A petition that asks Google to add bicycle routes in a "Bike There" application for finding directions at Google Maps is gaining a lot of support already.

The idea was broached by an Austin bicyclist at the Google Maps "Bike There" blog less than two weeks ago, and already a petition at PetitionOnline has more than 3,800 signatures.

Several commenters at blogs promoting the idea suggest that Google already is working on this, and plans to roll it out later in 2008 ...   more »

Sometimes statistics can be helpful in explaining problems and finding solutions; other times they can only confuse the issues.

The latter is the case in the annual "Measures, Markers and Mileposts" report issued by the Washington state Department of Transportation. The 100-plus page document gives in-depth performance reports for highway maintenance, pavement conditions, environmental control and pedestrian and bicycle safety.

But I found the 2 pages devoted to pedestrian and bicycle safety to be sorely lacking. The two tables of bicycle fatality statistics were drawn from federal and state databases and were offered with little explanation ...   more »

If you're a veteran and see this guy towing a bike trailer filled with his stuff across the southern US, you might want to stop and say hi.

He's Jerry Nelson, 56, a veteran of 15 years in the Navy and a Vietnam vet. He's pedaling cross-country to find some peace of mind.

After hiking last year from New Mexico to Washington DC, where he camped in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, he's now pedaling his Trek 850 hardtail and pulling a Burley trailer to Oregon. Along the way he's spending nights at American Legion posts and speaking to veterans groups....   more »

The Maryland House of Delegates is the latest legislature to take up the road safety issue that motorists must give bicycle riders a 3-foot clearance when passing.

Three-foot passing laws are in effect in at least a dozen states. Meanwhile, BIcycle Colorado distributes these nifty window stickers to car owners who purchase "Share the Road" license plates.

The Maryland bill is a top priority of One Less Car, which helped the Maryland Department of Transportation draft. It died in the House Environmental Matters Committee last year, so advocates are asking Maryland residents to contact their delegates, especially those on the committee ...   more »

"Please Do Not Run Me Over" is the title on an essay that Austin Miller of Beaverton, Oregon, wrote for his high school newspaper last year.

It surfaced again this week in Portland media outlets after the 15-year-old sophomore at the Art and Communication Magnet Academy was struck and killed by a bus while pedaling home from school on Feb. 11.

The story by the young bicycling enthusiast tells about a fictional town where the inhabitants abandoned their bicycles for motor vehicles. He later goes on to write about the poor state of motorist-biker relations and the need for bike lanes ...   more »

Four-legged bane of Trans-American bicycle tourers? Dogs. Four-legged bane of Iditarod snow-bikers? Moose.

The Human-powered Iditarod got underway in 10-degree temperatures on Sunday, and racers snow-biking the route have reported problems with moose along the trail, especially one particularly aggressive female moose.

Meanwhile, Jill Homer, whose Up in Alaska blog is one of the most popular bicycling blogs on the Internet, is posting good enough times to be on pace for a record-setting 350-mile ride into McGrath....   more »

The city of Ota in Japan thought it could help people who needed a ride around downtown by setting up a free bicycle loan program using abandoned bikes that had been repainted yellow.

The program started with 30 bicycles in mid-November. Within two months, all but three were missing.

That's an amazing rate of disappearance, but missing bicycles are common in yellow bike programs in the US. Since there's always a ready supply of discarded bicycles, the Austin Yellow Bike Program, for instance, simply puts more bikes on the street ...   more »

Out on my bike today I was thinking about the Amgen Tour of California that just wrapped up Sunday with George Hincapie winning the final stage and Levi Leipheimer winning the title.

I enjoyed this third Tour more than the previous ones. Here are five reasons why I think this was the best one yet. In no particular order:

1. The caliber of the competition. The participation of cyclists who have made their reputation in Europe was exciting. Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, David Millar all played a role in this year's Tour. But the highlight was definitely Mario Cipollini, left, who came out of retirement at 40 to join the Rock Racing team.

I expected he'd be just so much window dressing, but the guy came to race....   more »

They're going to have to rename this event if there are many more days like Sunday in the future for the Chilly Hilly bike rides.

Check out these cyclists basking in the sun as they ride along Rockaway Beach Road on Bainbridge Island Sunday afternoon. That's downtown Seattle, with the famous Space Needle on the left, across Puget Sound with the snow-capped Cascades in the background. In many previous years, much of these scene would be hidden behind a cloud bank.

The Chilly Hilly bike ride is a 33-mile loop around Bainbridge Island. It has been sponsored for 35 years by the Cascade Bicycle Club, which named it for the usual cold, wet, and windy weather that greets cyclists coming out of their winter hibernation ...   more »

Two former US teammates capped off the third Amgen Tour of California with a thrilling one-two punch on Sunday.

George Hincapie took the Stage 7 win, vindicating his High Road team that had been ruled out of a stage victory the previous day. And Levi Leipheimer won his second straight Tour championship, his first as leader of the Astana team.

Joining Leipheimer on the podium were Slipstream cyclists David Millar of the UK and Christian Vande Velde of the US, who finished 2nd and 3rd behind Leipheimer ...   more »

Race judges awarded Stage 6 to Brazil's Luciano Pagliarini because the first man across the finish line, Mark Cavendish used a team car to regain the peloton after a crash by other riders at the Amgen Tour of California.

The 20-second penalty must be a huge disappointment for Cavendish's High Road Team, which has yet to win a stage or make a threat in the overall leader's race.

American Levi Leipheimer finished safely in the peloton and retained his lead in the Tour. He only has to hold it for one more day to win the event in the final stage to Pasadena on Sunday ...   more »

Colin and Julie Angus are two adventurers who are taking a 4,000-mile rowboat and bicycle expedition across Europe that you'll be able to follow online beginning in March.

The two experienced travellers from Canada are rowing down rivers, coastlines and canals from Scotland to Syria. When it's time to portage over passes or around dangerous rapids, they'll use the foldable bicycles and trailers stowed on board to tow their watercraft.

That makes it a completely human-powered expedition on old trade and migration routes from the Scottish highlands to the deserts of the Middle East. The trip also includes a component that enables children in classrooms around the world to interact with the travellers.

Larry Lagarde at the RideThisBike.com website tipped me off about this adventure. He also donated through his website the two full-sized folding mountain bikes the pair will use. Colin Angus will be riding a flat black SwissBike LX; Julie is riding a baby blue Montague CX ....   more »

American Levi Leipheimer blistered the 15-mile individual time trial at the Amgen Tour of California on Friday, beating his closest challenger by a full minute.

Two-time world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara, whose hopes for a golden jersey rested on this course around Solvang, had a disappointing day. Instead of climbing back into the lead that he held after the prologue, the Team CSC rider fell out of 2nd place .

The stage win by Leipheimer puts him closer to an overall victory for Tour of California for the second straight year. He'll be able to rely on his strong Astana team on the 105-mile stage from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita on Saturday, and the concluding 93-mile bike race into Pasadena on Sunday ...   more »

Something you'll be hearing a lot soon is that something "is your new bicycle." It started with a website called "Barack Obama is your new bicycle" which caught fire and already has a slew of imitators.

The term will probably reach a peak in a few weeks, when advertisers will start using it in their "hip" commercials. That's when we'll quickly get sick of hearing it, and the once-clever term will die out of use.

Here's what Matthew Honan, a San Francisco based writer for Wired magazine, told Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune about the website and how it got started....   more »

(The subject of this investigation committed suicide Saturday morning, the Seattle Times reported.)

This sounds more like an episode of CSI than your typical bike theft investigation where police take a report and file it away.

The police crime scene investigation in this case traced DNA on a coffee cup left behind in a Seattle neighborhood bike shop by a man who took a Cervelo R3 for a test ride and never returned.

Months later, a DNA match led them to a Longview, Washington, podiatrist who they charged with 12 counts of possessing or selling stolen bikes ...   more »