Biking Bis - Bicycle Touring and More

U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame seeking new home

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:00:00 -0700

The Baseball Hall of Fame has a home in Cooperstown, and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is based in Cleveland. What about cycling?

The U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame is currently housed in a temporary space in Somerville, New Jersey. The directors are seeking a new home for the hall after its original location of some 20 years was sold for redevelopment.

The Hall displays bicycles, jerseys, photos, trophies and other memorabilia of more than 100 years of US cycling history. It also celebrates the sport of cycling by inducting Hall of Famers every year and coordinating annual bike races ...

American cyclist dies on Bolivia's Highway of Death

Gene Bisbee — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:25:08 -0700

A 56-year-old U.S. tourist is the latest person to die on the Unduavi-Yolosa Highway -- judged the world's most dangerous highway -- in the mountains near La Paz, Bolivia.

Kenneth Mitchell was on one-day excursion with outfitter Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking when he tumbled off his rented mountain bike and fell to his death down a 200-foot cliff.

That outfitter is one of more than a dozen companies that carry customers to the high Andean plains of the La Cumbre at 15,400 feet and guide them along the winding 30-mile dirt road into the jungle 11,800 feet below...

Support for Seattle bicyclist Jeff A. Totten

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:35:02 -0700

Organizers of an online auction to help pay for the recovery of Seattle bicyclist Jeff A. Totten are still accepting quality items for the catalog.

Bidding will begin at 8 a.m. EST on May 12 for the Jeff A. Totten Special Needs Trust. Check the website for details.

Proceeds from the auction will go toward paying the therapy bills for Totten's recovery. The project manager for an energy consulting firm suffered a traumatic brain injury on a ride in September 2006. Coasting down Novelty Hill Road in Redmond, the front wheel of Totten's bike hit a utility hole in the bike lane that sent him flying...

Bicycle love between the covers of a book

Gene Bisbee — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:54:40 -0700

Here's another bicycle book, entitled Bicycle, reviewed recently at Bookslut.com.

Most of the books I own about bicycles tell about their history, how to fix them when they're broken, or where and how to travel with one on an extended tour.

In other words, very nuts and bolts. Bicycle by Paul Fattaruso sounds more metaphysical ...

No joke; more than 1 million hits on Biking Bis

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:01:23 -0700

Yes, that post on Tuesday about GM buying Specialized was an April fool's joke. One of a number that were posted across the web and blogosphere yesterday.

This is no joke: I checked my stat counter and discovered that Biking Bis has scored more than 1 million hits since I started keeping stats in March 2005. Exactly 1,019,684 as of right now...

Spinning along with bike rocker Attila Horvath

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:00:00 -0700

Attila Horvath gets his inspiration while pedaling down the road. But unlike the moments of creativity that some of us mistakenly believe we achieve on the bicycle, Horvath's are worth hearing.

Horvath is a bike rocker, maybe the only one around. Here's a link to two bicycling songs -- "Ride On" and "Flyin Free" -- on his Attila Horvath MySpace page.

The musician who makes his home in Athens, Ohio, wrote an article about his work in the March issue of Adventure Cyclist, the monthly magazine of Adventure Cycling Association ...

Bicycling through history and March ride stats

Gene Bisbee — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:27:06 -0700

My decision to renew interest in some of my old bicycle routes by peeling back the history of my small slice of western Washington has led to some startling discoveries, at least to me.

Just the other day I decided to explore some side roads off a hill climb I often make up to Cougar Mountain. I stumbled across this old cabin, which turns out to be one of the oldest buildings still standing in King County.

It's called the Baima Cabin. It's an old coal company town house dating from about the 1880s. That's only about 30 years after the first white settlers showed up over in Seattle; ancient history in these parts...

"Complete Book of Bicycling" author dies

Gene Bisbee — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:51:01 -0700

Eugene A. Sloane gained a passion for bicycling in middle age when he picked up a 3-speed to get back into shape in the 1960s.

He loved it so much that he jumped at the chance to write a book on the subject for Simon & Schuster. The result was "The Complete Book of Bicycling," probably the first modern end-all beat-all book for bicyclists. It was published in 1970 and found a waiting audience.

Sloan died Saturday at age 91 from the complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Wilmette, Illinois ...

Sheldon Brown memorial rides in Seattle and Portland on Tuesday

Gene Bisbee — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:28:18 -0700

Bicycle guru Sheldon Brown, who passed away in February, was fond of April Fool's jokes. That's why bicyclists in Seattle and Portland are picking Tuesday as the day for memorial rides.

In Portland (BikePortland): 6 p.m. Col. Summers Park, SE 20th and Belmont.

In Seattle (Kent's Bike Blog): 6 p.m. BikeStation 311 3rd Ave. South.

If you'd like to see a classic Sheldon April Fool's joke, here's his foolproof method to clean a bike chain...

Two more bicycling advocacy jobs on East Coast

Gene Bisbee — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:42:24 -0700

If you didn't find your dream job in "Bicycling advocacy jobs: You call this working?", then here are two more jobs that are available for the East Coast.

The Bicycle Coalition of Maine is looking for a new executive director after Jeffrey Miller accepted a position as head of the Thunderhead Alliance.

Also, you bicycle bloggers might be interested to know that the East Coast Greenway Alliance is seeking a travel writer...