones I posted earlier, but these are more thorough with a much more professional look.  I suggest you read both.

Another Bike Parking Failure

Cafe LeBoux, 51st and Folsom

This rack has a nice visual design, I'll give it that.  Simple, but aesthetically pleasing.  Appropriately placed in front of cafe.  However, this rack fails in the way so many racks do.  The bars are too narrowly placed, so many or most bikes are too wide at the front, and the bike fork cannot fit between the bars.   While this can sometimes be overcome by lifting your bike up and over the top of the rack, in this instance, the top is blocked by a nice little metal image of a coffee cup.  

Thus, a rack that should fit four or five bikes, can fit only two.  It seems as though the people who design and the people who purchase these racks simple aren't aware of basic bike parking fundamentals.  It's too bad, because I appreciate the consideration in including bike parking at all.  Perhaps this design can be salvaged by removing every other vertical bar.  The owners are unlikely to want to remove the very thematic coffee cup from the top.

Bike Parking in Sacramento II

Here's a great bike parking rack located right down the street from our unfortunate previous example.  On 48th st, outside East Sac Hardware, there are two of these little poles.  They aren't fancy, but they get the job done.  They were clearly designed with basic bike locking guidelines in mind.  I was able to lock my front wheel and frame, and I didn't even have to move my water bottle!  I can see that a much taller bike would still be easily accommodated.  

Bike Parking in Sacramento

Bicycle parking in Sacramento can be lackluster in many places.  On a whole, the best option is very often locking your bike to a sign post.  While some businesses have put forth an earnest effort to improve the state of their Bicycle Parking facilities, a great number of the Bike Parking choices they make are fundamentally flawed.  

The common, recurring problem with bike parking is a demonstrated lack of understanding of basic Bicycle Lock guidelines.  That is to say:  Always lock your frame up.  Best practice to lock your frame and your front wheel.  Especially if you have quick release wheels which, increasingly, bikes do.  The lock of choice is a U lock, which should be wide enough to lock your frame and your front wheel.  

Ideally, you should lock your back wheel as well, but it is impossible to do this without a long cable lock.  This is a point where a lot of people drop off:  They're down to carry one lock, but two is too cumbersome.  The back wheel is usually the one to let go because it is harder to remove given its attachment to the chain and deraileur system.  The front wheel, on the other hand, can be removed in a matter of seconds.  

Let's review:  Best lock style is a U-lock. Lock priorities:  Frame, Front Wheel, Back wheel.  Using these guidelines, I will proceed to review the different bike parking situations I find throughout town.

Very artful, but ultimately of little value.  In front of One Speed on Folsom.  

Well look here, isn't this a nifty looking bike rack?  Very nicely designed metal sculpture.  Check out the gears, and the slots down below for keeping your bike aligned?  How nice.  Except, wait a minute, see where I'm parked?  I chose to lock to the side of the rack because It was the only way I could lock both my frame and front wheel using my large U-Lock.

Following the way this rack's design suggests I should park my bike, I would only be able to lock my front wheel, leaving the rest of my bike vulnerable to the next passing bike thief, who would require only seconds to remove my front wheel and walk away with the my frame.  Then all I would have left of my bike would be another tragic wheel-locked-to-a-rack, like you see around town.

Sorry One-Speed, you get a A for artful, and a D for (bad) Design.

On Fuel Efficiency

I appreciate all the really cool 'self driving cars' and 'long chain-coupling cars' and Tesla cars and all those really cool futuristic new technologies and Hybrid Cars, and electric cars and all that crap.  But let's not kid ourselves.  These things miss the point.  If you really want to help.  If you want to reduce traffic and to reduce your carbon footprint, then:

Stop-Fucking-Driving.

We don't need a new design solution or a fantastic new technology.  What we need is to get cars off the road.

I would love to see what the fuel efficiency difference is between a Prius driven by one person and a Econoline van carrying eight people.  I bet it's pretty close and I bet the Van still wins out.  This notion that we can have our cake and eat it too, that we own the open road and cars represent freedom - these notions are helping to fuel a Global Warming lifestyle.  If we insist on avoiding one another, and isolating ourselves and not looking at our ugly neighbors on the bus, then we are just digging deeper, no matter what cutting edge and expensive technology we have.  The Prius is just working harder to preserve this Global Warming lifestyle rather than to create a sustainable alternative.

According to this government list of best and worst fuel economy cars, the best fuel economy is the Chevy Spark at 119 and the Prius scores a mere 42.  And the worst Large-sized fuel economy is Rolls Royce Phantom at 14.  Using completely made up math, if we multiply the efficiency for every person riding the car (take off 15% for added weight) then we get an efficiency of 71.4 for the Rolls Royce, easily trouncing a Prius driven by one person.  My math may be made up, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be somewhere near the mark.

Now, this doesn't reach the efficiency of the Chevy Spark, but it gets in the ballpark. And very few people can afford either of these cars, so they will have to settle for something, ironically, more or less fuel efficient.  You can organize the list by excluding electric cars, and when you do, the numbers are even closer.  As the low end and high end grow together, the carpool in a less efficient vehicle will be further and further in the lead.  I hope this illustrates that a change in behavior is more powerful and less expensive than a change in technology when it comes to fuel efficiency.


-D



Link:  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml