Columbus Rides Bikes!

Shirts should be available to pickup at Urban Spirit Coffee Shop after August 11th! Order it here!

Shirts should be available to pickup at Urban Spirit Coffee Shop after August 11th! Order it here!

Gear Floss Microfiber Rope Finish Line Gear Floss is the ultimate detailing tool! Perfect for cleaning your rear cassette, front chain rings, derailleur pulley wheels, hubs and spindles, brake arms, bottom bracket / crank interface, and more. Gear Floss is made of Microfiber. Microfibers work by attracting, removing and holding grime. Other materials simply move it around. Microfiber does this by capturing dirt, grease and particles inside its star-shaped grooves. Dirt is held deep inside the core of the fiber. Microfibers remove grime better than any other material known to man! Microfiber rope is highly tear-resistant and it is washable. Easy to Use! • Position floss between gears • Slide back and forth • Slide into other hard-to-clean areas like derailleur pulley wheels, hubs and spindles, brake arms, bottom brackets /crank interface, etc. [Finish Line]

Triformance has donated "20$ OFF" Gift Cards for all sponsor bags and a "FREE FIT" certificate worth $249 for the 2011 raffle! Register by August 15th to save $5 and guarantee your sponsor shirt. TRIFORMANCE  Swim Bike Run Fit Studio is an exciting new concept in individualized bicycle fitting services for any type of cyclist — professional racers, elite amateurs and recreational racers, tri‑athletes, mountain bikers, fitness cyclists and weekend riders. If you are serious enough to clip in, then you can benefit from a  TRIFORMANCE  fit. [Triformance]

Another bamboo bicycle? Yes--but the vehicle devised by Alexander Vittouris departs from the funky, tiki-bar-friendly lines made from this sustainable, globally ubiquitous grass. A design student at Australia's Monash University, Vittouris envisions a bicycle that isn't built, but grown--the bamboo stalks of the frame being trained into shape while the plant is growing. Inspired by arborsculpture, in which tree branches are fixed in expressive shapes that they take as the plant grows, Vittouris wants to develop a reusable framework that would shape bamboo into nearly finished bicycles. While arboculture is a craft practice rather than a mass-production technique, its application to bamboo--which may be cultivated inexpensively, and grows with astonishing speed--offers at least a coy gleam of scalability. Manufacturing traditional bicycles expends energy and injects waste into the world, whether the frame is some space-age alloy or bamboo. Vittouris by contrast proposes "en...

Highlights 20 miles 20 riders Cleland Ave to Morse Rd. Taqueria El Fogoncito - review here at tacotruckscolumbus.com South to Alum Creek Trail South to Long Street Temps were in 80's

Listen to WCBE 90.5, Central Ohio's NPR Station starting on August 8 to find out how you can win passes to Bike the C-Bus 2011.  [WCBE]

Budget Tour. 7:00-9 a.m. Buckeye Grove Shopping Center at the corner of Hoover Road and Route 665, Grove City, OH. Parking in north-east corner of lot only. Scenic routes along the Big Darby and nearby watersheds Roads will be marked and maps provided. Flat to rolling mileage options from 30 to 100 miles. $4 member, $7 non-member. Dave Knight  614-284-4087 horshoo38-cop@yahoo.com Jack Hornsby 614-877-3085 jackhornsby@cs.com.

The Columbus “Ride, for Pete’s Sake!” begins and ends at Hilliard Heritage Middle School (across from the Hilliard Municipal Park) on August 13, 2011. There is NO mass start. Riders start anytime between 7am and 9:15am. The 7 mile route follows along the Heritage Rail Trail, passing through Homestead Park. The 18 and 35 mile routes are mostly flat jaunts to the scenic Big Darby Creek. The 48 mile route follows flat to gently rolling terrain on lightly traveled township roads, following the Big Darby toward its source. The 62 mile route is for those wanting that metric century! The 80 and 100 mile courses follow the same route with additional loops featuring longer grades. View maps of routes   here . All routes are marked with arrows on the road, and include a rest stop with refreshments and water. We end with entertainment and a post-ride cookout. The registration fee is $40 day-of-ride, $30 pre-registration for registrations received by Wednesday, August 10, and $10 for kids. Dow...

With bike design, it's almost impossible to produce something entirely new because the basic format has been perfected over 100 years. Leave it to a design student to shake things up with an altogether different take on the urban bike -- a groovy, multicolored ride made from plastic with shutter-shade slats. As a student at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art Design, Dror Peleg developed the Frii as an alternative to traditional metal bikes, which are relatively labor intensive to make. His version is injection molded from recycled plastic, which, he claims, is better suited to places with limited manufacturing resources and capabilities. The process is certainly streamlined: Peleg placed the bearings into the mold before injecting the plastic, and the tires were injected over the rim. Since the 20-inch tires are plastic, they never go flat; the fork is short to add strength; and a pyramid-shaped crank contributes some stability. We wouldn’t pit the Frii against a Schwinn in a stren...

The Bicycle Seat: Greater Cleveland Innovations Published: Monday, August 01, 2011, 10:00 PM     Updated:  Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 6:20 AM   By  Ellen Kleinerman, The Plain Dealer  This story is part of a mid-summer series about lesser-known inventions, ideas and innovations that originated in Northeast Ohio. If you have suggestions for future stories, email your ideas to  metrodesk@plaind.com CLEVELAND, OHIO -- Cyclists have a Lorain County man to thank for saving their butts. That man, Elyria native Arthur L. Garford, invented the first padded bicycle seat in the world 119 years ago. When no one bought the patent, Garford decided in 1892 to manufacture the seat --with cushions and springs -- himself. "He was able to launch an industrial empire because of the saddle seats," said Bill Bird, director of the Lorain Historical Society. Sales hit over 1 million seats annually during the decade Garford headed the company. [continue at Cleveland.com]

Big thanks to both Columbus Underground and The Metropreneur for supporting Bike the C-Bus 2011. Check out the sites and get the latest news and local entrepreneurial news. columbusunderground.com themetropreneur.com/columbus/

From Canaan Faulkner Coordinator of Adult Programs & Web Content Grandview Heights Public Library We are hosting author/historian David Herlihy’s talk  Bicycle: The History  (Yale University Press) on Tuesday, September 13, 2011, at 7 pm. The event is free to the public. Herlihy is a historian, freelance writer, and member of the Harvard Cycling Club. His work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  The Boston Globe ,  Boston Magazine , and  Historic Preservation , and on NPR and Voice of America. He lives in Hull, Massachusetts. Feel free to share the link, or request fliers for your event. Let us know if you have any questions. Happy pedaling! http://eventful.com/columbus/events/bicycle-history-/E0-001-039752601-2@2011091320 Cordially, Canaan

View Slideshow ERIC ALBRECHTDISPATCH An M.P. Dory construction crew installs a railing on the bikeway bridge being built over the Scioto River beside I-670. It is to open on Aug. 15. By   Molly Gray  The Columbus Dispatch   Sunday July 31, 2011 10:39 AM A $2.1 million bikeway bridge connecting the Hilltop and the Scioto Trail is to be completed soon, but cyclists won’t be headed anywhere fast when they get to the other side. The bridge, which took a year to complete, opens in conjunction with a road project that created bike lanes on Eureka Avenue and Harper Road on the Hilltop, connecting W. Broad Street to McKinley Avenue. The intent is eventually to connect the West Side to Downtown via the trail. “It’s going to be a real nice loop from W. Broad to Downtown, all the way to (Lou) Berliner Park,” said Bradley Westall, greenways manager for the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department. But it will be quite some time before cyclists can complete the stretch. [continu...

Robin Utrecht/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In the Netherlands, respect for bicycles is hard-wired into the culture. By RUSSELL SHORTO Published: July 30, 2011 Russell Shorto is the author of “The Island at the Center of the World” and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. He is working on a book about Amsterdam. Related Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy  (June 27, 2011) Amsterdam AS an American who has been living here for several years, I am struck, every time I go home, by the way American cities remain manacled to the car. While Europe is dealing with congestion and greenhouse gas buildup by turning urban centers into pedestrian zones and finding innovative ways to combine driving with public transportation, many American cities are carving out more parking spaces. It’s all the more bewildering because America’s collapsing infrastructure would seem to cry out for new solutions. [continue reading at NYTimes]

FROM KICKSTARTER: ABOUT THIS PROJECT Hi there! Thank you for visiting my Kickstarter page.  With your support, I’d love to launch what I believe is a truly innovative product into the world. The YouTurn is a revolutionary new type of cycling accessory.  It uses motion activated directional signals to essentially turn the cyclists hand into a giant turn signal.  It helps keep cyclists safer at night by making sure that motorists understand their intentions. So why do I need $50,000?  Working with a local product design firm, we've developed a budget that will take this project all of the way through to the manufacture of the first 1000 pieces.  The math was simple, and ended up at $50 dollars per piece.  As it ends up, the largest hurdle to jump is the cost of tooling, which comprises most of the cost.  That's why I need your help.  If I can get just 1000 people to pre-order this device, we can get this project off of the ground, and take a tru...