WSJ goes bike commuting
 

Story.

Note to self: never invest in anything based on a WSJ article.

tcs

Form over function fails again.

I look like a "refugee from the TDF?" I think it is meant as an insult, but it's hard to take someone who is so ignorant very seriously. I especially like the part about her not being able to make it up a hill on a heavyweight bike and having to be rescued. This is a good example of why the "reporting" profession is so well liked.

I didn't think the article was that bad. The author admits she's new to commuting by bicycle, but takes the time to research the new crop of commuter specific bicycles, and explain them to an audience of readers that probably aren't familiar with them. She at least tried one for herself- which is more than some journalists who write about cycling have done.

I thought it was a nice article. I have no problem with people who gravitate to cruiser style bikes for style and comfort reasons, whatever gets more people on bikes. I prefer a road bike, but don't have a problem with people with other tastes. As for the part about struggling up a hill, don't be too quick to criticize - many of us started this cyclo-commuting thing overweight and out of shape, but persevered and can now rock the hills that used to kick our posteriors.

I like the stylish helmet. Too bad my P7 and PBSF will ruin it.

Yes!

Eh, I've seen worse articles...although the part about the "30 lb Specialized sport bike" cracked me up. I'll give her marks for trying, although she really needs to look up the reasons behind drop bars and padded shorts. At least she wasn't openly antagonizing cyclists, and noted the upside to bike commuting.

The author took several angles that are appropriate for the WSJ audience. It touches on some standard bike themes, steel v. carbon and weight. She highlights items that we see in our daily commute such as glass on the city streets. She also comes to the realization that there are things to see when you step out of the car. It touches on these themes at a rather high level. Appropriate for the audience, not a bad article, actually.

I think the world (or at least the USA) would be a better place if more women rode bikes for transportation, and I think it's great that it can be fashionable. However, I really wish the article ended with her climbing the hill under her own power, even if she walked it (just 1/2 mile to go), rather than asking for a rescue.

The Electra Amsterdam is only three speeds (the city of Amsterdam is flatter than LA) and the Electra frame design makes it hard to stand up on the pedals. Furthermore, she was wearing 3 inch heels. Not a good combination for climbing.

A better approach would be to start with the operational requirements, and optimize the aesthetics after meeting those requirements. If you're going to climb hills, at least put the 3" heels in the pannier and wear sneakers for the ride.

Though she kept referring to being "low to the ground," which I thought was kind of odd. On my commute, I can see over the roofs of most sedans. And I am not very tall. Actually, not a terrible article, just a little sloppy with details (par for the course at WSJ).

"Greg LeMond's 1980s successes at the Tour de France cemented America's love of Spandex and the road bike, with its handlebars curled low like a ram's horns. Americans learned to stretch their aching backs and to repair the bent rims and flat tires of their fragile, high-strung mounts."

By the time Greg LeMond was winning Tours, the road bike was quickly fading in popularity as people began to buy Mtn bikes in droves. The 70's and maybe early 80's was when road bikes were popular here. I got my 87 Peugeot for a huge discount because folks just weren't buying road bikes anymore.

It's also good to know that more cycling retailers have figured out that they can fleece people for things like wicker baskets and plastic flowers with handlebar mounts. In the end I suppose that's no better or worse than fleecing folks for anything made of carbon-fiber.

I got to give her credit for admitting she couldn't get up that hill and hinting that the bike she was riding may not always be the best choice. I'm sure the fact that she doesn't normally get around by bike played a role too.

Good article. I did laugh at the quote saying the commuter bikes mentioned were not "technologically advanced" and in the very next paragraph talking about a bike with a nexus 8.

Maybe a bit of improvement on the engine is in order... perhaps a few weeks of this noble effort and carbon fiber won't even command a second thought.

Plus sggoodri has it right... put away the heels and try some real shoes... no doubt, one couldn't walk the distance in such ungainly shoes.

Or simply chuck the heels into basket next to the carrots and walk the bike up the hill. 1/2 mile? She probably walked well over a 1/2 mile looking for those shoes. And had she'd been wearing the spandex she dissed earlier in the article she probably wouldn't have been so damn sweaty either.

Hmm... Spandex on a Pashly (or whatever she was riding). That would be something to see.

Truthfully, if I was to pedal a heavy bike over a hill wearing heels, I think I made sure it was an E-Bike. An E-Bike Dutch style is worth doing if I had to consider riding in my office attired with hills to conquered.

I think this article is written by a woman for women, and it does a good job at it. The article tries to make bicycle commuting look like a do-able thing to people who never thought much about it.

Glad Ms. Binkley wrote the article and not some people from this board. You have her walk 1/2 mile up the hill (yeah, that's a winning proposition for people who can't imagine living without their Lexus) or put on spandex for 7 mile commute. C'mon now...

People whine we shouldn't use bikesdirect and wonder how a bike shop can make money in today's market. Lots of profit in the stuff the WSJ highlighted. When I go into my successful LBS, they don't have any roadbikes on display. MTB, hybrids, BMX, cruisers, baskets, racks, fancy seats...I think he figured it out too. I read the WSJ every day, there's lots of info for an open mind....

I was just happy to read an opinion that one can be comfortable on a Dutch-style, or commuter-specific bike. I think too many new riders get sucked into buying Xmart FS mountain bikes because they assume that all the bouncy bits will make the bike more comfortable. Maybe a prospective rider will read this article and shop at their LBS instead.

WSSJ has run about three articles on bicycling this month. All of them have been positive; however, one of them was focused on the singlespeed fad. In all, having read it for years, I find WSJ to be a very pro-cycling paper.

It's not an insult; it's a rhetorical device, an opposite to contrast the relaxed, upright style she was describing. People do this sort of thing all the time in writing, to build a mental image in their readers' minds. In this case, the readers are Wall Street Journal subscribers.

I think it's a good thing when people who are generally looked at as professionals ( and everyone else ) say in public that bikes are worthy of consideration as a transport option. I don't blame her at all for wanting to show up looking stylish. Most of us try to avoid getting to work too sweaty, too, this alone keeps some people in cars and off bikes, at least for commuting purposes. If you ride a flat or easy route to work, a beach cruiser and tweed are better than a Toyota, even if its brakes work.

It took me a while to get with the drop bars, too.

A far better article in Sunday's NY Times on cargo bikes.

I think it was a reasonable article. I would say it paints a rather neutral picture of bike commuting, which unfortunately could be more favorable. Other than that it was a brief review of both sides of the story. The (somewhat comic) comparison to folks on road bikes in spandex was meant to disarm her audience and convince them that they can be empathetic to her position. She managed to do it without making fun of such people (even making concessions to their point of view in the end).

I have seen other articles like this, and I have two comments about what I would have liked to see: First, I agree with other folks; getting to work dressed is a noble goal, but bringing some extra shoes in a pannier is a good idea and not a ton of extra effort.

Second, journalists writing these articles always seem to choose the heaviest steel monstrosity they can find. She has two bikes pictured there, and just from a brief look I would suggest that she would have had an easier time of it with that Public rather than the Electra Amsterdam. The Electra is built to create a sense of nostalgia for something America never had, and is not well built for the type of commute most Americans would have.

I thought the article was decently done. The only way to get an article done the way one of us would do it would be to have one of us actually write it. And then two thirds of us would rip it to shreds anyway! So I don't think this woman has done so badly. Possibly a lot of people who have not ridden a bike in a long while would not have made that hill either and I doubt a lighter bike would have helped much. When you climb a hill the majority of the work you do is lifting your own mass. I do think the shoes were silly though. I see well dressed business women on the train platforms every working day. They all look like they stepped right out of a business magazine, except for their feet which are most commonly clad in athletic shoes. They may walk a mile or more from their final station to their offices and three inch heels don't cut it. The heels are in their purses or the rolling carry-on bags so many of them tote. There is simply no reason to cycle 7 miles in three inch heels. More and more the men I see on train platforms are adopting the same strategy even though most men's dress shoes are far more sensible than three inch heels.

Ah, but there are exceptions. Some years ago I was waiting for my train in the morning and I looked up to see a 30-something woman teetering precariously in three inch heel across the tracks to get to the right train platform. Quite obviously the very first day in her life for wearing heels. I must have seen that same woman 2 or 3 times a week for almost two years after that and every single day she looked like she was wearing heels for the very first time in her life! I don't know what could possibly motivate someone to persist that long with a fashion choice that so clearly was not working for her. For all I know she is still tottering around on those heels, I never saw her in any other shoes, I just stopped seeing her at the station altogether.

Ken

She mentioned riding uphill in the 'Hollywood Hills".. on that behomoth of a bicycle. I don't know how many of you have actually seen any of the Hollywood Hills, but there are some pretty steep hills to climb up there, depending on which part she actually lives in. If this was really her first time commuting by bicycle, then I don't begrudge her for wussing out in the end.. I'm sure everyone here wasn't the most nimble rider on their first ride.