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 »