Weiss

Eben Weiss might be the self-titled “Bike Snob,” but the author of the wildly popular cycling blog Bike Snob NYC is anything but snobbish when it comes to his personal approach toward riding a bike. Rather, the snobs in question are fixie-fetishizing hipsters, the would-be racers in the too-tight spandex shorts and jerks who don’t obey helmet or traffic rules.

Since launching his blog in 2007, Weiss has become one of the most widely read authors on cycling, spinning into a regular column in Bicycling magazine a series of books, the second of which, The Enlightened Cyclist, is due out this week. (Chronicle Books, $16.95)

Weiss is kicking off his book tour in the D.C. area with a talk and signing at Barnes & Noble in Bethesda at noon Wednesday, followed by a group ride hosted by the downtown D.C. bike shop BicycleSPACE, which recently moved to a new location at 1019 Seventh Street NW.

The 39-year-old Weiss, who lives in Brooklyn, said his new book is broadly about the nature of commuting, and more specifically about the particulars of riding one’s bike for everyday transportation needs. “For a lot of us, commuting is the most miserable part of our day,” he told DCist in an email. “This is too bad, since with a little tweaking I think we can actually make it the best part of our day.”

Of course, Weiss’ frame of reference for bike-friendly commuting is New York, where transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has been routinely celebrated and rebuffed for her aggressive transformation of the city’s roadways from car-clogged arteries to streets laced with ever more cycle tracks since she took the job in 2007.

For Weiss, this transformation over the past few years has been astounding. “Not only do the new bike lanes make cycling demonstrably more attractive and accessible to “normal” people,” he said, “but they also make stuff like cycling with cargo and cycling with kids possible in a way it really wasn’t before.”

But Wednesday’s ride will be Weiss’ first time touching his bike down on D.C. streets. After stalling in 2011, the District is starting to pick up the pace on installing new cycle tracks, starting with one along Columbia Road NW. Yet the installation of so many sharrows around D.C. where none previously existed has also sometimes been a source of political and socioeconomic tension.

It seems New Yorkers, in Weiss’ view, are settled with the fact that one-time mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner will most likely never make good on his threat to “have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your fucking bike lanes.” The next step in making urban streetscapes better for cyclists, Weiss said, is getting police to properly enforce the laws that are supposed protect cyclists. He pointed to a incident last October in which a Brooklyn cyclist was fatally struck by a flatbed truck. Although video was later found suggesting that the victim, 30-year-old Mathie Lefevre, made what appeared to be a safe attempt to pass the truck, no charges were ever filed against the driver.

D.C. has had similar incidents, such as last September when the driver of a pick-up truck was caught on tape intentionally sideswiping a cyclist, knocking him to the ground before speeding off. The driver was cited for leaving the scene, but no vehicular assault charges were ever filed.

“We need more bike infrastructure,” Weiss said. “It’s not gratuitous, and we still have a long way to go.”

Eben Weiss, aka Bike Snob NYC, signs copies of his book at noon Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda. Weiss will also participate in a group ride at 6 p.m. departing from BicycleSPACE, 1019 Seventh Street NW. (202) 962-0123.