Scores of painted bicyclists made the ultimate sacrifice for their art on Saturday when they bared their skin for the brush and spray-can at the Fremont Solstice Parade.
Although the parade celebrates the coming of summer, the temperatures hovered in the upper 50s and a windy drizzle swept off the Puget Sound.
In such conditions, even two coats of body paint won't keep a person warm.
More than a hundred cyclists participated in the parade this year, in spite of the chilly weather. The painted cyclists have been a fixture at the parade hosted by the Fremont Arts Council ..... more»
Congress voted today to enforce a mandatory recall of 200 million bicycles, effective April 1st.
The action, which covers all bicycles sold within the U.S. for the past 10 years, is being taken in cooperation with the automobile industry, the petroleum industry, and the National Manufacturers Association.
The surprise vote came as the 182 members of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus, headed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, were out for a spin on the new bicycle lane down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue. They got the news during the dedication of the bike lane, christened the Tony Kornheiser Obstacle Course .... more»
When bicyclists are shooting the breeze about their bike touring exploits, each and every one will have a pretty good dog story.
Joe Kurmaskie won't stop there, though. He'll probably tell you about the time he was chased by an elephant.
Kurmaskie, aka The Metal Cowboy, is a Portland-based bike travel writer who recently posted a short video about being chased by an elephant while on a charity bike ride in Botswana.
The African elephant charged Kurmaskie and his companions briefly one afternoon.... more»
With my email address displayed in the upper right column of every page of the Biking Bis website, I get frequent mail from readers.
Usually people offer compliments and suggestions or ask for coverage of their bike tours or websites. But lately, I've received a couple of emails regarding the sexual orientation of the Biking Bis blog.
Over the Christmas holidays, someone wrote:
"I'm um not sure how to say this... but your web site name: "Biking Bis" is confusing! I got several hits for this site before finally checking it out. It is excellent. I did not look at it earlier because I thought it was for Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals, hence the title.
How about changing it to "Biking Biz" or even "Bike Business"? There are more bikers than gay people in the world, so hopefully your readership should go up. :)" ..... more»
As it could have been reported in my hometown newspaper:
A Bellevue resident celebrated his 60th birthday with a 60.5-mile bike ride on Sunday.
"It shows what you can do if you ride regularly and have a strong stubborn streak," said Gene Bisbee, who writes the Biking Bis blog.
An avid bicyclist, Gene said that he'd run into a streak of bad luck -- all his own fault -- with bicycling the past year and didn't know whether he would be able to achieve his goal of 60 on his 60th.
It all started with a fall in January 2009 caused by his improperly maintained bike. He stayed off the bike for several weeks and thought everything had cleared up until this autumn when he was again forced off the bike with severe knee pain. A physical therapist told him it was related to his hip injury ...... more»
We all know that Twitter is a great resource for social networking, and it's the one place where you'll always be able to find out what Lance Armstrong is up to on a daily, in not hourly, basis.
But I never have been so entertained -- and wasted so much time -- on Twitter as this morning with suggestions from the Twitteratis of the best bike movies never made.
Here's just a few of my favorites from this morning. They can be found at Twitter.com #bikemovies:
Citizen Chain Astana Potter and the Prisoner of Kazakhstan The Year of Spinning Dangerously ... more»
Although bicycling is a major interest of mine, another is playing trumpet in a community concert band.
So you can probably understand my joy and amazement to see my two avocations combined in The Netherlands by the Trompetterkorps Bereden Wapens. It just makes me smile.
In addition to the fact that they're riding in formation as they play their instruments, they actually sound pretty good. And check out the snare drummer -- no hands on the handlebars. (Larger version on jump).... more»
From the nation that brought us the Velib bicycle rental system comes another revolutionary idea: Remove convicts from prison and take them on a bicycle tour.
Beginning next month, 196 French prison inmates will begin a 1,400-mile bike tour of France. They'll be accompanied by 124 guards.
Reuters news agency reports that the peloton will start in Lille on June 4 and stop in 17 towns. Although each host town is home to a prison, the inmates will be sleeping in hotels. They'll conclude the trip in Paris.
A French prison official explained the trip ... more»
I'm always a little oxygen-deprived when I reach this figure on the way up Cougar Mountain in Bellevue, Washington, and not sure what I'm actually seeinig.
When I rode up on Saturday, I thought I'd take a picture to confirm if I were seeing things or not.
Sure enough, it looks all the world to me like a person riding a recumbent. All the other markings along this stretch are "standard" bicycling figures.
The Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle is encouraging everyone to get involved in the annual "Jurassic Petroleum Drive to Work Day" on Wednesday.
That's right, it's time for bicycle commuters, bus passengers, pedestrians and even car-poolers to jump into their individual cars and experience the love of crawling along to work on a congested four-lane superhighway, spewing carbon emissions as they go.
If you look at the calendar, you'll realize that Wednesday is April Fool's Day, so I doubt if the announcement at the Great City blog or Cascade's Twitter is being made in all seriousness. But there is a serious point to be made.
There's a Florida band named "This Bike is a Pipe Bomb." If you want to keep life simple, do not attach their bumper stickers to your bicycle. Otherwise your ride could be considered a terrorist threat.
That happened Monday in Memphis where an airport terminal was shut down when such a bicycle was spotted near a passenger ramp.
A pilot saw the bike with the sticker and notified police, who evacuated the terminal. Bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, but did not detect any explosives.
Airport police took the bike owner into custody ... more»
Watching the Golden Globes award show the other night, I was surprised to see this excellent Belgian beer commercial that tells the story of two brothers in a circa 1930s tandem bicycle race.
Entitled "The Race," the 1:30-minute commercial for Stella Artois looks like it came directly from the pages of a book on the history of cycling in the Alps and Pyrenees, right down to the dusty roads and stone buildings.
Searching around, I discovered that the footage was shot on the Mediterranean island of Majorca (Mallorca in Spanish). The extras were cycling fanatics from the mountainous island, and the photos at the end of the piece came from a widow whose husband was a local cycling legend ... more»
The debut of a DIY show on public television connects viewers with artists who transform old bicycles into unusual pedal-powered creations.
"MAKE: Television" is produced by MAKE magazine, which is devoted to all kinds of do-it-yourself technology projects.
The first segment of the first show is about San Francisco's Cyclecide. The collective finds bicycles and other odds and ends in junk yards and retool them into "pedal-powered monstrosities." One member explains:
"It's not really into the practicality of the bike or fast you can ride... more»
I always enjoy looking back at the top stories of the previous year.
Although the BikingBis blog is hardly the arbiter of the top bicycling news of the day, my stories occasionally seem to strike a chord with readers. Take, for instance, the photo at left that goes with the top story of 2008.
Here are the month-by-month stories at my blog with the most hits last year. In a couple of cases, they were actually legitimate bicycling news stories.
January: "Top 10 bicycling websites" -- I published this list Dec. 31, 2007, but it was still popular at the beginning of the following year. These were the websites that I refer to the most for bicycle news; they probably still are.
Here's a bicycle for group rides in extremely cramped spaces. It's called the Circular Bike, and it's really just for fun.
Inventor Robert Wechsler used parts from 30-odd discarded bikes to make the merry-go-round that can reach speeds of 15 mph. He says that inevitably, someone always gets sick.
His creation essentially connects nine bicycles in a 12-foot diameter ring. There was some welding involved, but sections are bolted together so it can be dismantled ... more»
The Rome News-Tribune reported that four men approached a man riding his bicycle recently, pushed him off, and left with his ride, which the victim valued at $12,000. Here's the description:
"The low-rider bicycle is described as silver in color with four chrome wheels and a fifth wheel in a wheel cover, airbrushed with “brown pride,” on the back of the bike.
"The bike also has a mini television installed."
I'm thinking it's going to be difficult for the perps to ride this bike around without getting caught. Maybe they'll chop it up for parts and put the TV in the den.
If Kryptonite ever improves on its "New York Fehgettaboudit" bicycle lock, they might want to rename it the "Igor Kenk."
That's because Igor Kenk is the unofficial world champion bicycle thief -- not an achievement that's going to win him a spot on a box of Wheaties.
The 49-year-old Toronto bike shop owner was last credited with possessing 2,865 stolen bicycles. They were at his shop, his home and 10 garages he rented around Toronto .... more»
A 1952-vintage Schwinn bicycle that carried Donald Deer and his family all around Evansville for a half-century was stolen from outside a McDonald's recently.
While that Schwinn might be a museum piece for some, it was just a way to get around town for Deer, 64.
The local newspaper tells how Deer won the bicycle as a fourth grader by penning the winning fire safety slogan (Fire prevention week is OK, but let's make it a practice every day)... more»
BikeBiz.com reports early Tuesday morning UK-time that the world's biggest carmaker is buying California-based Specialized Bicycles.
Maybe GM sees the writing on the wall; one day there won't be any more oil to put in its cars. GM's Flora Lopi, VP for environment, energy and safety policy attributes it to GM being in the forefront of developing new transportation choices with limited impact on the environment.
See the San Jose Business Journal for the full story. Be sure to check out the "Related News" on the SJBJ website for the latest developments to this story of interest to all bicyclists; and definitely check out Quickrelease.tv. Seriously. Check it out ... more»
All the obituaries for Richard Widmark, 93, talk about his roles as a villain in films, but I remember him mainly as Jim Bowie in "The Alamo" in 1960.
What I didn't know is that the Minnesota-born actor became interested in acting while giving lectures after a bicycle tour he made through Nazi Germany.
Apparently Widmark went on his bike tour of Deutschland in the early 1930s. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to visit a camp for political prisoners named Dachau, which later became one of Hitler's infamous extermination camps. However, he did sneak into a youth camp ... more»
Some pretty famous sports figures have been celebrated as bobblehead dolls. I don't know of any cyclists who have been honored this way except for Italy's Fausto Coppi.
Now there's another.
The Wheeling Nailers hockey team is honoring "Moon Dog," a local character who's known for riding his flag-festooned bicycle around town and appearing in local parades.
The first 2,500 fans who go to see the "AA" Wheeling, West Virginia, affiliate of the Flyers and Penguins play on March 22 will get their very own Moon Dog Mini-Bobblehead. ... more»
Something you'll be hearing a lot soon is that something "is your new bicycle." It started with a website called "Barack Obama is your new bicycle" which caught fire and already has a slew of imitators.
The term will probably reach a peak in a few weeks, when advertisers will start using it in their "hip" commercials. That's when we'll quickly get sick of hearing it, and the once-clever term will die out of use.
Here's what Matthew Honan, a San Francisco based writer for Wired magazine, told Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune about the website and how it got started.... more»
Bicycling is almost always fun for me, but I get tired of rolling over the same old routes. It's fun to visit someplace new where every bike ride is a new adventure.
I spent much of the past week in Sacramento for some high school functions with my son, and I made the best of my free time with some decent bike rides.
I googled "bike rental Sacramento" before I left, so I already had a map of area bike rental shops when I got there. Although the weather was supposed to be "Seattle-like," my days for rides were sunny. Lucky me ... more»
The 2008 Bicycle Film Festival is coming off its best year ever, entertaining some 100,000 people in 15 cities around the world.
As it enters its eighth year of celebrating all things bicycle, the festival organizer is seeking submissions for this year's festival. The deadline is Feb. 19. The 2-minute video at left splices together some trailers from last year's BFF films.
Founding director Brendt Barbur says they're looking for films representing a bicycle theme or character. "A fine thriller with one scene of a bicycle chase does not count... more»
In the world of bicycling, one of the biggest mysteries to me is how someone can lose a bicycle.
I can understand a person losing track of a bicycle that is stolen and ditched, but apparently people will occasionally park a bike and then not retrieve it. Do they forget it? Did they die? Were they whisked away by aliens?
For instance, the Seattle Metro transit system reported that 863 people put their bicycles on bus racks in 2007 and forgot to remove them.... more»
A man suspected of robbing 11 mostly Atlanta area banks and making his getaways by bicycle has been arrested by police in Roswell, Georgia.
Police wouldn't say what led them to Carlos H. Arango-Mejia, 47, of Doraville. He was arrested at his home Wednesday night and immediately booked on two area bank robberies from last spring. ... more»
A few years after moving to California, we shot a video of our house and family at Christmastime for our friends back in Maryland.
One stop on the tour was the Men's Crisis Center, the shed in the back yard where a new dad could get in some afterhours cranking on an old bike set up on a trainer.
I was returning to the shed with the camera running when I realized I had left my inquisitive son in there alone. He had totally greased his hands on the oily bike chain. It was too funny to get angry.
I had totally forgotten about this until I ran across the other day. Now, it seems like it happened yesterday.
By the way, this kid went on to ride the Cycle Across Maryland and Ride Around Washington on a tandem, and two more Ride Across Washington week-long tours on his mountain bike.
Be aware that you're going to have a big ol' bare spot on your wall in a couple of weeks if you haven't bought a bicycling calendar to replace that 2007 model.
There are lots of bicycle calendars to choose from online. Some feature scenic road and mountain biking locales, while others feature professional and recreational women cyclists from around the world and across the Northwest.
As usual, the Cyclepassion 2008 wall calendar is undoubtedly the hottest one out there this year. Instead of relying on professional models, it features pro women cyclists. That's Norwegian mountain biker Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja on the cover .... more»
I'm always amazed at athletes who compete in endurance sports, especially those ultra events that involve sleep deprivation from hours and days in the activity.
UltraRob's Adventures blog tells about two cyclists -- John "Blue Dog" Jurczynski and Mike "Mad Dog" Gallagher -- who each set an indoor spinning record of 113 hours at a sports club in Laconia, New Hampshire, last night.
If confirmed officially, the effort will put the two in the pages of the next Guinness Book of World Records, barring the unlikely prospect that someone can beat 112 hours. Actually, the previous record of 111 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds had been set by George Hood last summer ... more»
President Bush is known for his love of mountain biking, so it's no surprise that many world leaders gave him gifts with a bicycling theme.
In the cycling apparel line, Bush received cycling jerseys from Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Verhofstadt also gave him cycling tights.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, one of Bush's closest friends on the world scene, gave the president an electric-power assisted bicycle... more»
Authorities cleared a string of some 28 bank robberies in 16 states in September when Bruce David Voss, the so-called Bicycle Bandit, was arrested after a bank robbery in Tallahassee, Florida.
Caught red-handed with the cash and his getaway bicycle stuffed in the trunk of his car, the 57-year-old Voss confessed to a string of bank robberies. The next day, he hung himself in his jail cell before authorities could learn the details and locations of all the robberies.
But that hasn't been the end of bicycle bank robberies. There have been two other separate serial bank robbery sprees -- in Georgia and New Hampshire -- that have a similar modus operandi. The robber makes his getaway on a bicycle... more»
Joe Kurmaskie isn't exactly the poet laureate of bicycle tourists; he's more like the comic laureate.
I caught Kurmaskie's very entertaining talk at the Seattle Bike Expo, and I'm happy to see he's returning for another Metal Cowboy Holiday Spectacular at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11 at the downtown Seattle REI. (Cascade Bicycle Club members, 2 for $5; nonmembers $5.)
Kurmaskie's a funny guy. He spends many days every year bicycle touring, often with his family. If you're not familiar with the Portland bicyclist, here's an excerpt from a quiz he sent out earlier this year entitled: "Are You Addicted to Cycling?" ... more»
I stopped attaching foreign objects in the vicinity of my bicycle wheels ever since I ruined a perfectly good Roy Campanella basball card a long time ago.
But let me pass along a couple of websites for wheel decorations suggested by a reader. Each sells circuit boards with LED lights attached that mount on the spokes of a bike wheel and display text or images as the wheel spins.
I've seen these before, but never really looked into it. If you have some time over the holidays ... more»
Argue as he might, Steven Gravenites couldn't convince the federal judge in San Francisco earlier this month that he should be found innocent of possession of a bicycle in a wilderness area.
The 45-year-old mountain biker and well-known Marin County, California, wheel-builder was fined $60 but was able to reclaim his bike. Rangers had taken it as evidence for illegal trail riding in the Point Reyes National Seashore in June.
An account of the trial -- it actually made it to federal court -- in the Marin Independent reports that Gravenites tried to get the court to consider the bigger picture of the history of mountain biking. ... more»
It's always nice when a favored contraption gets a little respect.
In its list of 101 gadgets that changed the world, IOL Technology credits the bicycle as a useful gadget for becoming a widespread form of transportation and a vehicle toward the emancipation of women.
Justifying its claim, the magazine explains:
"First devised as a gentleman's play thing in the 1820s, the push-powered hobby-horse quickly evolved to become the most classless form of transport, trundling by the millions along highways and byways all over the world. ... more»
(Updated: Nov. 14, 2007 -- The Scotsman accused of having sex with his bicycle in a hotel room has been placed on three years probation.)
Bike porn I can explain, but sex with a bike is something I can't really picture.
So let's call on a police official who testified recently in a court proceeding regarding a man in the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, Scotland .... more»
More than once, I've been cut off by a Metro bus pulling to the curb to drop off a passenger. It's bad driving, but nothing compared to the addlebrained recklessness shown by operators of India's Blueline buses.
The Blueline bus fleet has caused 103 deaths in India so far this year. The country's media calls them variously "killer buses" and "rogue buses," names formerly bestowed on rampaging herds of elephants.
Official enforcement seems ineffective, so local residents are taking matters into their own hands. After the October 25 death of a cyclist who was run down by a speeding bus, a mob torched and gutted the bus as the operator fled ... more»
The Edinburgh (Scotland) News writes about a bicyclist who won a lawsuit from the local bus company after the judge said he didn't fake his fall.
George Johnston, 63, claimed that he was hit by the bus in 2004 while bicycling home through Oxgangs. The bus driver disagreed calling the fall staged and "a comedy act ... a pathetic stumble ... the most pathetic fall you would imagine."
Apparently the judge considered the driver's defense something suitable for a comedy act, and awarded Johnston 61,600 pounds, about $126,000. Johnston will use it to replace his artificial hip, which was damaged in the wreck.
Being distracted with other stuff, I completely missed the DVD release of the cycling flick "The Flying Scotsman" in mid-September.
Earlier this week I stumbled across it after taking a stroll to my local video rental store, snatched it up, watched it immediately, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The movie is based on Graeme Obree's autobiography, "Flying Scotsman; Cycling to Triumph through My Darkest Hours." Obree set the one-hour bicycling record, twice, in the early 1990s in spite of battling officials at the Union Cycliste Internationale and the demons inside his head... more»
If you're pedaling through North Portland on your bicycle and feel some hunger pangs, you might want to swing by the "bike-thru" window at the Little Red Bike Cafe.
Only open a couple of months, the breakfast and lunch cafe will feed anyone who wants some homemade goodness in the form of sandwiches, baked goods, ice cream and locally roasted coffees. But cyclists do get that 50-cent drink discount that others don't.
Owners Evan and Ali explain all the trials of opening a restaurant and feature their tasty menu offerings at the Little Red Bike Cafe blog. Don't read it on an empty stomach. ... more»
"Take a ride you won't forget, On my bicyclette; Fast as lightning and so much more, It's a traveling metaphor."
These are the opening lines to the theme song for "The Bicycle Men," a musical comedy opening in London soon.
The show stars Dan Castellaneta, best known as the voice of Homer Simpson. In the musical he plays Steve, an American tourist who crashes his bike and "encounters the twisted inhabitants of a sinister French village," ..... more»
When I first saw the story about the two guys riding their bicycles to every Burgerville fast food joint in the Northwest, I thought I'd be reading a cross between "Super-Size Me" and "Breaking Wind Away."
No such deal here. Brent Krebsbach of Redmond, Wash., and Paul LaFrance of Wasilla, Alaska, are visiting a chain of restaurants in Washington and Oregon that strives to do the right thing toward its customers and employees.
Krebsbach and LaFrance bicycled more than 500 miles in four days to visit all 39 Burgervilles in Oregon and Washington.... more»
The guy at the corner grocery watched me walk across the parking lot in the rain.
"Where's your bike?"
"In the garage, where it's happy," I told him.
Five days after my radical prostatectomy, I'm happy with the bike in the garage too. Considering my soreness and catheter, I can't imagine riding it anytime soon .... more»
A couple of blog items involving bicyclists convinces me that things are as bad as ever out on the streets.
The LAist blog writes about a cyclist getting handcuffed by police after his bicycle was damaged by a bus and Cyclelicious had an item about a struck cyclist who shoots at a motorist .... more»
This might seem a little odd, but there's an exercise book that recommends workouts based on your astrological sign.
"Zodiaction: Fat-Burning Fitness Tailored to Your Personal Star Quality" was written by TV fitness personality Ellen Barrett and astrologer Barrie Dolnick.
A newspaper story summarized findings for the different signs of the Zodiac and told which exercises were most appropriate for each group. Which signs are aligned with bicycling? ... more»
The LiveStrong Presidential Cancer Forum is underway today and Tuesday in Iowa, where Lance Armstrong strives to make the fight against cancer a top issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich spoke Monday at Cedar Rapids; the Republicans get a shot on Tuesday. Noticeable in his absence was Democrat Barack Obama and Tuesday's expected no-shows Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. ... more»
A reader recently emailed me to ask if I knew the oldest bicycle club in the US or the oldest race. I didn't, but the question sent me down an interesting road.
It turns out he had acquired a bike racing invitation dated Sept. 15, 1884, from the Keystone Bicycle Club in Pittsburgh and was researching it for sale in eBay.
That set me off on a wild-goose chase of my own, where I stumbled across some old sports newsletters that mentioned bicycle racing from that era more»
Australian authorities have apparently solved the mystery of a missing European tourist when his skeletal remains were found next to his bicycle in a remote part of Queensland.
The remains of the 47-year-old Slovenian were discovered by a helicopter pilot who first saw the bicycle, then spotted the body. Police found the skeleton, clad in a tracksuit ... more»
The 2007 Bicycle Film Festival is currently making its way on its worldwide tour. The next stop is Toronto, running Wednesday through Sunday.
This is the seventh annual tour for the film festival, which features independent films glorifying the world of bicycling. Other North American stop are Portland, Minneapolis and San Francisco before it heads overseas.
One film should be of interest to Toronto residents: Monkey Warfare, a film about two ex-activists in Toronto whose lifestyle involves selling junk online and riding their bikes.... more»
I always marvel at the cyclists on tall bikes. How do they build them? How do they ride them? How do they stop and dismount?
Tim Anderson, a regular contributor at Instructables website, answers the first question with his recent contribution "Build Your Own Tall Bike Without Welding."
The welding aspect of making a tall bike is certainly a drawback to most garage bike mechanics. No welding? This is interesting .... more»
Occasionally I'll get personal email from readers who see something that they think I might be interested in.
Recently I've received email about bike-commuting foreign ministers, bike-parking headaches in Amsterdam, and a request for a good bicycle touring book recommendation.
Ken in North Carolina forwarded the above image to me from BBC showing France's Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development Alain Juppe walking away from a cabinet meeting with his Dutch commuting bike.
"It's a very nice example for government figures everywhere!" Ken wrote. ... more»
Attention bicycle travelers: Remember to call home often this summer on your wide-ranging forays into back-roads America.
Poor Clive "Les" Ruddle of Aldbourne, England, didn't keep in touch on his way down the Pacific Coast and touched off a search by Oregon state police. One British paper says he "sparked an international manhunt."
The Englishman had flown to Seattle in mid-April for a bike tour from Port Angeles, Washington, to San Diego. He last contacted home on April 30 ... more»
Last January, I wrote about how George Hood of Illinois set a mark for the Guinness World Records Book by cycling for 85 straight hours on a stationary bicycle.
Unfortunately, Hood recently found out that the Guinness folks invalidated the entry because of sloppy record-keeping. ... more»
You'll be able see the Graeme Obree story on the big screen beginning Friday if you live in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto or Washington DC.
Those are the "selected cities" where theaters will show "The Flying Scotsman," a movie about the Scot who twice broke the bicycling world record for distance covered in an hour.
Here in the Seattle area, theaters showing the movie this weekend are AMC Pacific Place 11, Renton Village 8 and Lakewood Town Center 12; Regal Bella Botega 11, South Sound Cinema 10, Alderwood 7 Cinemas, and South Hill Mall 6; Landmark Metro Cinemas; Bellevue Galleria Stadium 11; and Galaxy Tacoma 6. ... more»
There's a story from Palm Beach about a woman who was having problems with her bicycle and traded it for a car the owner had left parked in front of a sandwich store with the engine running.
You know, I always worry about getting bike-jacked whenever I pass someone looking under the hood of their broken down car at the side of the road. When they watch me pedal by, I imagine they're thinking about how simple it would be to ride a bicycle and avoid all the mechanical problems of the internal combustion engine. ... more»
The Bicycle Film Festival is expanding to 16 cities in 2007, starting with showing in New York City from May 16-20.
The festival celebrates all kinds of bikes through film, art and music. Films are usually presented by independent producers. Last year's films included "B.I.K.E.," a film about New York's Black Label Bicycle Club, and "Something to Aim At," the tragic story of bicycle racer Tom Simpson written and narrated by Phil Liggett.
In addition to New York, the Bike Film Festival is scheduled to visit Los Angeles, London, Paris, Chicago, Minneapolis, Toronto, Portland, San Francisco, Vienna, London, Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Tokyo, and Sydney. ... more»
Need a lift? An actual bicycle lift in the city of Trondheim, Norway, has provided cyclists with a little boost to the top of a steep hill in the historical part of town since the mid-1990s.
The owner of the bicycle lift, Design Management AS, says it's the only one in the world. Nearly a quarter-million people have used the lift since testing began in 1993, and the rate has increased to 20,000 to 30,000 a year.
About half of the passengers are college students who attend University of Trondheim at the top of the 425-foot-long hill, and 41% of the users say they ride a bicycle more often because of the lift. -- Video andmore»
The film adaptation of two-time bicycling one-hour world record holder Graeme Obree's life is scheduled for release May 4 in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Washington DC.
The year's first US screening, however, will be Friday night at the 16th Philadelphia Film Festival. Here's a two-and-a-half minute trailer for the film:
Obree's accomplishments are amazing, considering that he broke the world record as an amateur racing on a bicycle that he designed. He also battled bicycling federation bureaucrats who disapproved of his riding style, and his own inner demons, as he was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. ... more»
After perusing hundreds of bicycles for sale online, I've concluded that an amazing number of people buy bicycles that they don't ride. OK, maybe once or twice.
My son has outgrown his mountain bike and is interested in getting a road bike for a summer bike tour. At the rate he's growing, I'm a little reluctant to buy something brand new. So I'm looking for something used on Craigslist
I'm surprised at how many low mileage bikes are out there. Here are some of the unusual ads I've come across:
Fixed Gear: "Although 2 years old it has never been ridden. Complete except for pedals (not included). I bought it before my wife got pregnant, and, well you know how it goes." ... more»
Congress voted today to enforce a mandatory recall of 200 million bicycles, effective April 1st.
With my email address displayed in the upper right column of every page of the Biking Bis website, I get frequent mail from readers.
An avid bicyclist, Gene said that he'd run into a streak of bad luck -- all his own fault -- with bicycling the past year and didn't know whether he would be able to achieve his goal of 60 on his 60th.
From the nation that brought us the Velib bicycle rental system comes another revolutionary idea: Remove convicts from prison and take them on a bicycle tour.
I'm always a little oxygen-deprived when I reach this figure on the way up Cougar Mountain in Bellevue, Washington, and not sure what I'm actually seeinig.
The Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle is encouraging everyone to get involved in the annual "Jurassic Petroleum Drive to Work Day" on Wednesday.
There's a Florida band named "This Bike is a Pipe Bomb." If you want to keep life simple, do not attach their bumper stickers to your bicycle. Otherwise your ride could be considered a terrorist threat.
I always enjoy looking back at the top stories of the previous year. .sized.jpg)
All the obituaries for Richard Widmark, 93, talk about his roles as a villain in films, but I remember him mainly as Jim Bowie in "The Alamo" in 1960.
Some pretty famous sports figures have been celebrated as bobblehead dolls. I don't know of any cyclists who have been honored this way except for Italy's Fausto Coppi.
Bicycling is almost always fun for me, but I get tired of rolling over the same old routes. It's fun to visit someplace new where every bike ride is a new adventure.
A man suspected of robbing 11 mostly Atlanta area banks and making his getaways by bicycle has been arrested by police in Roswell, Georgia.
Joe Kurmaskie isn't exactly the poet laureate of bicycle tourists; he's more like the comic laureate.
I stopped attaching foreign objects in the vicinity of my bicycle wheels ever since I ruined a perfectly good Roy Campanella basball card a long time ago.
Argue as he might, Steven Gravenites couldn't convince the federal judge in San Francisco earlier this month that he should be found innocent of possession of a bicycle in a wilderness area.
It's always nice when a favored contraption gets a little respect.
More than once, I've been cut off by a Metro bus pulling to the curb to drop off a passenger. It's bad driving, but nothing compared to the addlebrained recklessness shown by operators of India's Blueline buses.
Being distracted with other stuff, I completely missed the DVD release of the cycling flick "The Flying Scotsman" in mid-September. 
"Take a ride you won't forget,
The guy at the corner grocery watched me walk across the parking lot in the rain.
A reader recently emailed me to ask if I knew the oldest bicycle club in the US or the oldest race. I didn't, but the question sent me down an interesting road.
I always marvel at the cyclists on tall bikes. How do they build them? How do they ride them? How do they stop and dismount?
Occasionally I'll get personal email from readers who see something that they think I might be interested in.
You'll be able see the Graeme Obree story on the big screen beginning Friday if you live in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto or Washington DC.
The Bicycle Film Festival is expanding to 16 cities in 2007, starting with showing in New York City from May 16-20.
Need a lift? An actual bicycle lift in the city of Trondheim, Norway, has provided cyclists with a little boost to the top of a steep hill in the historical part of town since the mid-1990s.
After perusing hundreds of bicycles for sale online, I've concluded that an amazing number of people buy bicycles that they don't ride. OK, maybe once or twice.
