Category: Other cycling

Time marches on, pedal stroke by pedal stroke. In a few days, your bicycle calendar will be woefully out of date.

Here are a few suggestions for calendars that you might not mind seeing every day in 2012.

The women's bicycling gang “The Belle Starrs” is entering the calendar madness in 2012 with its “Safety is Sexy: Your 2012 pin-up is a guide to ride.” Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, the bicyclists are raising money for their club as well as a local charity. That's Stacy Schroeder on the cover, with other members featured inside.

Although not as sexy, the Adventure Cycling Association's 2012 Calendar will feed your interest in bicycle touring. The nonprofit used photo entries …

Sipping my favorite beverage and watching the latest Ken Burns documentary on PBS — “Prohibition” — I couldn't help thinking about what a compelling piece he could create about the bicycle.

Having seen many of his previous documentaries, such as “The Civil War,” “Baseball,” “Lewis & Clark,” “The National Parks” and “Jazz,” it seems that many of the same themes he examined in those works would be available with the bicycle.

For starters, bicycling erupted into a craze in the U.S. almost as soon as the first velocipedes began arriving on our shores ….

Here's a  photo of Kate Hudson and Goldie Hawn riding their bicycles one day in Santa Monica.

It's kind of comforting to know that such celebrities as the daughter and mother actresses enjoy heading out for a bicycle ride, even in apparently inclement weather.

Canada's Province website has a long list of celebrities (nearly 100) riding their bicycles accompanied by their photos. Richard Masoner over at the Cyclelicious blog runs a regular feature of “(Famous person) rides a bicycle.”

My only problem with looking at images of “stars” riding bicycles is that it's hard to tell who is really out for a bike ride, and who is out for a photo op.

I also suffer the added difficulty of not really recognizing some of the celebrities …

Miss Ohio 2011 has swapped her tiara for a bicycle helmet as she makes her way around her home state on a charity bicycle tour.

Ellen Bryan is in the midst of a 850-mile, 27-day bike tour she undertook to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals of Ohio.

Apparently she never spent much time on a bicycle and is struggling a bit in the hilly parts of the state, but she's doing the miles whether she rides or walks.

Ellen said that as an intern at a TV station …

What's the newest definition of a slow news day in Oklahoma City?

Sending a reporter out to do a story on a bicycle that's been abandoned for a year. Channel 4 did just that on Monday.

As a bicycle nut, I'll admit to noticing locked up bicycles that have been sitting around my neighborhood for a few days. I didn't think the general public would notice, though, or care.

Usually the bikes sit around near a bus stop for a few weeks then disappear….

My son is heading to China for his fall semester and I stumbled across some information about getting around by bicycle in Beijing in his student handbook.

The book says bikes are still very useful for going short distances in the cities. They're not expensive and “if you plan to stay for more than a semester, it may be wise to invest in one.”

That's apparently what a person who is selling her bike at TheBeijinger.com did.  That bike is selling for 350 yuan, about $50-$55. It comes with that sweet front basket decorated with the butterfly, above …

Here's an interesting connection to ponder the next time you remove your bicycle pedals to box up your bike for air travel:

Either you already know or you'll soon learn that while the pedal on the right side is threaded normally, the pedal on the left side is threaded in reverse with left-hand threads.

So turning the right-side pedal bolt in a counter-clockwise motion will loosen it, but doing the same on the left side will further tighten it.

This wasn't done to confuse and confound home bike mechanics …..

Here are three examples I've stumbled across recently that demonstrate how bicycles seem to attract clever schemes.

It stands to reason — the bicycle has been considered the best invention in the last 200 years.

The city of Pleasanton, California, is employing microwave technology to sense bicyclists approaching several intersections in the town.

The “intersector” — a microwave motion and presence detector — can identify bicycles in traffic. It either extends or triggers a traffic light if a bicyclist is detected.

Cyclists in Pleasanton like the technology because they're not tempted to squeeze a yellow light or run a red light at an intersection ….

If you've ever had your locked-up bicycle stolen from a bicycle rack in broad daylight, then you'll certainly appreciate the efforts of this young woman and her co-workers in San Francisco.

At about 25 seconds into this video, you'll see a guy saunter into the bottom of the frame carrying a backpack. He casually removes a set of bolt cutters and goes to work.

Before he can ride away, a designer identified as Kristen for the advertising firm WCG leads her coworkers out of the office to knock the guy down.

No more physical violence after that, as he gets away ….