When Mr. McQuire offered Ben Braddock one word of advice -- "plastics" -- in The Graduate, I'm sure he wasn't talking about bicycles.

But a team of students from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, created a bicycle made from recycled plastic bottles to win the Juicy Ideas contest supported in part by Google.

The four industrial design students from ASU competed against 268 teams from 28 colleges to create something of value in 10 days from a "throwaway" item and post a YouTube video (above) that explained their product.

The winners -- Ryan Klinger, of Huntersville, NC; Andrew Drake of Gaithersburg, Md.; Spencer Price of Louisville, Ky.; and Justin Henry of San Diego -- will get a trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View ...   more »

The first legitimate snowfall in my area got me to thinking about pedal-powered snowplows.

They have lots of advantages, primarily by transforming the act of snow-shoveling into a good workout for your legs instead of a back-breaking chore. Here are three good ones.

As for this one at left, it's effective as well. Kevin Blake (MrPlowKevin), an engineer at Trek, created it for last year's Specialized Innovate or Die contest. He used parts from an old riding lawnmower and old bicycles and two store-bought snow shovels. 

The plow didn't win the contest (a water filtration bike did), but it certainly looks like a useful machine ...   more »

States where "bicycle" is a popular Google search word rank higher in literacy, lower in obesity, and tended to vote for Obama in 2008.

Although this red-blue US map may conjure up flashbacks from the 2008 presidential election, it actually shows states where people most frequently Googled the word "bicycle," with red being the most, blue the least, and purple in between.

A programmer has taken this application one step further and created StateStats, which links these results with other ways of ranking states, such as with education, obesity and age   more »

As we roll into the end of 2008, it might be a good time to check out some bicycle-themed calendars for 2009.

Of all the offerings, one of the most popular -- at least for browsing -- is the Cycle Passion 2009 calendar produced in Germany. The calendar offers photos of professional female cyclists unencumbered by typical cycling garb.

Other calendars feature Seattle's legion of women cyclists, legendary mountain biker Jacquie Phelan, bike culture expressed in exotic locales, and the annual cycling scenery masterpiece by Graham Watson.

That's Sabine Spitz, above, on the cover of next year's Cycle Passion calendar. Among her other accomplishments, the German cyclist was mountain bike champion at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (see the mountain bike on the floor behind her?) ...   more »