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»
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.
