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All the obituaries for Richard Widmark, 93, talk about his roles as a villain in films, but I remember him mainly as Jim Bowie in “The Alamo” in 1960.
What I didn't know is that the Minnesota-born actor became interested in acting while giving lectures after a bicycle tour he made through Nazi Germany.
Apparently Widmark went on his bike tour of Deutschland in the early 1930s. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to visit a camp for political prisoners named Dachau, which later became one of Hitler's infamous extermination camps. However, he did sneak into a youth camp …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/27/bike-tour-led-to-acting-career-for-richard-widmark/
And tips on stopping aggressive dogs
This is an amusing — and frightening — segment from the Judge Judy Show a couple of years ago in which she rules in favor of the cyclist, Kevin Gilmore, who was injured when a dog ran into his path.
It's amusing because the dog's owners are so clueless about who's responsible for the injury, and frightening because their argument — that the cyclist caused the accident by riding down the highway instead of using one of the state's hundreds of miles of bike paths — is probably a common perception among a lot of people…
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/26/judge-judy-rules-in-favor-of-cyclist-injured-by-dog/
While the lion's share of bicycling advocacy and development work seems to fall to dedicated volunteers, there are quite a few paying gigs in those fields that are being advertised this spring, including three in Seattle.
Two of those are offered by the Cascade Bicycle Club and one by the Bicycle Alliance of Washington. There also are positions in Berkeley and Sonoma County, California, Lansing, Michigan, and Washington, DC.
There's nothing wrong with making a living out of what you love. Check out this list. It's not comprehensive; just a few jobs that I've stumbled across recently….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/26/bicycling-advocacy-jobs-you-call-this-working/
There's no arguing that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool roadie. But I've been thinking about narrow, muddy trails ever since I borrowed my son's Gary Fisher Wahoo for a few rides a couple of years ago.
The more places that I discovered here in the Pacific Northwest where I couldn't take my road bike, the more I thought about getting a mountain bike.
Last week, I stumbled across this hardtail for sale at Craigslist and, after some light haggling, bought this Specialized RockHopper. The guy was the second owner, so this bike has been around, but it's in pretty decent shape. I'd put the year at 1991. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/25/my-new-bike-for-trails-and-touring-specialized-rockhopper/
The League of American Bicyclists calls our attention to an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle that was published in reaction to media coverage of the tragic deaths of Matt Peterson and Kristy Gough in Cupertino earlier this month.
Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, writes that there's a “looming prejudice” against those who ride bikes.
There have been media reports about which streets are “most dangerous” for bicycles, the frequency that bicycles are considered at fault by police and reports of cyclists not following the rules of the road.
“The Cupertino tragedy has been portrayed as a “bicycle safety” story, instead of what it really is, a story about the risks of dangerous driving. …
“Yet, the public dialogue has not focused on which streets are most dangerous for driving, bad behavior by drivers, or the fact that 40,000 people a year are killed in motor vehicle collisions in our nation. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/25/bicycle-safety-or-dangerous-driving/
Some engineering students at Rowan University in New Jersey are developing a way to harness bicycle-pedal power to run a small grain crusher.
It's latest effort I've read about in the ongoing attempts at many colleges and nongovernmental agencies to jump-start small-scale economies in developing nations where electricity is scarce and expensive.
In the Rowan project, an aluminum grain crusher is attached to the bicycle, which is mounted on a stand. Pedalling the bicycle crushes the corn, lentils, split peas and barley fine enough for cooking
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/24/helping-feed-the-world-with-bicycles/
The city of Tempe is launching an experiment to paint bike lanes red at intersections to caution motorists to look out for bicycles.
Portland has chosen the color green and will be repainting all of its blue bike lanes to the new color on the maintenance schedule. Seattle plans to paint bike lanes at four intersections green this spring as an experiment to see if that will prevent right hook collisions.
Meanwhile, Portland has begun installing green bike boxes at 14 intersections to intensify its efforts to prevent right hook collisions …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/23/color-coded-bicycling-red-in-tempe-green-in-portland-and-seattle/
The San Jose Mercury News published a map showing the location of bicycle fatalities in Santa Clara County over the past 10 years. It's a sobering document. There are more than 40 markers pinpointing the location of cyclists' deaths.
What I found interesting from a broader perspective was that not once did the reporter, Leslie Griffy, refer to “accidents” in the story. In each and every instance, she refered to “crashes.” Good job.
Using the word “accident” to refer to a car-bike collision or crash is so common in newspaper stories that it's glaring in its absence …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/20/car-bike-crashes-vs-accidents/
The South Dakota Bicycle Coalition is the newest organization in the U.S. aimed at improving the lives of the bicycling public.
About 30 cyclists from across the state met earlier this month to create a group that will focus on making bicycling safer in South Dakota, improve road conditions for bicycle riders and help people overcome obstacles to cycling.
First order of business: sending a letter to encourage the South Dakota Department of Transportation Railroad Board to save a railroad bridge over the Cheyenne River for railbanking. Eventually it could be used in a rails-to-trails project. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/20/south-dakota-cyclists-form-state-wide-advocacy-group/
This was not a comeback from retirement of Michael Jordan proportions.
With just one tour under his belt, Mario Cipollini and Rock Racing pro cycling has called it quits. Cipo says that he wants his return to cycling paired with management and development of a team.
As for riding in the upcoming Milan-San Remo, for instance, Cipollini said it “made sense if it was linked to a wider project of building and managing a new team and my return to racing was part of the project to create a dream team…
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/19/mario-cipollini-and-rock-racing-deal-is-over/
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