In Miami we need external cues to mark the change of seasons. I personally use beers: once the seasonal selection changes at the store, I know we’ve moved on. It is now Autumn according to this calendar.

Which is awesome, because Fall is my favorite season of the year. Not that we get much a change in weather in Miami, mind you; it is still hot here, with daily temps in the upper-80s/low-90s. But the breeze has changed a bit, and as October rolls in we will see some cooler climates arrive (read: temps in the 70s).

That means bike season is here. While the northerners have been enjoying their Summer out on their bikes, we’ve had to deal with 100°+ days and daily summer storms; hardly the best outdoor weather. But with Fall arriving, more and more people will venture out on two wheels and that’s fantastic.

I know I’ve been remiss in riding my bike during the Summer months. I asked forgiveness of my bike and promised to take it out for rides a lot more from now on. You should too. Welcome to Autumn, bike season.

After about a month convalescing in our living room, Willow is back up and running thanks to the fine folk at Miami Beach Bicycle Center. We couldn’t get the tulip seat as that was a limited edition a couple of years back, nor the cream colored tires as they’re out of stock until November, so we opted to put the regular black tires and leather seat common to all Amsterdam models. After a quick adjustment of the rear wheel, Yvette and Willow were ready to ride once more!

I am livid. My wife’s beautiful Electra Amsterdam bike, Willow, has been savagely vandalized in our very own building and I want nothing more than to get the culprits to pay for what they did.

How did this happen?

I arrived Monday night from out of town and saw that the Amsterdam was where we lock it inside the locked gated area behind our building, but standing vertically on its rear tire. There was also a gray Marin mountain bike that had been chained to the Amsterdam with cheap rubber-covered wire chainlocks. I straightened Willow and covered it again with the tarp (which was on top of the mountain bike instead of on the Amsterdam). I then left a note in the downtube of the Marin bike (it had the seat removed):

Please unchain your bike from mine at once. You do not have the right to use my bike as a bike rack. If this happens again I will cut off the chainlock myself.

I signed the note and put my apt number. The note sat there untouched for almost two days. I know someone must have seen it because a couple of times I passed by and saw that someone had re-covered the Marin bike with the tarp from the Amsterdam.

On Wednesday I had had enough and got a pair of wire cutters and cut through the cheap chainlock holding my Amsterdam hostage, for all intents and purposes. I left the note in the Marin bike so they owner would know why this was done and by whom; I wasn’t hiding at all.

For all of Wednesday the Marin bike stood where I moved it to. I feared that there could be some retaliation but lowered my guard when I saw that late in the evening the Marin bike still stood in the same place, untouched. I decided I would take the Amsterdam for a tune-up on my way to work to make sure that nothing had been damaged when it was stood up.

This morning, before leaving for work, I took a peek and did not see the Marin bike where it had sat since the day before. So I went around to make sure all was in order. Imagine my stunned and angry surprise when I see what was done to my wife’s bike.

I immediately notified the building’s manager/co-owner, who was quite upset that this had happened in his building (and in a resident’s-only-access area). I know all the bikes in the building and who they belong to. I’m a bike geek, I do this. And this Marin bike is one I had never seen around, which I mentioned to the owner. He told me we have two new tenants, so it must belong to one of them. In fact, one of them lives in the apt immediately adjacent to where we usually park the Amsterdam.

I then also notified the Miami Beach Police, as this was pure and obvious vandalism, and filed a police report. I explained the entire chain of events (even the officer was like, WTF, when I told her that this other bike had been chainlocked to mine) and got a report number. It is my intention to find out who did this in our building and have them pay for damages (which, by the way, includes a seat that is not in production anymore and likely not to be found). I’ll be happy to pay for the cheap chainlock in return.

I am livid. This kind of savage vandalism is insane, especially over a stupid cheap chainlock which was illegally placed on my bike to begin with! Honestly, I want to hurt someone.

As I got back home from work late tonight, I decided to take a peek in the back area just in case, and what do you think I see inside the kitchen of the newly-occupied apartment right next to where we parked the Amsterdam? Why, it’s the gray Marin mountain bike inside the house!

There was a dude inside so I knocked on the window and asked if we could talk for a moment. I asked him why had they tied their bike to mine. He said he had no idea what I was talking about, that he always took his bike in, that he was there for the day only visiting his girlfriend, who is the actual tenant. I told the guy what had happened and that now the owner had been notified as well as the police and that his girlfriend, the owner of that Marin bike I could see through their window, was now the prime suspect. Dude was evasive, showed me his grey fixie bike so I could see that he doesn’t leave his bike outside, told him it wasn’t his bike that I’d seen but the Marin bike in the living room that I had and could still see through the kitchen window. I told him his girlfriend could talk to the owner because he was very interested in getting to the bottom of this.

I won’t be surprised if they make the Marin bike disappear overnight, but I know that I saw it there and I reported it to the building manager/owner for him to take steps about it. That’s not the kind of people I want as neighbors nor he wants as tenants.

I am livid that they messed with my wife’s bike. And they are not gonna get away with this.

I’ll admit it, I’m getting that want-a-new-bike itch once more.

As much as I love my Townie (and I really do), I very much miss my Amsterdam Dutch-style bike. Recently I have seen a Dutch-style city bikes around South Beach made by Republic. Their Plato bikes, the name of their oma-style, are stylish and practical and just beautiful to look at. Last week or so, I saw on Twitter that Republic had teamed up with CB2 to create two models exclusive to the store built on the Plato design. They have arrived and I had a chance to see them in person this weekend.

This is the Abuela model (oma means grandmother in Dutch, same as abuela in Spanish), their “women’s” bike. More correctly, it is their step-through model, with the Abuelo being the more traditional diamond-frame model. In Holland, both bike models are unisex, something we still need to inculcate to the customer base here in the US.

That aside, there are reasons why I’m feeling more attracted to the step-through but I won’t go into that now. For now, I’m just gonna look at it and keep thinking, pondering, trying to hold myself from scratching that want-a-new-bike itch until I know that it’s not just a passing whim.

I got tipped to this story by a reader via the Contact Form on this site. The video is so hilarious that even if I don’t celebrate Christmas, it is worth sharing simply for the sheer fun of it.

What do 28 Santas and 2 reindeers look like on London city-share bicycles? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Read the whole story over at FreshNetworks: Social Santas and Christmas fun.

A fantastic new online tool has gone live today: Miami Bike Report.

This is a website with a real-time database that can be updated by users via text, email, Twitter or directly on the site, providing a map of South Florida showing where things like blocked bike lanes can be found, road hazards are present or collisions have happened. In short, it’s a living repository of cycling/road information about South Florida updated by the very people on the streets.

This is huge. For people riding their bicycles, it means they can see where trouble spots are found along their planned travel routes. For advocates, they can see areas that deserve special attention for whatever reason. For law-enforcement, they can see places where they should maybe take  a look and ensure all is kosher. For city planners, they can see the areas that they should be paying more attention to based on the actual use feedback.

Literally, this has the potential to be the most useful tool available to bicycling/walking/urban advocates in South Florida. But if, and only if, we the people on the street, use it.

Spread the word about Miami Bike Report and the ways in which it can be updated with reports from the streets. That is the only way in which this will truly be useful and hopefully lead to improvements in our various cities.

Find Miami Bike Report online:

• Website: miamibikereport.com
• Twitter: @miamibikereport (use hashtags #bikereport or #miamibikereport)

Kudos to the creators for their vision and hard work. You’ve got another supporter right here.

Though I’ve been back at FIU since the start of this year, it’s only now in the Fall that I’m taking a significant number of classes in the main campus down south. It was in the Graham Student Center where one morning I saw this amazing beauty (click to enlarge):

This is the FIU Cruiser, a fully restored and customized steel-framed cruiser meant to be the pride of Florida International University.

I first read about the FIU Cruiser in a news article posted to FIU News back in August. Allow me to quote a couple passages:

John “Jay” Stewart has spent the last couple of months creating the ultimate FIU bike. It was a labor of love for Stewart, who works in Campus Services at Modesto A. Maidique Campus. He says he wanted to give the university, where he’s worked for more than 20 years, a token of his appreciation. He spent 40 hours stripping the 1950s era replica, painting it and adding all the bells and whistles.

Let me tell you, it is a drop-dead gorgeous beauty of a bike. Check out this video for some words from the creator:

It is currently being exhibited at the Barnes & Noble @ FIU Bookstore in the Graham Student Center at FIU Modesto Maidique Campus.

I wanna see the baby roll around campus, though. I wanna see it at all FIU games and events, and I want to see it at general city and county events where it can promote the university. Like, say, the upcoming Bike Miami Day in Downtown Miami.

If you can, drop by the university to check the bike out. If you’re an FIU student or alumnus, you almost have no excuse not to.

Issue #47 of Momentum Magazine features a spotlight article on greater Miami (City of Miami and Miami Beach), written by local freelance journalist and green mobility advocate Dina Weinstein. In the article we get a fly-by look at the cycling core of the city, as well as a smattering of voices highlighting the various issues facing the south Florida cycling community as we go through our growing pains.

Overall I liked the article; short and sweet, it has a very upbeat tone that touches upon our constant battles but doesn’t miss the fact that Miami is a great place to ride a bike.

I actually pitched to write this article when it was announced to the Momentum writers, and when it was given to Dina, I ended up chatting with her for about an hour about cycling in Miami Beach. Though none of my actual quotes made it in, I can see some of the subjects we touched upon scattered about, and brought to attention by quotes from people far more in positions to speak with authority than I. Which is to say I am glad that it was to Dina that I lost the assignment, and she did an awesome job.

Slow Bike Miami gets a mention in the calendar of cycling activities at the end of the feature, and sadly, that’s where I spotted a factual error, as it lists us as organizers of leisurely weekend rides, which we do not organize formally. Slow Bike Miami is all about sharing our journey on two wheels in the greater Miami area.

If you arrived here via the Momentum feature, please accept our apologies for the misunderstanding. Though know that you can certainly find weekend rides on Miami Beach once a month with the Miami Beach Bicycle Center, as well as others organized by Emerge Miami, the South Florida Bike Coalition, etc., the info for which is all provided on the article itself.

Check out the Miami article online, or track down a printed copy by subscribing (I do!) or requesting your local bike shop to bring in free copies to distribute.

Things have been very quiet here at Slow Bike Miami for some time now due to me being busy having started a new college degree. Summer has arrived, though, so it’s time to get on the bike and ride to our heart’s content.

Slow Bike Miami will be re-starting with semi-regular posts as of next week. I had thought of merging this with my regular blog (which you can find at DMPerez.com), but I’ll keep them separate for now. If you want to know more about the other things I geek about, by all means feel free to drop by DMPerez.com and see what I write about there.

Catch you here next week, and we’ll go riding together. Well, after I get a new seat for my bike. But I’ll say more about that later.

On Sunday, April 25, we had the first Bike Miami Days event of 2010, held in Cocount Grove, one of the oldest and picturesque areas of Miami. As it was last year, the April event was co-sponsored by the Dutch Consulate in celebration of Queen’s Day, which means the Dutch community of Miami was out in full force (seriously, where are you hiding?) and, thanks to the free T-shirts they were handing out (Go Green, Go Dutch, Go Bike), the Grove was a very orange place. My wife and I missed last year’s event so were were especially happy to be able to make it and party with the Netherlanders, huge fans of the Netherlands that we are.

We actually rode our bikes all the way from South Beach to Coconut Grove, using the Metrorail for the middle part of the route. Taking the bikes on the train was, in general, no problem, except for the fact that bikes have to go in the last cart but there is no actual space for them to be parked comfortably, so they end up being right in the way (thankfully no one requested to see if we had the completely useless bike permit for the train).

People may say whatever they want about riding a bike on the Beach, but at least here people are used to them on the road. Riding down to the Grove from US 1 was a challenge; even with the presence of a Share The Road sign, people barely gave us the 3-feet legal berth they’re supposed to. As we neared the waterfront, the road narrowed so much and the cars were speeding by so fast that we took the sidewalk… only to be yelled at by a lady with a stroller who was talking with a guy blocking it. “Get on the road, that’s where you’re supposed to be, not on the sidewalk. It’s the sideWALK.” I had to bite my tongue so hard to not retort that while, yes, she is entirely correct in part of her statement (and we know this well, as riding on the road IS the way we prefer to ride), by law we are also allowed to take to the sidewalk if we feel the road is not a safe alternative, which at that moment we didn’t. Whatever.

At Peacock Park we were met with a sea of orange that was just fantastic! We saw tents for tourism boards from Aruba and Curacao, one for the Dutch Consulate where we got our orange shirts, one for the upcoming Dutch school and one for Gazelle Bicycles (and seriously, what gorgeous bikes these were!). We put on our shirts and took to the streets.

In general, riding around the Grove was very nice. The roads were not completely closed, though, and the route was not well marked, which created confusion and a few close encounters between cars and bikes. Later I learned that this was due to the last-minute hail-mary nature of how the event came to be and the not-so-complete cooperation of the City of Miami. Even with all that, it was a fun day.

In addition to riding around Coconut Grove, an area that we used to frequent quite a bit during our college years living in Kendall, we also rode down to The Barnacle, one of Miami’s oldest (and still in original condition) houses, right on Biscayne Bay. Lots of other riders did the same, which is great as more people should know about this treasure of Old Miami right in our midst.

To cap it off, we had a free Heineken and later chilled out a bit at the South Florida Bike Coalition fundraising after-party at Akashi. There we got to meet Maria, who is representing a company from Colombia called Cyclus, which makes bags and accessories from recycled tire inner tubes. Cyclus also employs poor people in Colombia in their manufacturing process, so not only are they eco-friendly, they are socially-friendly as well. Maria got to the Grove a bit late in the day so she wasn’t able to show he wares at the street fair, though the moment she opened up her suitcase people started checking out all the neat bags, especially the one nicknamed the “Armadillo.” I actually ended up buying from her a pannier for my bike, and I’ll write more about it later on. Cyclus is still setting up its online presence, but you can see the catalog at the website and contact Maria for pricing info and direct purchases.

After the event, we took the train south to go to Target (making this trip officially the farthest we’ve been from home on our bikes), then rode it all the way back to Downtown Miami, riding the bikes back to the house to cap it all off with a nice sushi dinner. Yum!

Many thanks to M.O.S.T. (Miami Open Street Team), South Florida Bike Coalition, the Dutch Consulate, and every single person/group/team/company that made Bike Miami Days in the Grove a reality and a success. We had a lot of fun, and want very much to see more events like this continue in Miami.