Riding in Buffalo is a little different because there is so little congestion, but you still have to watch out for bad and intentionally reckless drivers. The most important thing to remember is to arm yourself with as much information as possible. Green light? Check the cross roads anyway. Coming up to an intersection but going straight? Check behind you anyway in case a driver is close enough to try overtaking and cutting you off. Be predictable in traffic and signal if you're turning (and definitely use good front and rear lights if riding at night or in the rain!), but don't assume a driver has seen you. Sometimes a driver will look you right in the eyes but unconsciously ignore you and step on the gas anyway. Be alert and ready to stop or evade if necessary at any time when riding a bike, but most importantly, pay attention and practice safe driving habits when you're traveling by car!
When riding bikes is your full-time job, you learn a lot of lessons about what to expect in traffic and how to stay safe, and every city is a little different. In Boston you have to take in as much information about your environment as possible because everything is moving and changing so fast. You're moving through gridlock, you have to remember your route because roads tend to curve or change names. You get pretty good at predicting which driver will turn without signalling and looking through windows or reflections to see as many points as possible so you don't get surprised by a pedestrian weaving between backed up cars. You have to watch driver's mirrors to see if they're planning to open a door without looking or are distracting themselves with a phone (I've even caught people engrossed in actual books on their steering wheel in moving traffic and people playing Candy Crush while driving! One time I got the response, "I'm not texting, I'm writing an email!"). There's a lot of reckless people out there, and just obeying traffic laws won't always keep you safe.
Riding in Buffalo is a little different because there is so little congestion, but you still have to watch out for bad and intentionally reckless drivers. The most important thing to remember is to arm yourself with as much information as possible. Green light? Check the cross roads anyway. Coming up to an intersection but going straight? Check behind you anyway in case a driver is close enough to try overtaking and cutting you off. Be predictable in traffic and signal if you're turning (and definitely use good front and rear lights if riding at night or in the rain!), but don't assume a driver has seen you. Sometimes a driver will look you right in the eyes but unconsciously ignore you and step on the gas anyway. Be alert and ready to stop or evade if necessary at any time when riding a bike, but most importantly, pay attention and practice safe driving habits when you're traveling by car!
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Riding in Buffalo is a little different because there is so little congestion, but you still have to watch out for bad and intentionally reckless drivers. The most important thing to remember is to arm yourself with as much information as possible. Green light? Check the cross roads anyway. Coming up to an intersection but going straight? Check behind you anyway in case a driver is close enough to try overtaking and cutting you off. Be predictable in traffic and signal if you're turning (and definitely use good front and rear lights if riding at night or in the rain!), but don't assume a driver has seen you. Sometimes a driver will look you right in the eyes but unconsciously ignore you and step on the gas anyway. Be alert and ready to stop or evade if necessary at any time when riding a bike, but most importantly, pay attention and practice safe driving habits when you're traveling by car!
Sometimes it can seem like so few things are made in the US anymore. You can walk into most bike shops and they're full of big name bike brands that have all move their production elsewhere, which are likely very high quality, but you may just be looking for something a little different. There are actually hundreds of small bicycle manufacturers in the US, and a growing number of bag makers specializing in products for delivery work. Here's some of my favorites for the best American-made bikes and bags for bicycle delivery:
Bikes are great for many reasons- getting around easily, carrying stuff, and being easy to store are a few, but they're also incredibly simple. It can seem like a lot to understand how to keep your bike running smoothly at first, but once you start doing some simple maintenance tasks and learn a few parts, the rest fall into place pretty quick. Here are a few things I always try to remember:
Once a year bike messengers from around the globe come together to showcase what they've learned on the job. This event is the annual Cycle Messenger World Championships and this year it's taking place in the city of light, Paris, France.
It's no surprise that cars produce more harmful emissions than bicycles--the average car produces six tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year! Bicycle production, and the fuel required by bikers do produce some emissions of greenhouse gasses, but they amount to less than 10 times the emissions produced by cars according to this article from BikePortland.org: "Even with the CO2 emissions of food required to power a bicycle, the ECF study found that — while not emissions free — the bicycle is still the lowest emitter of greenhouse gasses per passenger kilometer traveled. One of the key findings was that emissions from cycling are over 10 times lower than those stemming from the passenger car, “even taking into account the additional dietary intake of a cyclist compared with that of a motorised transport user.” By choosing bikes as an environmentally friendly delivery service in Buffalo, you are making the right choice for the environment.
If you are a local business, or if you want to support local businesses in your city, choosing a bicycle courier service is a great way to support local business in Buffalo. According to this article by Forbes, "there are more than 28.2 million businesses operating in the United States as of March 2014, with about 63% of new jobs being created from small businesses between 1993 and mid 2013." By supporting local business you will be touching countless lives and improving your city in many ways. In this article we will make the argument for why to support local business in Buffalo, and tell you how you can do this with a bike courier like Bufvelo!
We've put together a list of some of the best cycling destinations in Buffalo. We think that biking is one of the best ways to take in a city. Last year we traveled to Europe and recorded all our biking on a go pro. We love taking advantage of the beauty that surround us by bike, and we love seeing other cyclists out on the streets of Buffalo. Let us know your favorite routes in the comments section below! Here are some of the best sights you'll see biking around the Queen City:
Buffalo is known for its intense weather events, but it can't top the record snow in Boston last year. In addition to periods of extreme cold, at 108.6 inches of snow, Boston’s 2015 snowfall was the greatest in the 143 years that records have been kept. We worked as Boston bike messengers throughout the record cold and snow. So if you're asking yourself the question, can you keep biking Buffalo during winter, we say yes! The only thing that ever kept us home was a snow emergency. Proper clothing, well-tuned bikes and skillful riding kept us on the road throughout the most extreme of conditions. In addition to enjoying the challenge of tough-weather riding, we were pleased that snow and cold keep many of Boston’s bad drivers off the road!
After years of living in a shared apartment in Boston, we moved to Buffalo to find an affordable way to live with our bikes. The most important feature of the perfect house, besides being incredibly cheap, was the garage and the basement.
We've been in Buffalo for about half a year now, but I (Andy) grew up in nearby Lewiston, so it's more like a return to the region. If you find yourself asking the question, what do couriers do? We learn a lot about how bikes and cities go together while we're on the job. Here's some of what we've learned as bicycle couriers during our years in Boston:
