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 »

It's good to see a cyclist finally named as an Athlete of the Decade.

No. It's not Lance Armstrong, who got squeezed out by a golfer in the Associated Press and USA Today polls.

We're talking about world champion track cyclist Marty Nothstein of Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. The 38-year-old got the nod from the editors at the Allentown (PA) Morning Call this week.

Nothstein grew up racing at the velodrome in Trexlertown and used that experience to earn an Olympic gold medal and win three world championships and 34 gold medals at US National Championships ....   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 »

Here's a bicyclist gingerly pedaling over a light frost on the Mercer Slough Causeway alongside I-90 in Bellevue late Sunday afternoon. 

You can see by all the tracks in the frost that this is a popular route. It's a main corridor between Bellevue and Seattle.

The slough encompasses more than 300 acres of Bellevue along the eastern shore of Lake Washington. The ....   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:

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 "Versus TV schedule for 2009 Tour Down Under,"which tells me a lot of folks wanted to know when to tune in to view his first comeback race. Closely following that story was "Lance Armstrong's Tour Down Under bike, by the numbers."

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 »

"They were more shocked than I was, trying to cover up their bits and pieces with their hands."

-- New Zealand policewoman describing the reactions of two naked men on bicycles she stopped in a coastal resort town one night.

She issued a stern warning for not wearing helmets and sent them home. She chose to ignore their public nudity, which can carry a charge of offensive behavior in New Zealand.

BBC News, "NZ policewoman allows naked cycling -- with helmet"

Dutchman Frank van Dijk has a bike ride to finish.

Frank visited the US in 1976 to ride his bicycle cross-country that first Bikecentennial summer.

The 23-year-old joined hundreds who streamed from coast-to-coast to celebrate the nation's 200th birthday on routes mapped by what later became the Adventure Cycling Association.

Except Frank didn't finish.

A motorist struck Frank while he pedaled through Kansas. His head smashed through the windshield and his body sprawled across the hood of the car.

He spent several days in a hospital in a coma and suffered various fractures, contussions and lacerations. Then he returned to Holland ....   more »

In case you were wondering, the Tour de Georgia will not roll out in 2010.

In spite of an effort to bring back the bike race next year, the cash-strapped Tour de Georgia Foundation was unable to find the sponsors to pay for the race for the second year in a row.

Tour de Georgia board member Tom Saddlemire told CyclingNews:

"The Board of Directors and our advisors did all we could to tailor a race to fit within the economic realities of today and we are understandably disappointed in this announcement, but we are committed to bringing back the Tour as soon as possible." .....   more »

The purchase of a 42-mile railway corridor east of Seattle this week sets in motion an undertaking that could result in a bike trail, or light rail line, or both.

The corridor runs between Renton and Snohomish and serves dense suburban areas on the eastern side of Lake Washington.

Originally envisioned as a bike trail that would link to the regional trail system, it's also being considered as the backbone for a Eastside light rail line.

The corridor passes through woodsy lakeside neighborhoods, above, and over the 975-foot-long Wilburton Trestle (circa 1904) just south of downtown Bellevue, below ....   more »

Those of you trapped inside your homes by the winter storm back East might enjoy watching this video about the picturesque Moonville Rail Trail that meanders for 10 miles through the scenic hills of southeastern Ohio.

Aside from the pleasant scenery and the sounds of twittering birds and mountain bike wheels crunching over gravel, there's a good lesson here.

Those earnest volunteers who are trying to create trails out of abandoned railway rights-of-way might be interested to know that the Moonville Rail-Trail Association avoided using county money to build the trail that connects the small towns of Zaleski and Mineral.

Founder Neil Shaw says the whole effort was accomplished with volunteers, donations and grant money ....   more »

There's a jersey up ahead.

It's being worn by a guy who is riding the greatest invention of all time -- the bicycle. 

Emblazoned across the back is a message. More like a slogan.

"SHARE THE DAMN ROAD"

The motorist is confused. Is it meant to humor him or taunt him? Is he having a good day or a lousy day? What happens next?

The "Share the Damn Road" jersey and some others, such as "Don't Run Me Over" and "Don't Honk At Me," are ideas that sprang from the mind of pro cyclist Phil Gaimon ....   more »

The first time I heard about someone making a bicycle out of bamboo -- Craig Calfee at Calfee Designs in California -- I thought it might be a joke.

But while those Calfee Design bamboo frame bikes might put smiles on their owners' faces, they're no joke. Many bicyclists prefer them because of their ride, but also because they use a sustainable frame material.

Several other bike makers have begun using bamboo for frames, and this weekend National Public Radio reported on a Brooklyn-based Bamboo Bike Studio where interested bikers can build their own bamboo bikes. Basically we're talking do-it-yourself bamboo bikes ...   more »

Didn't Bob Dylan sing "...the signs, they are a-changin'"?

Maybe not, but I couldn't get that song out of my head when I read at Bike Portland that the feds were establishing new guidelines for signs and road markings that included changes that effect bike riders.

While some of the improvements deal with freeway signs and traffic signals, many changes involved making bike lane markings more uniform and establishing common signs for bike routes and paths.

The ones at left caught my attention at first.

The U.S. Bicycle Route signs will be used on the 50,000-mile bike route corridor network being established by Adventure Cycling Association and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials.

Those bike route designations are already being used for USBR 1 and 76 in Virginia. ...   more »

--Updated with more gran fondo events--

Amateur cyclists and recreational bicyclists in the US and Canada will get more opportunities to participate in Italian-style gran fondo bike rides in 2010.

Nearly a dozen gran fondo bike rides are scheduled next year in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ontario.

Cyclists appear to be hungry for such events.

When 3-time Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer launched a gran fondo-style bike ride in Santa Rosa last October, 3,500 cyclists signed up.

Word must have spread among cyclists, because when online registration opened on Tuesday for the October 2010 King Ridge Gran Fondo -- 10 months before the event -- half the 6,000 spots were reserved the first day.

In addition to Leipheimer's event in Santa Rosa, the Tour of California is sponsoring two gran fondos along the course of two Tour stages before the race in April. Centurion Cycling  is launching its first season of gran fondo with rides in California, Colorado and Wisconsin, and Gran Fondo USA is offering rides in San Diego and Philadelphia next year ...   more »

A company that imports CO2 bicycle tire inflators is recalling about 24,000 units that were sold exclusively at WalMart stores nationwide.

The Zefal brand cartridges, containing pressurized carbon dioxide used to inflate a bicycle tire, can break at the pump head.

Although no injuries have been reported, importer Todson Inc. of North Attleboro, Mass., launched the recall with the assistance of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission ...   more »