Leave it to the Centers for Disease Control to boil down the human toll of highway carnage into cold, hard cash.
A report issued by the agency this month finds that the costs of medical care and lost productivity related to deaths and injuries in crashes surpasses $99 billion a year. Bicyclists' share of that is about $5.4 billion annually.
The study, entitled "Traffic Injury Prevention," reports that the U.S. is falling behind the traffic safety gains many other developed nations are making.
It concludes that there are some strategies that could save lives and prevent injuries. One of those is mandatory bicycle helmet use. That's definitely a hot-button issue among bicyclists, although the CDC authors focus their discussion on bicycle helmet use among children .... more»
There hasn't been much news lately about Frank Marshall's ("Indiana Jones", "Bourne" series) plans to make a movie about Lance Armstrong's life.
But there's another bicycling movie in the works. Filmmaker and retired bicycle adventurer Kevin Foster says he has a commitment from the Chinese government for funds to produce a film about his own life.
Why make a movie about Kevin Foster, you ask?
Twenty years ago Foster made headlines by becoming the first person, and an American at that, to ride his bicycle over a thousand miles of what was left of the Great Wall of China .... more»
The bicycle has been around in one form or another for more than 150 years, but you might be surprised that researchers are still studying how we can ride one without it falling over.
Actually, I thought Albert Einstein had it right when he said:
"Life is like riding a bicycling. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
Maybe that explains more about life than it does about bicycling.
There's a lot more to it than that, as a three-day symposium -- Bicycle and Motorcycle Dynamics 2010 -- is scheduled for this fall (should I say autumn) at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
Participants will hear about bicycles, motorcycles, unicycles ... more»
If you're looking to travel by bicycle vicariously this summer by reading about someone else's adventures, I'd recommend "The Lost Cyclist" by David Herlihy. But I'll warn you that, as the title implies, it ends badly.
From the opening pages, you can tell "The Lost Cyclist" is not going to be your average book about a bicycle tour. It's an historical account of Frank Lenz's around-the-world bicycle adventure gone wrong, possibly made worse by attempts to make it right again.
Herlihy starts by describing how one of the main characters in the story walks out of the mists of time and into a newspaper office in 1953 to take care of some business. He's recognized by the editor. They chat, and the editor asks if he'd like to talk to a reporter about his attempt to rescue a missing bicycle traveler halfway around the world a half-century earlier.
The man, Will Sachtleben, at first agrees, then says he's got to take care of something first. He bolts from the office .... more»
For a bike snob, that Eben Weiss is certainly one popular guy.
About 130 fans of his BikeSnobNYC blog showed up at University Book Store in Seattle on Saturday afternoon to hear him speak and to get autographs of his recently released book.
Weiss is making a tour of the western states to promote the book "Bike Snob, Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling."
It's a good thing that Weiss bikes regularly, because he needs his stamina. He had just flown in, with his bike, from San Jose where he participated in an event called "Bike Party" that lasted far into the night .... more»
Bicycle City sounds like a mythical Valhalla where bicycling enthusiasts go when they pass away.
In reality, a group of environmentally friendly developers are creating a Bicycle City in the countryside south of Columbia, South Carolina, where cars will be verboten and residents will ride their bikes or walk to get around.
The community is the idea of Joe Mellett, a Internet marketer who sold Education.org to Monster.com about four years ago to get the seed money for the project. But the project is far past the idea phase. Mellett and his co-developers are presenting their plans to the Lexington County Council this week and hope to get started in the fall.
The Bicycle City group already has bought 150 acres near the town of Gaston ... more»
The possibility of sending bikes to Africa or building bikes in Africa is on a lot of people's minds this weekend.
The Village Bicycle Project, for instance, is looking for volunteers from the Seattle area to help pack its 100th shipping container full of recycled bicycles on Saturday.
The group based in the Pacific Northwest has sent 45,000 bicycles and 7,000 tools to Ghana over the past 10 years. It also provides the training to teach mechanics how to fix the bikes.
Working through the Peace Corps, the Project has distributed bicycles to 60 communities ..... more»
The other night I stumbled across a quirky reality TV show on the History Channel that vintage bicycle collectors might enjoy.
The show is called American Pickers, and it follows the exploits of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz as they rummage through old barns, attics and junk piles in search of treasures that they can resell for a profit.
Each has his specialty, and one of Wolfe's is vintage bicycles and motorbikes. Occasionally, they'll stumble across one of these gems in their travels around the country. In one episode he explains:
"My passion runs deep for bicycles because it was my first form of independence when I was a kid."....
These guys don't sit at home buying this stuff off of eBay, they're cruising around backroads in their Antique Archeology van and stopping at homes where they dig into dirt, dust and debris for metal signs, ceramic jars and anything else they think can be sold. It's time-consuming, but it's a way to find the good deals ... more»
Toronto police pulled four large transport trucks into a community center parking lot on Monday and began unloading 1,000 bicycles that will be fixed up and distributed to youth in the area.
But that's not even half of the stolen-bike haul made by police who in 2008 began investigating Igor Kenk, dubbed the most prolific bicycle thief in Canada's history.
In all, police confiscated 2,200 to 2,900 bicycles that Kenk had squirreled away around the city. About 1,000 of those bikes were returned to their owners.
Among those showing up at the center for the unloading -- Igor Kenk ... more»
A 45-year-old British bicyclist and bar owner set off from Thailand last week in an attempt to smash the around-the-world bicycling record by shaving more than two months off the current best time.
Alan Bate proposes to accomplish the 18,000-mile journey in 99 days, eclipsing the fastest time of 165 days set by Julian Sayarer, 23, just last year.
The feat requires that Bate ride his bicycle an average 180 miles a day, compared to the 109 miles a day ridden by Sayarer last year.
The past couple of years have seen many attacks on the bicycling record to circumnavigate the globe -- all by British bicyclists.
The standing Guinness World Record holder is still Scotland's Mark Beaumont ... more»
Bicycles will rule the road along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle just about every Sunday between May 2 and Sept. 26 this year.
Bicycle Sundays is back in 2010, which means all motorized traffic will be prohibited along the scenic lake-front road between Mount Baker Beach and Seward Park.
It's good to hear, but not at all surprisingly, that the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department is continuing the event that's been a Seattle tradition for some four decades. Seattle's new mayor, Michael McGinn, rides a bicycle.
Bicycle Sundays is Seattle's own version of ciclovia ... more»
A group dedicated to the preservation and continuance of New York City's bicycle culture is remembering the life and times of track racing in an exhibit entitled "Strong Backs, Weak Minds: The Saga of the Coney Island Velodrome."
The exhibit put together by NY Bike Jumble features actual track bicycles from the period, as well as programs, tickets and photos, like the one at left autographed by a cyclist named Tom Duffin Jr.
The velodrome was the last commercial bike racing venue in New York City, opening in 1930. The 1/8th-mile track wooden track with 45-degree banked corners had seating for 10,000 people.
Says NY Bike Jumble founder and curator Harry Schwartzman .. more»
A doctor is studying whether regular exercise can slow the spread of Parkinson's disease in people after he observed a severely afflicted man who could not walk, but had the ability to ride a bicycle.
Dr. Bastiaan R. Bloem told the New York Times about a 58-year-old man he met who was suffering from an advanced case of the neurological disorder. He could not walk without falling down, but could ride a bicycle for as far as 6 miles as long as someone helped him on and off.
That brings to mind the story that appeared last year ("A tandem bike ride leads to a treatment for Parkinson's") that riding the back of a tandem bicycle at a relatively high cadence of 80 to 90 rpms temporarily relieved the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in patients. (video at left)
The two observations are somewhat different, but they do point to a special relationship between bicycling and Parkinson's disease ... more»
Did you buy a bicycle off Seattle's Craiglist recently from a guy who advertised "Road Bikes Galore!"?
You shouldn't be surprised that there's a very good chance the bike was stolen.
The latest stolen bicycle caper comes from a 10-by-10-foot storage unit in Seattle's Lake City neighborhood filled "floor to ceiling" with bikes and bike parts. Two suspects in the case apparently lived in the storage unit.
It doesn't rival the Toronto crime spree that scored nearly 3,000 bikes, but it's amazing by local standards ...... more»
As someone who is challenged by a track stand at a stoplight or a bunny hop over a stick in the road, I was astounded by the wonderful performances of the artistic bicyclists from Germany at Saturday's Seattle Bicycle Expo.
If synchronized swimming can be an Olympic sport, so should this. In fact, artistic cycling is a popular UCI-licensed sport in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
The Cascade Bicycle Club brought the reigning World Champion in single artistic women, Corrina Hein, to Seattle for the expo, along with leading men's pair competitors Stefan Musu and Lukas Matla.
Just as Colorado's Gov. Bill Ritter gets back to work about a week after suffering a bicycle crash, a city councilman in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been struck by a car while training for an upcoming charity bicycle ride.
Vancouver Councillor Geogg Meggs will require surgery to repair separated vertabrae in his neck.
Meggs is a bicycling supporter in one of Canada's most bicycle friendly cities. The city supported use of bicycles during the 2010 Olympics last month. Meggs, in fact, was expected to attend a ceremony for a new two-way bike lane that he pushed for on a local viaduct ... more»
Bicycle historian David V. Herlihy has wrapped up another book, "The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and his Mysterious Disappearance."
You probably remember Herlihy's previous work, "Bicycle: The History." That heavily researched and interesting book recounted not only the technological advances of the bicycle from the draisine to modern times, but also told us about pioneers in the field and the social impact of two-wheeled travel.
In his latest effort, Herlihy examines the around-the-world bicycle journey of bike racer Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh (that's Lenz at right in India in 1893).
Setting off in 1892 aboard a "safety bicycle" with inflatable tires, Lenz traveled the globe for two years before disappearing forever in Turkey.
In an email, I asked Herlihy why he chose .... more»
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter joined a special club on Tuesday -- "Pols Who Love to Ride Bikes and Have the Abrasions, Contussions and Fractures to Prove It."
Members include other governors, some mayors, and even a president.
Out riding with some friends Tuesday morning, Ritter apparently touched wheels with the bicyclist in front of him and crashed to the pavement.
Spokesman Evan Dreyer said the governor bumped his head as well, but was wearing a helmet. He spent several nights in the hospita for treatment of the broken ribs and previously undisclosed separated shoulder.
We're glad that Ritter is OK. He's been seen riding at the Elephant Rock Ride and has been talking to Lance Armstrong about reviving the Coors Classic.
But Ritter is just one in a long string of elected officials who have been injured in bicycle accidents .... more»
We all know South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford as the guy who told his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when instead he was paying a visit to his Argentinian mistress.
Now his wife, Jenny Sanford, has published a book, "Staying True," that tells her life with the governor.
There's one odd episode involving a bike. Here it is as reported by a columnist for the Winter Haven (FL) News-Chief:
"On Jenny's first birthday after marriage, Mark made her a homemade card and drew half of a bicycle. She was perplexed; ... more»
It might look and sound like it in the dark, but this isn't a video of the latest Critical Mass ride by bicyclists.
It's the Monday night performance of a musical composition outside Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles.
The composition is "Eine Brise: Transient Action by 111 Cyclists" by the late Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel. It's a legit piece of music.
Translated as "A Breeze," the composition calls for the 111 bicycle riders to ride in an evenly spaced, choreographed 500-foot-long paceline between 1 to 3 cyclists across. At specific times they ring their bells, whistle, sing a high note, make a flutter-tongue sound and close with a whoosh. ..... more»
Bicycles can make a difference to women who need transportation in far-flung rural towns in Africa.
That's why a nonprofit of professional women is making Bicycles for Humanity (B4H) Colorado the beneficiary of its fund-raising efforts this year.
Boulder, Colorado-based BoldeReach supports organizations that aid women and children in need around the world. B4H meets this mission for women by providing bicycles for transportation and employment in its community-based bike shops in Namibia.
Back in 1899, Charles Minthron Murphy achieved the incredible feat of pedaling his bicycle one mile in a minute by drafting behind a speeding train.
He's probably lucky that he wasn't killed. Since he survived the ordeal, he forever after became known as "Mile-a-Minute" Murphy.
Now the Town of Babylon, on New York's Long Island, would like to commemorate the event that happened there by putting Murphy's track bicycle on display.
The problem is that the bicycle is in storage at the Springfield (Massachusetts) Museums and they won't relinquish it, not even for the offer of $20,000 from Babylon.
At the time, Murphy's feat put Babylon on the map and celebrated human achievement .... more»
Snowmaggedon. Snopocalypse. No matter what they call it, snowstorms don't stop bicyclists from hitting the roads.
Here are some random images from the group "Bicycles in the Snow" at flickr.com. Some of the photos might be from the recent snowstorms that have crushed the Mid-Atlantic states the past few days, but most are from other times and places.
The photos remind us that bikes are always there in spite of the weather. They tell the story of how we use bicycles to commute to work and run errands through the slush, or just ride them to play in the snow.
The saddest tales are told by those bikes caught in the snow, left to rust under a snowbank or be mangled by a passing snowplow.
Click on the image to see a larger version or visit the group to see all 900-some photos. You also can submit your bike-in-the-snow picture there.
Expect to see a lot of these bicycles on the streets of Minneapolis this coming summer.
The non-profit formed to bring public bike-sharing to the city chose Public Bike System, the developer of Montreal's BIXI, to provide bikes and kiosks to the project.
The bike-sharing project, Nice Ride Minnesota, is aiming to put 65 kiosks around downtown, college campuses and surrounding commerial areas by June. In all 80 kiosks and 1,000 bikes are projected in Phase 1.
Currently, there are about 160 bike-sharing systems in the world. The highest profile is the Paris Velib .... more»
Back in the day, I used to be dazzled by the cool names of bike clubs I'd come across on bicycle rides -- "Yellowjackets," "Flyers," "Wheelmen," "Team On Your Left."
Nowadays, however, I'm more interested in going-out-for-the-ride then getting-there-fast. Therefore, the club names that catch my interest now carry a hint of determination rather than perspiration.
Here's a list of my Top 10 favorite names for bicycle clubs, in reverse order.
Nothing says determination like soldiering out for a bike ride. Many of the members are residents of the Vets Home, and their rides are often held with the Scooter and Wheelchair Owner's Group. I salute you all.
Don't even try to join this club unless you're over 50. They usually ride out of the Goebel Senior Center Commission and most rides are 4 to 19 miles. They're Kranks, not cranky, so it sounds like they have a lot of fun.
Update: Orphanage funded by charity bicycle rides still standing
That's horrific news coming out of the earthquake zone in Haiti. It always seems that the regions least capable of sustaining a natural disaster are the ones hardest hit.
Millions are waiting to hear from friends, relatives and coworkers in the area hit by the 7.0 earthquake. Meanwhile, a group that funds a Port-Au-Prince orphanage with charity bike rides (see 6-minute video at right) got good news Wednesday morning.
Both buildings of the H.I.S. Home for Children are still standing and being patrolled, although a security wall fell down, according to reports in the Herald News in suburban Chicago ... more»
The slogan on Vancouver, BC's BikeRescue.org website must have sounded almost too good to be true to someone trying to recover a stolen bicycle:
"Ripped. Rescued. Returned. Putting bikes back where they belong."
The website claimed the project had returned 256 stolen bikes by finding obviously stolen bicycles for sale at low prices, buying them, then reuniting them with their owners.
Well, it was too good to be true.
The head of the organization, Gordon Sinclair Blackwell, 41, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to 36 counts of possession of stolen property (bicycles). ... more»
A new year means new laws in many states, although there are only a few that affect bicycling.
A ban on texting while driving in three states went into effect on Friday, promising to make the roads a little bit safer by protecting bicyclists and others from distracted drivers. That makes 19 states that prohibit the practice (see the list below).
About the only law addressing bicycles specifically is a strange one in California that allows a person to ride a bicycle without a seat if the bicycle was designed by the manufacturer to be ridden without a seat.
After reading that one over a couple of times, I searched high and low for an explanation and finally ran across one in the Sacramento Bee .... more»
Deadlines. Always the deadlines. With this being the last day of 2009, here are a few things you might want to know about photo contests, Cascade Bicycle Club memberships, and New Year's Day bike rides.
Midnight is the deadline to vote for your favorite photos at the Alliance for Biking & Walking (formerly Thunderhead Alliance) People Powered Movement Photo Contest. More than 2,000 photos were submitted in 7 categories. The grand winner gets an all-expense-paid bike tour of Tuscany, so I'm sure the photographers appreciate all votes cast for their pics.
While you're thinking images, there's still time to enter your most prized picture from your bicycle tour in the first Adventure Cycling Association Bicycle Travel Photo Contest. The winning photo appears in Adventure Cyclist magazine. You can check out the entries at flickr.com; they're amazing.
Thursday also is the last day to sign up at the 2009 rate for a new or renewed membership at Cascade Bicycle Club and qualify for early-bird event registration in 2010 ... more»
Remember this video from back in April? It changed a cyclist's life.
Former Edinburgh bike mechanic Danny MacAskill became an overnight sensation when this video -- about 6 months in the making -- hit YouTube. If you're not one of the 13 million people who have seen it, you should take 5 1/2 minutes to check it out.
Now the New York Times interviews him in "A stunt cyclist's Tour de Fence" and tells how the 24-year-old's life has changed since YouTube stardom struck.
Earning $9 an hour a couple of years ago as a bike mechanic, MacAskill could pull down a six figure salary in 2010 ... more»
In between mixing batches of egg nog the past few days, I got curious about the most popular stories at Biking Bis the past year. I checked my stats and here's what I found:
February: Armstrong's bike was the most popular story the next month too. "Citizen turns in Lance Armstrong's stolen bike to police." Like a chapter from The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, it turns out the do-gooder citizen actually had received the bike as stolen property after the heist in Sacramento during the Tour of California. The thief who busted into the Astana trailer to unwittingly take one of the most famous bicycles in the world at the time was sentenced to 3 years in prison. ... more»
Toronto's most notorious and prolific bicycle thief pleaded guilty to possessing 10 stolen bicycles and six drug charges on Wednesday, resulting in a 30-month prison sentence.
That guilty plea covers just a few of the 2,200 to 2,900 stolen bicycles that Igor Kenk, 50, had stored away in his bike shop, his home and in 10 garages he rented around the city.
Cooperating with authorities, Kenk allowed the government to confiscate those bicycles as well as a couple of motor vehicles and one of the buildings that housed the bikes.
The courts are considering a grand auction to sell the bicycles, although most aren't in good shape... more»
A simple tandem bike ride may have unlocked a treatment for Parkinson's disease, a disorder of the central nervous system that impairs motor skills and speech.
The discovery happened when a biomedical engineer, Jay Alberts, captained a tandem in a 200-mile bike tour of Iowa with a friend who was afflicted with Parkinson's.
At the end of that 2003 bike ride, the tandem's stoker said her hand tremors had stopped at the end of the day.
A couple of years later, Alberts conducted a tandem bicycling experiement with a neurologist who suffered from Parkinson's. Again, his tremors stopped after a 50-mile tandem bike ride ... more»
UPS is putting bicycles with trailers back on the road along the West Coast to save the cost of increasing its truck fleet during the holiday season.
While UPS experimented with going back to its roots in Washington and Oregon in recent years, now the world's largest package delivery business is expanding the use of bikes to 45 routes throughout Northern California.
The bike-trailer set-ups cost UPS about $700 each. Still, using human-powered delivery saves UPS about $45,000 to $50,000 in fuel and maintenance costs by eliminating the need to rent 20 to 25 trucks .... more»
Let's admit it. Too many bicyclists keep too many unused bicycles in their garages or their basements. I'll include myself among the guilty.
Maybe there's an emotional attachment to an old relic. Or it's difficult to find an alternative to taking the bicycle to the dump, an unceremonious end for a trusty companion.
Several nonprofits are set up to collect these old bikes and redistribute them back into the community or ship them overseas. I've created a list of some of these at "Where to Donate Your Used Bicycles."
One of the most successful is Bikes for the World, which is shipping its 40,000th bike next month. Based in Arlington, Virginia, it's a nonprofit project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association ... more»
When most people start bicycling, they'll do anything to avoid hills. Sometimes they'll ride miles out of their way to miss a climb, or drive their car to a flat area to ride.
As they get stronger and learn how to use their gears more efficiently, hills are a challenge to be conquered.
But for some, hills seem to be the sole motivation for riding a bike. These mountain goats don't just measure their rides in miles, but in total elevation gain.
They gather in places like Pittsburgh for the Dirty Dozen, Portland for De Ronde van Oeste Portlandia, or Los Angeles for the Fargo Street climb to find the conquer the highest urban mountaintops. Or they head to Mount Washington in New Hampshire to race to the top of that fabled climb .... more»
Bicyclists in more than a dozen US cities are planning to ride 29 miles on Sunday, Nov. 29, to mark the 29th anniversary of the first reported AIDS case.
The number of miles may be small but the cause is great. The bike rides are a preview of the Dec. 1 World AIDS Day events that have taken place every year since the World Health Organization established it in 1988.
The website for Positive Pedalers in San Francisco is tracking the cities with announced bike rides. Check back there for updates. Here's the list so far:
Atlanta -- Piedmont Park Tennis Center Austin -- .... more»
I'm amazed at what technically minded people can throw together in their garages. Here's a guy who may one day enable us to take virtual bike tours across the US without leaving home.
He calls it Stationary Cycling through Google Street View. It's a huge improvement over what I used to do.
Back in the days when I spent most of my time either working or commuting, I set up my bicycle in a woodworking shop the previous homeowner had built in the back yard. I called it the "Men's Crisis Center" and spend 15 minutes to an hour there several nights a week on my trainer.
The music pumping over the earphones wasn't enough to keep me my occupied, so I pulled out my TransAmerica bike maps and started a virtual cross-country ride. It took a lot of imagination to recall what the scenery had been like, but I covered from 3 to 15 miles a night .... more»
As the end of the year rolls around, it's time to consider your options for replacing that 2009 calendar or else you'll end up with a big ol' bare spot on the wall.
Here are a few bike-theme calendars that I've run across that are either inspirational, scenic, or downright erotic.
Let's start with CyclePassion, the calendar produced annually in Germany that features many of Europe's top women cyclists striking some admittedly sexy poses. Bike equipment is used as props in the photos. Many women are garbed in recycled bicycle equipment this year; just think of bicycle innertubes as a fashion statement.
That's Anna Sanchez, the under-23 National Road Champion from Spain, pictured above. .... more»
A bicycling manual for police officers in the UK might be getting a lot of laughs over there, but bike-police training is a serious business in the US.
The Independent reports that a 93-page, 2-volume manual gives advice on how to balance to avoid a fall, and how to brake, turn and avoid the "kerb." It reminds them to eat and drink because they will get hungry.
A taxpayers' association called it an "absurd waste of police time" and tax money. London's bike-riding Mayor Boris Johnson even took a couple of pot shots at it.
That reaction might surprise US members of the International Police Mountain Bicycle Association, which is holding its 8-day annual conference in St. Louis from May 1-8, 2010 .... more»
Cadbury Canada brought together two of my favorite things -- chocolate and bikes -- in a promotion to do some good in Africa.
The chocolate maker is sending 5,000 bikes to central and southern Ghana where they'll give people access to schools, medical care and local markets.
Chocaholics participated in the bike donation by converting their Cadbury purchases into bicycle parts at The Bicycle Factory website. Consumers entered UPC codes from their chocolate purchases to "create" bicycle parts.
Each UPC equaled a bicycle part. It took 100 parts to build a bicycle ... more»
Imagine rolling along on your bike for a leisurely country ride and suddenly being thrust into the finish line of a major bike race.
That's the stunt set up by Frenchman Remi Gallard in this video at left. It looks like something Alan Funt might have done for Candid Camera; others compare Gallard's work to Johnny Knoxville.
In any case, these cyclists seem to take the interruption pretty good-naturedly. I mean, how can you not laugh at a guy running alongside you in his underwear? ... more»
My son gained two strong opinions at college about combination U-locks for bicycles: They're great when they work, but a real pain when they malfunction.
When he went off to college for the first time this fall, he took a brand-new Kryptonite combination U-lock with him. He didn't want to risk losing his bike, and he'd heard -- from me -- that cable locks are easily compromised.
His first problem arose when he was riding across campus and his U-lock fell to the ground off the handlebar. A button that opens the lock broke off and disappeared into the grass.
While a replacement was in the mail, he and his friend used a MasterLock combination U-lock to attach their bikes to a rack at a nearby mall on a Friday. When they returned, the button that releases the lock jammed, and they could not get it open ... more»
My neighbor likes to give his dog a nice run at the end of a leash while he rides his bicycle. I cringe a little bit when I see them take off like this, but they always return in one piece.
While my concern is for his safety, an elected official in San Jose is worried about pedestrians. This after a 62-year-old woman walking along a city trail last summer got tangled in a dog leash, fell, hit her head, and later died. The dog on the leash was one of two being pulled by a bicyclist.
The councilwoman is calling a public hearing Wednesday night to find out what the public thinks about restricting bicyclists who give their dogs a run at the end of a leash while they ride.
It's the first time, at least in California ... more»
Between the heavy rains on Friday and the fog on Sunday, Saturday was the archetypal fall day on an American college campus.
I can confidently use such a highfalutin word referring to Jungian psychology after attending a lecture by one of my son's profs at a parent's weekend event.
Accidentally, I caught a bike rider heading across campus while shooting this picture of a scenic walkway on campus. Lots of bikes at the school. Someday soon I hope to write about his educational experience with combination U-locks.
Later this fall, 24 people will travel to Africa to ride their bikes in Zambia and South Africa to learn more about what World Bicycle Relief can make possible.
The bike tour, which includes pro cycling team manager Johan Bruyneel, also hopes to raise $1 million toward the efforts to provide tens of thousands of bicycles to people in those countries.
The non-profit was founded in 2005 by the SRAM Corporation and Trek Bicycle to get transportation -- bicycles -- into coastline communities devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Since then, World Bicycle Relief has expanded its reach to Africa. The group believes that many of the problems on that continent -- access to market, education, and health care -- are problems of mobility that can be solved by the bicycle. .... more»
Ernest H. Simpson will surely be missed, not just by his family and friends in his hometown, but by thousands of people in developing nations around the world who ride bicycles he collected and refurbished.
Known locally in Gettysburg as The Bicycle Man, Simpson passed away this summer at the age of 88. He leaves behind a tradition of salvaging discarded and unwanted bikes, fixing them up, and giving them away. We're talking more than 10,000 bicycles.
The Patriot News has a good article about Simpson, and tells how it all started one day when he was walking home from work in the early 1950s and saw a man throwing out a couple of bicycles ... more»
A trail in Freund Canyon in the Cascade Mountains near Leavenworth was closed recently after reports of encounters between a cougar and mountain bike riders.
At least four times in the past couple of months mountain bikers reported being either chased or stopped by a cougar on the trail that forms an 8-mile loop through Freund Canyon.
The Yakima Herald reports the trail was closed until Saturday, when a local landowner killed the cougar.
In reports in the Seattle Times, two mountain bikers report being chased by the cougar. In another harrowing tale ... more»
Alabama's new state motto (with apologies to Orsen Wells who delivered this punch line for Paul Masson):
"We will serve no wine before it's time naked nymphs on bicycles are removed from the label."
The Cycles Gladiator brand of wine has been banned from shelves in Alabama by the Alabama Beverage Commission because the label is deemed pornographic.
The art is nothing new. The label is a replica of a Parisian bicycle poster dating back to 1895 and shows a nude woman flying through the heavens with a bicycle. Naked, yes. Pornographic, no ... more»
It's not uncommon to find wide varieties of sports supplements and high-tech training gadgets hawked at major bicycling events.
But a journalist for the Des Moines Register stumbled across a truly unique device for sale at an expo booth in Council Bluffs for the kickoff of RAGBRAI over the weekend.
Called FUDS -- short for female urination devices, the product allows women to answer the call of nature just as men do, by standing up.
The funnel-shaped, silicon devices are sold by GoGirl, whose slogan is "Don't take life sitting down." ..... more»
Thousands of bicyclists passing through Chehalis, Washington, this past weekend on the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic rode bicycles sporting high-tech materials and components unheard of just a few years ago.
Their route passed within 20 miles of tiny Pe Ell. That's where the rusting frame of a bicycle that employed cutting-edge technology for 1902 was recently re-discovered.
The find unlocked a dark family secret and prompted descendant Alfred Duane Tietjen to write a book, "Restoration," about the bike and his efforts to restore it. It's interesting how a piece of rusting junk can reveal so much.
That bicycle, the Hill-Climber, is believed to be the first production model in the US to boast multiple-speed gear ratios ...... more»
If you're a bicycle enthusiast in Seattle and want to see how the other half lives down in Portland, you can check out the documentary "Veer" this Thursday at Columbia City Cinema.
The film by Gregory Fredette and Jason Turner looks at the bicycling culture of Portland [see trailer at left].
It stars the Sprockettes, earnest bicycle advocates and dozens of cyclists who use the streets of Portland to get around by bicycle.
The documentary has been accepted for viewing at several film festivals and won for Best Documentary at the Calgary Underground Film Festival ... more»
I've seen some poorly paved bicycle paths, but this one is the worst.
Actually, the canyon the cyclists are pedaling into is a 3D sidewalk art creation intended to slow down bicycle riders on the Regents Canalway in Islington, north of London.
A spokesman for British Waterways told the BBC that the "canyon" was commissioned to remind bicyclists to slow down and avoid pedestrians... more»
A gal in San Francisco who sells pies from her bicycle is just one of a number of folks who are putting their bikes to work these days.
The BikeBasketPies baker announces her schedule via Twitter. Apparently she launched her business on Monday in Delores Park at the western edge of the Mission District.
Her specialties are strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry-mango-coconut, and mixed berry mini pies. Other working bikes... more»
Just returned from a too short trip to New York City, and thought I'd share some bicycle photos I took while I was there.
What struck me the most on Friday was the overwhelming number of folks who earn their living on bicycles. For these people it's not so much bike-to-work, but bike-at-work.
Of course I spotted, and dodged, plenty of bicycle messengers running errands in the Times Square area as soon as I started walking around Friday morning.
Then toward lunch-time, I started seeing guys on heavier bikes who were delivering food either in plastic bags hanging from handlebars, or in boxes attached to the bikes. ... more»
Ten major U.S. cities are targeted for urban assault this summer and fall, but don't bother to warn the Department of Homeland Security.
These Urban Assault Rides are hosted by New Belgium Brewery and are basically bicycle scavenger hunts for two-person teams.
The contests along the 20- to 25-mile routes are based on skills that have little or nothing to do with everyday bicycling: bike jousting, keg walking, inflatable slides and human wheel-barrows.
Volunteers and staff are cranking the pedals on these bicycles to power up the Jones Soda headquarters building in Seattle on Earth Day.
The building is off the electric grid on Wednesday with only bare essentials running, such as some phones, lights and computers.
With the help of the Applied Science students at the UW, Recycled Cycles bike store and plans from Pedal Power Generator, Jones set up 10 bikes fitted with generators to run the offices.
I wonder if Danny MacAskill as a youngster used to ride his bike in front of his house and shout to startled observers, "Hey look, no hands."
Imagine the reaction now when people walking down the street in Edinburgh, Scotland, see him do a backflip off a tree on his bike or bounce off the wall of a building like Spiderman.
Now the world is viewing his amazing feats on this video posted on YouTube.com on Sunday. By Wednesday morning, the clip had been viewed 780,000 times. It's less than 6 minutes long, and just gets crazier as it goes on.
MacAskill rides for the trials team for Inspired Bicycles ... more»
Leave it to the Centers for Disease Control to boil down the human toll of highway carnage into cold, hard cash.
There hasn't been much news lately about Frank Marshall's ("Indiana Jones", "Bourne" series) plans to make a movie about Lance Armstrong's life.
The bicycle has been around in one form or another for more than 150 years, but you might be surprised that researchers are still studying how we can ride one without it falling over.
If you're looking to travel by bicycle vicariously this summer by reading about someone else's adventures, I'd recommend "The Lost Cyclist" by David Herlihy. But I'll warn you that, as the title implies, it ends badly.
For a bike snob, that Eben Weiss is certainly one popular guy.
Bicycle City sounds like a mythical Valhalla where bicycling enthusiasts go when they pass away.
The other night I stumbled across a quirky reality TV show on the History Channel that vintage bicycle collectors might enjoy.
Toronto police pulled four large transport trucks into a community center parking lot on Monday and began unloading 1,000 bicycles that will be fixed up and distributed to youth in the area.
A 45-year-old British bicyclist and bar owner set off from Thailand last week in an attempt to smash the around-the-world bicycling record by shaving more than two months off the current best time.
Bicycles will rule the road along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle just about every Sunday between May 2 and Sept. 26 this year..sized.jpg)
A group dedicated to the preservation and continuance of New York City's bicycle culture is remembering the life and times of track racing in an exhibit entitled "Strong Backs, Weak Minds: The Saga of the Coney Island Velodrome."
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter joined a special club on Tuesday -- "Pols Who Love to Ride Bikes and Have the Abrasions, Contussions and Fractures to Prove It."
Expect to see a lot of these bicycles on the streets of Minneapolis this coming summer.
Bike theft rose to a whole new level in Issaquah recently when a man flashed a gun at a bike shop employee as he left with an expensive racing bike.
Back in the day, I used to be dazzled by the cool names of bike clubs I'd come across on bicycle rides -- "Yellowjackets," "Flyers," "Wheelmen," "Team On Your Left."
A new year means new laws in many states, although there are only a few that affect bicycling.
Deadlines. Always the deadlines. With this being the last day of 2009, here are a few things you might want to know about photo contests, Cascade Bicycle Club memberships, and New Year's Day bike rides.
January: The most popular story of the month reflects the biggest pro cycling story of the year -- the return of Lance Armstrong. The story that got the most hits was 
Bicyclists in more than a dozen US cities are planning to ride 29 miles on Sunday, Nov. 29, to mark the 29th anniversary of the first reported AIDS case.
As the end of the year rolls around, it's time to consider your options for replacing that 2009 calendar or else you'll end up with a big ol' bare spot on the wall.
Alabama's new state motto (with apologies to Orsen Wells who delivered this punch line for Paul Masson):
Thousands of bicyclists passing through Chehalis, Washington, this past weekend on the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic rode bicycles sporting high-tech materials and components unheard of just a few years ago.
Ten major U.S. cities are targeted for urban assault this summer and fall, but don't bother to warn the Department of Homeland Security.
