Category: Other cycling

Painted bicycles mystify Muskegon

A number of freelance pieces of art have been appearing around downtown Muskegon, Michigan, lately — brightly painted bicycles chained to lampposts, bicycle racks and chainlink fences.

So far eight bicycles have been set up around town since mid-October. Sometimes they're moved from one location to another in the dead of the night. One, a pink bicycle that carried a breast cancer awareness message, was repainted yellow.

The only thing they have in common, besides being bicycles, is that each has a picture of an old-fashioned drill bit stenciled below the handlebars. If there's a theme to the spray-painted bicycles, no one has figured it out yet ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/11/05/painted-bicycles-mystify-muskegon/

Another first for Davis, California — longest line of bicycles

The world's first platinum-level bicycle-friendly city likely achieved another first on Sunday — the world's longest line of bicycles.

Some 1,200 bicyclists registered in Davis, California, to create the longest line of bicycles, as judged by the Guinness Book of World Records. The Sacramento Bee reports that the parade of bicycles snaked around a two-mile route at the UC-Davis university campus.

The event was a fund-raiser by the local Odd Fellows Lodge to raise money for the local schools.

The longest-line-of-bicycles category is a new one for the Guinness book ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/10/04/another-first-for-davis-california-longest-line-of-bicycles/

Musicians hitting the road by bicycle for fall concert tours

Taking your show on the road has a completely different meaning for muscians Ben Sollee and Taylor Ho Bynum.

Separately, the two are bicycling to their schedule of far-flung gigs. For cellist/vocalist Sollee, it's a cross-country tour. For jazz trumpeter Bynum, it's bike tour to concerts in New England.

Although it's unusual, they're not the first. They'll be following in the virtual bicycle tire tracks laid down by the Ditty Bops four years ago.

The Los Angeles-based girl band duo known for their music, as well as their love of bicycles, took off on their cross-country bicycle performing tour in 2006. At the time, band member Abby DeWald said that it was better to move their bodies “than sit in a mush pile in the back of a dirty van.” ……

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/09/14/musicians-hitting-the-road-by-bicycle-for-fall-concert-tours/

Columbus honors cycling legend Major Taylor with a bikeway

Major Taylor may have been a world-renown bicycle racer in his day, but he died forgotten and penniless in 1932 and was buried in a pauper's graveyard in Chicago.

In the past few years, however, more people are learning about the world-class African-American cyclist, due in part to the many bike paths, clubs and even a statue erected in his memory.

Columbus, Ohio, is the most recent city to honor the cyclist by renaming a four-mile section of the Alum Creek Greenway as the Major Taylor Bikeway. It was dedicated last weekend.

It's only fitting that Columbus honor Taylor in this way ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/09/12/columbus-honors-cycling-legend-major-taylor-with-a-bikeway/

Quote: “Bicycles in Africa…”

“Bicycles in Africa, especially in this part of Zambia, they are more valuable than a vehicle, because they use them even for grinding mill, they use them for transport to the hospital, to the clinic and to the school.”

School headteacher Michael Gogolola explaining the value of bicycles provided to schoolchildren by World Bicycle Relief; “Bicycles offer a lifeline in rural Zambia,” CNN, Sept. 8, 2010 (with video). …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/09/08/quote-bicycles-in-africa/

Bicycle injuries and fatalities cost more than $5 billion a year

Leave it to the Centers for Disease Control to boil down the human toll of highway carnage into cold, hard cash.

A report issued by the agency this month finds that the costs of medical care and lost productivity related to deaths and injuries in crashes surpasses $99 billion a year. Bicyclists' share of that is about $5.4 billion annually.

The study, entitled “Traffic Injury Prevention,” reports that the U.S. is falling behind the traffic safety gains many other developed nations are making.

It concludes that there are some strategies that could save lives and prevent injuries. One of those is mandatory bicycle helmet use. That's definitely a hot-button issue among bicyclists, although the CDC authors focus their discussion on bicycle helmet use among children ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/08/26/bicycle-injuries-and-fatalities-cost-more-than-5-billion-a-year/

“Wheelie man” plans to pop into record book

People in Andover, Massachusetts, aren't surprised anymore when they see Garth Lockhart riding around on his bicycle with the front wheel in the air.

The 30-year-old native of the West Indies is in training to pop a wheelie and ride it  down the road and right into the Guinness Book of World Records.

He'll attempt the feat on Sept. 12 by riding his mountain bike along Route 28 from his home in Andover to a bike shop in Salem …..

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/08/21/wheelie-man-plans-to-pop-into-record-book/

Great Wall of China bicycle ride might become a future movie

There hasn't been much news lately about Frank Marshall's (“Indiana Jones”, “Bourne” series) plans to make a movie about Lance Armstrong's life.

But there's another bicycling movie in the works. Filmmaker and retired bicycle adventurer Kevin Foster says he has a commitment from the Chinese government for funds to produce a film about his own life.

Why make a movie about Kevin Foster, you ask?

Twenty years ago Foster made headlines by becoming the first person, and an American at that, to ride his bicycle over a thousand miles of what was left of the Great Wall of China ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/08/20/great-wall-of-china-bicycle-ride-might-become-a-future-movie/

Finally — the secret of bicycling revealed

The bicycle has been around in one form or another for more than 150 years, but you might be surprised that researchers are still studying how we can ride one without it falling over.

Actually, I thought Albert Einstein had it right when he said:

“Life is like riding a bicycling. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

Maybe that explains more about life than it does about bicycling.

There's a lot more to it than that, as a three-day symposium — Bicycle and Motorcycle Dynamics 2010 — is scheduled for this fall (should I say autumn) at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

Participants will hear about bicycles, motorcycles, unicycles …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/06/30/finally-the-secret-of-bicycling-revealed/

Bike Snob in Seattle

For a bike snob, that Eben Weiss is certainly one popular guy.

About 130 fans of his BikeSnobNYC blog showed up at University Book Store in Seattle on Saturday afternoon to hear him speak and to get autographs of his recently released book.

Weiss is making a tour of the western states to promote the book “Bike Snob, Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling.”

It's a good thing that Weiss bikes regularly, because he needs his stamina. He had just flown in, with his bike, from San Jose where he participated in an event called “Bike Party” that lasted far into the night ….

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/06/19/bike-snob-in-seattle/