Category: Other cycling

Pedicab in Times Square late Friday night

Just returned from a too short trip to New York City, and thought I'd share some bicycle photos I took while I was there.

What struck me the most on Friday was the overwhelming number of folks who earn their living on bicycles. For these people it's not so much bike-to-work, but bike-at-work.

Of course I spotted, and dodged, plenty of bicycle messengers running errands in the Times Square area as soon as I started walking around Friday morning.

Then toward lunch-time, I started seeing guys on heavier bikes who were delivering food either in plastic bags hanging from handlebars, or in boxes attached to the bikes. …

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Ten major U.S. cities are targeted for urban assault this summer and fall, but don't bother to warn the Department of Homeland Security.

These Urban Assault Rides are hosted by New Belgium Brewery and are basically bicycle scavenger hunts for two-person teams.

The contests along the 20- to 25-mile routes are based on skills that have little or nothing to do with everyday bicycling: bike jousting, keg walking, inflatable slides and human wheel-barrows.

The 10 cities and the dates are: ….

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Volunteers and staff are cranking the pedals on these bicycles to power up the Jones Soda headquarters building in Seattle on Earth Day.

The building is off the electric grid on Wednesday with only bare essentials running, such as some phones, lights and computers.

With the help of the Applied Science students at the UW, Recycled Cycles bike store and plans from Pedal Power Generator, Jones set up 10 bikes fitted with generators to run the offices.

You can learn how to win a free Jones Soda or a T-shirt …

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I wonder if Danny MacAskill as a youngster used to ride his bike in front of his house and shout to startled observers, “Hey look, no hands.”

Imagine the reaction now when people walking down the street in Edinburgh, Scotland, see him do a backflip off a tree on his bike or bounce off the wall of a building like Spiderman.

Now the world is viewing his amazing feats on this video posted on YouTube.com on Sunday. By Wednesday morning, the clip had been viewed 780,000 times. It's less than 6 minutes long, and just gets crazier as it goes on.

MacAskill rides for the trials team for Inspired Bicycles …

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Congratulations to all you bicycling enthusiasts in Davis, California. Your city has been chosen as the new home of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame.

Board members of the Hall of Fame, located in Somerville, New Jersey, had been looking to relocate for the past year, ever since the museum's home was sold for development.

More than a dozen cities made a bid for the Hall of Fame, and the contest came down to between Davis and Greensboro, North Carolina, in recent weeks.

Davis was picked because it has adopted the bicycle like no other city …

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Bad news for fans of Yehuda Moon & Kickstand Cyclery.

Comic strip creator Rick Smith posted a cartoon of his character parking his bicycle. Above the strip there's this message:

“A good spot to stop for a while. Yehuda Moon on hiatus.”

“Dear Readers,

“I regret that this will be the last day of 'Yehuda Moon' for a while. I ran out of time and can't continue with the comic. …

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Many writers will tell you that the great American novel would be about the national pasttime — baseball. I tend to think it could be about bicycling.

Peter Gelman is a writer of fiction from Portland, and he uses the bicycle as a vehicle for many of writings.

I ran across Gelman and illustrator Neal Skorpen (left and right in the picture) at a leaky booth at the Seattle International Bicycle Show a few weeks ago.

Although they each have their individual works, they're collaborating on a graphic novel on bicycling named “Dangerous Bicycle Mystery Quest” …

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A reader of this blog emailed me yesterday to ask if there was a club or association for bicycle riders who had ridden organized centuries in all 50 states. As for himself, he had just one state to go — Montana — before completing this amazing feat.

I didn't find anything for the milestone of centuries in all 50 states. But after asking around, I stumbled across a few clubs that keep track of bicycling records that might never find their way into the headlines of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Perimeter Bicycling Association of America based in Tucson, Arizona, stays true to its name and declares World Records “for cyclists who bicycle the perimeter of any geographical boundary of 50 or more miles.”

That includes cities, counties, islands, mountains and other topographical features.

Meanwhile, the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association tracks time records for cross-state, trans-continental, city to city, 12- and 24-hour rides and centuries …

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How do you choose the charity bicycle events that you ride?

Is it the cause? The difficulty? The length? The other people who are riding it?

A market research class at Northeastern University in Boston is conducting a survey of bicyclist preferences for non-profit organization rides.

They contacted me to pass along information about the survey, which is available online at non-profit organization bicycle rides. …

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Have you recorded your bicycle serial number? Me neither, but I plan to today after reading how Colorado Springs police solved a string of bike thefts.

Detectives conducting a routine record search of sales from county pawn shops recently stumbled across the serial number of a bicycle that had been reported stolen.

Tracking that sale led to the arrest of the seller and four accomplices. It helped solve a year-long bicycle theft spree that had netted more than 60 bicycles from Colorado Springs and Colorado College.

A detective told the Colorado Springs Gazette that the theft ring might been discovered earlier if the victims had records of their serial numbers that they could turn over to police …

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