Floyd A. O'Reilly Blog: Wednesday Video Roundup: SF, Chicago, racing, and PBOT

Welcome to this week’s roundup! I had over 80 videos in my queue to watch and share this week. There aren’t 80 videos below, but it’s certainly a bumper crop for the Wednesday Video Roundup. Here’s a short snippet of rider/messenger Chas Christiansen riding a proper fixie on the streets. I’m not sure what is scarier- climbing the hills or leg-braking down them.

While we’re talking about SF, here’s some “bike parkour” (urban trials on BMX bikes?). There are some great moves- I especially like the white bike around the 1:10 mark. Too bad it’s an ad for a car company.

This Vox video discusses how the vast majority of vehicles are used by a single person (no passengers). Lyft has worked on a matching system called Lyft Line, and they are beginning to expand it outside of the Bay Area. Certainly this technology may help people change their lifestyle, but it seems like there are many other things that would also help. (h/t MA)

Passive social observations can be very interesting. This video identifies drivers who are clearly “distracted”. Using a phone isn’t against the law in Florida, but the legality doesn’t really change its level of danger.

Cycling is dangerous- but sometimes in different ways than you’d expect:

Shinola is a bike company in Chicago. They build bikes in a former car factory, which is appropriate. This video from Shinola is a nice tribute to the city. (You may remember the ‘Slow Roll’ movement in Detroit)

Mountain riding at night seems like it’d be overwhelming, but this is on a lit course and the camerawork makes it look really awesome:

The slow-mo of the pedestrian stopping and then looking at the cyclist is.. kind of freaky. The full-speed video was a normal moment, but seeing it slow-mo (at 0:33) shows her reaction. One of the things I like about being a human on a bicycle is the ability to communicate with a pedestrian- “it’s okay to go in front of me”.

This video shows Greg Herbold winning the mountain biking championship in 1990 and looks like the spoof of a 1990 retro movie. Note his board shorts and the colors. It’s a great retro-tech video.

Specialized’s Adventure Dispatch series has a video up showing sides of LA that most people don’t see. It looks like Hathaway is riding on and near Angeles Crest for the most part.

SSCX (single speed cyclocross) is more a way of life than a style of bike riding. The culture around the racing is .. entertaining. Here’s video from the European Championships. I’ve featured a lot of SSCX videos because they are consistently great to watch. Note the cowbell that is shown in the video. (see also: 24 hours of Pueblo, which is similarly strange)

Ignoring a little bit of ‘acting’, this video shows the beauty of riding near Vancouver BC. It looks like the rider is riding rarely-used terrain, which is really pretty in a PNW way.

This video, similarly based in dirt, is titled ‘Always Moving’ and that’s a great explanation of it. The camerawork and editing is impressive.

For the last video in this section, here’s a laid-back video to enjoy. If you’re interested, click through and read the story attached to the video.

PBOT

Our PBOT put up a series of videos this week. There are a bunch of “how-tos” about construction sidewalk closures, putting a moving pod on the street, moving trucks, lane closure permit (that hat! this video has a lot more flavor), but the highlight for BikePortland is this time-lapse video showing the application of sharrow art.

(The above video is a lot more entertaining with the Benny Hill Yakity Sax music).

Tour of Flanders

Tour of Flanders, aka De Ronde, aka Ronde van Vlaanderen, was a week and a half ago, which is over my one-week spoiler window, so spoilers are below. The Belgian Classics are full of pain this year, between cycling deaths and the terrorist attacks.

It was nice to see Peter Sagan winning the race. He’s had a ton of second-place finishes since winning the rainbow stripes last September. (skip ahead 35 seconds to avoid the advertising, skip ahead to 3:10 and 4:35 to see the winning moves)

What about the women, who ran a 141k race? Their footage is more limited but has been expanding this year. In a nice twist, Lizzie Armistead, also in rainbow stripes, won the race. (highlights for me: Emma Johansson’s interview; winning moves at 3:10, 3:50, 4:25, and finally 5:15; UCI’s tone-deaf ‘podium girls’ can be seen at 5:45)

This is a video roundup, but the photo of Sagan and Armistead together on the podium, in their rainbow stripes, is pretty cool.

Other notable Tour of Flanders videos: the Orica Greenedge backstage pass video, GCN’s on-site episode discussion.

Paris-Roubaix preview

Paris-Roubaix was a few days ago, but it’s inside the spoiler window, so previews only this week. It’s an epic race- probably one of the toughest on bikes and bodies. Here’s the official preview video:

Here’s a video bio of Tom Boonen, a very strong classics rider. He had won the Paris-Roubaix four times (through 2015- not indicating if he won P-R this year or not) and is retiring this year.

Here’s GCN’s preview of the race.

Tinkoff also posted a team recon with slightly ominous music.

Honorable mentions

This week’s honorable mentions: going on a drunk nighttime cycling adventure (warning, language), rear POV of crashes in a local crit, a look at ROTOR’s hydraulic shifting, annoying (and potentially very dangerous) left hook caught on camera, “cycling and snot production go hand-in-hand”, sample video from a skewer-mounted gopro, poor quality video showing a rider skitching in Australia (yes, skitching), GCN riding up the over-20% Muro de Aia (feels like a knockoff of Col Collective), Ride Like A Girl at WBW, and cycling in Nepal.

Inclusion criteria: If I’ve missed something, post it in the comments! I prefer videos published in the last week or so. Note if there’s a specific point in a long video that is worth highlighting. Also note if there is colorful language. I will delay videos containing pro racing spoilers by 7 days.

– Ted Timmons, @tedder42