Columbus Rides Bikes!

Photo courtesy of  macfred64   In North America, we have a funny tendency to overcomplicate things. Companies search for any opportunity to increase their revenues: they invent new products, improve existing products, and they employ marketing techniques to make you feel like you can’t live without their products. Last winter I posted an article “ Pragmatism Eludes Politicians '”. But it’s not just politicians who are eluded by pragmatism – it’s our entire society. Winter bicycling is no exception. Companies face stiff competition – vying for your business to increase their market share – and there is no shortage of bicycle gear for winter riding. Take for example this image of “winter cycling” provided by the  City of Toronto : Photo courtesy of the  City of Toronto *Update: December 12th – Added the ridiculous photo seen above. Courtesy of the  Toronto Star  (thanks for posting this  @DuncansCityRide ) “Pannier with change of clo...

Tall Trail from Zenga Bros on Vimeo .

Bicycles from Eliot Grigo on Vimeo .

RTA Red Line trains to get a welcome makeover CLEVELAND, Ohio --  RTA will remodel its dingy Red Line train interiors in 2013, a $2.5 million project that riders welcome. "It's about time," says David Gray, a regular rider who thinks the trains' tan, brown and orange decor evokes "boredom." "We could use a mood booster," says Gray, 28, of Parma. The  Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority  will install new floors, seats, windows and lighting inside the Red Line cars, which run between East Cleveland and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. RTA will also clear more space for bikes, wheelchairs, strollers and luggage. RTA spent $25 million to overhaul the exteriors and mechanics of the Red Line trains during the last decade. Now, it's time to address interiors of the 40 trains, said RTA spokeswoman Mary Shaffer. Crews will work on two cars at a time, with each car taking about two weeks to remodel. The Red Line interi...

Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Lance Armstrong in the fifth stage of the Tour de France in 2004. Lance Armstrong , who this fall was stripped of his seven  Tour de France  titles for doping and barred for life from competing in all Olympic sports, has told associates and antidoping officials that he is considering publicly admitting that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. He would do this, the people said, because he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career. For more than a decade, Armstrong has vehemently denied ever doping, even after antidoping officials  laid out their case against him  in October in hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony from teammates, e-mail correspondence, financial records and laboratory analyses. When asked if Armstron...

Photo by  DDOT DC . “Biking is definitely part of our strategy to attract and retain businesses in order to compete in a mobile world,” says Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, as we glide across the Mississippi River on one of two bike-and-pedestrian bridges that connect downtown to the University of Minnesota. “We want young talent to come here and stay. And good biking is one of the least expensive ways to send that message.” As we turn onto to a riverside bike path to inspect another span, the mayor recounts a recent conversation. “I was having dinner with a creative director that a local firm was eager to hire for a key post. He was an American living in Europe, and we spent most of the evening talking about the importance of biking and walking to the life of a city,” Rybak says, smiling. “He took the job.” [Keep reading at YES]

David Stockman/AFP/Getty Images Is Belgian Niels Albert, right, on the verge of closing the gap on dominant countryman Sven Nys? BRUSSELS -- The UCI elite cyclocross world championships open one month from today in Louisville, Ky., and with two weeks of non-stop  Kerstperiode  racing in the books, the road to the Ohio River is becoming clearer every day.  Nys stumbles, Albert, Pauwels step up Two weeks and eight races ago -- though it might seem like much longer for anyone who has watched them all -- Sven Nys (Crelan-Euphony) was all but invincible. The Belgian champion had won eight of 12 races and had not finished off the podium since October. He extended his run of good results in the past two weeks during Belgium's ultra-intense  Kerstperiode  with wins in C2 races in Sint-Niklaas and Bredene, a World Cup win in Zolder and a second-place finish in Namur. But even Nys couldn't maintain his perfect record through the last two grueling weeks. He finis...

Ribcap - A day in a city. from Ribcap Head Protection on Vimeo .

Imagine that you live in a country where you can’t own land or property and all of your housing options are temporary, if you have a home at all. You just might think this Tricycle House is your perfect solution to a dwelling conundrum. [Keep reading at Jetson Green]

Retirement is a time when many active adults finally get the opportunity to spend more time on their bicycles, even taking an organized bike tour or two every summer. Rod Hutton For avid bicyclists Rod Hutton and Joe Florian, however, retirement is giving them a chance to organize and offer their own multi-day bicycle tours of scenic areas of Ohio through a company they recently formed. That company is  Buckeye Country Roads Bicycle Tours ,  and they plan to offer their first bicycle tour next summer — a 6-day ride called  Amish Country Adventure . When Rod contacted me about adding this first ride to the  Multi-day Bicycle Tour  listings at BikingBis.com, I was curious what led them to launch a bicycle tour company. [Keep reading at BikingBis]

Booming market sees over a quarter of bike owners neglecting to ask about a bike's history when buying second hand According to a survey from insurer LV=, 260,000 cyclists suspect the bike they purchased second hand in the last 12 months had been stolen. Based on an average bike price of £220, the insurer has calculated the value of the bike black market to be over £58 million. [Keep reading at Bike Biz]

Hello Everyone! It's that time of year again. Time to ensure your future plans include:  1. organizing all your medical bills for 2012 2. making the commitment to attend HATTARICK 2013  HATTARICK is always the first Saturday of the new year, except for those years when we change it, and this year its January 5. Some out there still aren't convinced this is an actual ride, and for them I suggest visiting... http://www.flickr.com/ photos/raymondmgeorge/sets/ 72157628871541639/ or... http://flic.kr/s/ aHsjy4cUTi The ride starts in Nelsonville, OH, at a Hocking College parking lot (drive clear through town, it's on the south end) next to the railroad track-bed. It's across the tracks, just west of their frontier village. The actual tracks end here, and the Hockhocking-Adena Trail To Athens (hint, hint) starts here. (Or it used to, they extended it further into Nelsonville, but we still start here cause... tradition or lack of imagination, who knows) We leave the parkin...

Emily Chappell, a former London bike courier who left her job in September 2011 to cycle around the world, has since learned a great deal and answers bike-touring questions alongside other female long-distance riders, including Helen Lloyd, Sarah Outen, and Eleanor Moseman. You'll find lots of great tips and information for traveling cyclists of any stripe: _____________________________________________________ How do you deal with the exposure of sleeping alone in a tent at night? Do you worry about getting stranded without food/water to keep you going? How do you plan your route, and find your way? What do you do when your bike breaks down? How do you get up in the morning and carry on when you’re tired or it’s really hot or really cold? How do you deal with the monotony of parts of the road? What was your scariest moment? What would you recommend on your lower half, padded shorts or not? Are women more sociable, i.e. like to achieve together, rath...

The new service from the folks who brought you Walk Score quantifies how easy it is to bike in cities across the U.S. and Canada. The highest-rated city might surprise you, especially if you can’t picture biking in the snow. U.S. cities are not known for their bikeability, especially by European standards. However, things have been slowly improving over the last few years, as new infrastructure (and bike-sharing schemes) are added, and the safety-in-numbers effect encourages new cyclists to the road. Last year, the number of protected bike lanes  almost doubled , with a similar jump expected in 2013. Still, there’s a lot of variability. While cities like  Chicago  and  Memphis  are investing heavily in cycling amenities, others are still dominated by cars and trucks. And, even within cities, there are large divergences--for example, between the bikeability of areas designated in city centers and more dangerous outer limits. ...

Adam Eldridge of Stanridge Speed has been putting in some long hours over 2012. His  facebook , flickr  and  Instagram  pages are a constant stream of images from the workshop, giving us a valuable insight into his work ethos. This cyclocross frame is the result of a whole season’s race research and prototyping, and is now ready to get very dirty. [Continue reading at Cycle EXIF]

Junkyard Cross Race from Erik Silverson on Vimeo . Get your tetanus shots, get your knobbies, and come out for the most unusual cyclocross event in the country.

The more cities spend on bike infrastructure, the more important it becomes to make sure that money is spent wisely. One way to measure success in this area is to lay down bike lanes or paths and see if ridership grows. Another is simply to ask riders what facilities they prefer. Both approaches have their drawbacks: The former assumes transportation officials know best and relies on correlations that hopefully reflect causations; the latter may put too much emphasis on hypothetical options and not enough on actual behavior. A potentially more instructive way to see what riders want from a bike route is to follow riders, in real-time, as they choose a bike route. A trio of transportation researchers led by Joseph Broach of Portland State University recently did just that. In an  upcoming issue  of Transportation Research Part A , Broach and company report a series of nuanced rider preferences that could help designers create more comprehensive bike facilities and he...

An artist and lifelong motorcyclist,  Michole Madden  combined her passions to create reCycle Clocks.  Using parts sourced from local thrift stores and yes, motorcycle repair shops, Madden constructs surprisingly cohesive,  inherently cool wall clocks  in a spectrum of colors.  Fab.com

Crashing sucks, and if you haven’t crashed, you haven’t ridden long enough. While you can’t prevent crashes, you can help make them less painful and spend less time off the bike.  The armored base layer is our first product, and is designed to help reduce the risk of collarbone and shoulder injuries in many common road bike crashes. We designed it to be worn under a traditional cycling jersey and bib. The Shirt:  Even without the armor, this would be an awesome base layer. We cut and sewn in New York City’s garment district from a North Carolina made fabric. A hidden zipper makes getting in and out a breeze, and a unique red, white and blue stitching pattern makes it scream. We use some of the best performance fabrics out there. It's an 85% Micropoly / 15% Spandex, 170 gsm blend, which is strong enough to stay in place and light enough for summer.   The Armor:   The armor in our shirts is designed and built by one of the leading suppliers to the...