Here's a way to get smashed while you're cycling and walk away unscathed.

The PedalPub in Minneapolis-St. Paul is a rolling bar built for 16. Ten seats are set up with freewheels for pedaling, with room for a few freeloaders, a bartender and a driver.

Owners Al Boyce and Eric Olson report at their PedalPub website that the activity is strictly legal -- PedalPub doesn't sell, supply or serve any beverages. That's left up to the renters who can bring anything along, much as they would in a limo. ...   more »

Have you ever been out on one of those perfect bike rides when everything seemed right and you kept pedaling and pedaling and suddenly discovered you were either way far from home or just plain lost?

Then you can identify with Laurie, the heroine in the French Canadian movie "2 Seconds."

Laurie is an accomplished downhill racer who loses her sponsor after spending too much time (hmmm, about 2 seconds) behind the starting gate when it opens. Fired, she returns to Montreal to live in her brother's apartment and get a job as a bike messenger. ...   more »

A Salt Lake City bicycle concern has closed one of its locations that was proclaimed as the oldest bike shop in the western United States.

Guthrie Bicycle closed its downtown location at East 200th South in January. Housed in a three-story building erected in 1890, a sign in the window said Guthrie's was opened in 1904.

Kiril Kundurazieff's Cycling Dude blog lists old bike shops, and the shop closure in Salt Lake City would make Jones Bicycles (established 1910) in Long Beach, California, the oldest in the West. ...   more »

I was scanning the "bikes for sale" ads on Craigslist when I ran across this item:

"Boy's bike wanted -- please read -- it's also missing"

It turns out a boy in the Hillside area near Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, Washington, had his bicycle, left, stolen over the weekend. One of his parents placed an ad on Craigslist, saying that the boy was willing to trade his Yu-Gi-Oh! card collection for a replacement bike.

If you have kids, especially boys, you can probably appreciate how much they treasure game cards like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon. To be willing to trade them for a bike is a big sacrifice. This kid must be a bike fanatic in the making. ...   more »

At first I wasn't going to write about the dog-powered scooter that inventor Mark Schuette e-mailed me about. Technically, it ain't a bicycle.

Schuette's contraption does have two wheels, but the similarity to a bicycle pretty much ends there. The scooter is powered by a dog, the rider doesn't get a whole lot of exercise except for balancing and steering.

But as I read through the Dog-Powered Scooter website, I started seeing some advantages for bicyclists, especially those who take to multi-use bicycle paths where people like to walk or run their dogs. ...   more »

A story out of India this weekend about people who haul coal by bicycle struck me for two reasons: 1) it's about bikes, and more importantly, 2) it shows the risks people will take to scratch out a living.

The reporter interviewed coal carriers in the Jharkhand area of eastern India, where abandoned coal mines still cough up enough fuel for locals to illegally mine and transport to larger cities for sale on the black market.

It's a dangerous business. The bicyclists haul 1.5 quintal (330 pounds) of coal by bicycle on narrow roads out of the hills 30 or 40 miles to their destination. They'll make a couple of trips a week, earning less than $70 a month for their efforts. ...   more »

It took a New Jersey jury about 15 minutes to decide that an 11-year-old girl on rollerblades was not at fault for causing a doctor to crash his bicycle.

You may have heard of the ridiculous lawsuit filed by Dr. Alexander Dlugi, who sued his neighbor because she turned into his path after he rang his bicycle bell and yelled "Watch Out" as he cycled past.

Dlugi, who suffered a broken collarbone, claimed his practice lost money because of his injuries and he sued. His attorney said: "It may seem like an odd thing. But people are responsible for their actions."

That may be the case, but the seven-person jury didn't agree that the girl -- now 15 -- was responsible for the accident. ...   more »

Back at the end of 2006, I made the bold assertion that I would double last year's mileage and ride my bicycle at least 4,000 miles in 2007.

So far, I'm way off pace. Here are some of my lame excuses for this month:

First my high schooler was sick for three days at the beginning of February, then I came down with that energy-sapping virus for a few days myself ...   more »