The Bicycle Film Festival rolls into Portland, OR, this week for movies, parties, goldsprints and an alleycat.  Here’s the sked, hit up their website to buy tickets.

FRIDAY 31 JULY CLINTON STREET THEATER
7:00 PM | PROGRAM 1 – Where Are You Go
9:00 PM | PROGRAM 2 – Fun Bike Shorts
10:00 PM | GOLDSPRINTS – Rotture

SATURDAY 1 AUGUST CLINTON STREET THEATER
4:00 PM | BFF ALLEYCAT
4:00 PM | PROGRAM 3 – The Third Wheel – Trailer
6:00 PM | PROGRAM 4 – I Love my Bicycle: Story of FBM Bikes
8:00 PM | PROGRAM 5 – Urban Bike Shorts
9:00 PM | AFTER PARTY EXTRAVAGANZA – Branx

What I wanna know is this: How does Austin (Aug. 5 – 9) manage to have five days of bicycle film-related festivities with no less than four after parties when Portland only has two days and one after party?

Sometimes the info the manufacturer sends is just so elegant it’d be a crime to rewrite it.  Here, straight from Fisher’s brand manager is the dealio on the all new 2010 Gary Fisher Cronos road bike:

Story here is that Gary Fisher is doing a carbon road bike, the Cronus. Light and stiff. Of course. 900 gram frame for a 56. Some robust downtube and chainstays for front to back stiffness. Then we took it one step further and redesigned the whole front end of the bike. The Fisher Control Column (FCC) touches the entire steering column to produce the best handling bike out there.

Tapered E2 (1-1/8″ to 1-1/2″) Headtube with a wide stance, reinforced fork.

Bontrager FCC Hub with wider, taller flanges, larger 25mm endcaps, and outboard J-bend spokes for a wider bracing angle.

It all adds up to less front end deflection for a truer tracking ride. 27% less front end deflection than 2009 best in class product.

Then we also wanted to create a bike that we could race on the weekends, but also train on Mon-Fri. Raceable utility. But we weren’t going to compromise weight or aesthetics. That said, Fisher road bikes have the ability to run full coverage fenders in less than ideal conditions. The fender mounts screw into the frame when you need them and can be backed out when the sun is shining or it’s time to get lean and fast. Threaded brake nuts allow you to attach your fenders without removing your brakes.  Also, external cable routing and a standard 27.2 seatpost make Fisher bikes readily serviceable.

More pics, our own words and pricing after the break…

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Artist Marten Wallgren, along with Il Choi, David Seesing and Miika Hekkinen, recently won a Seymore Powell award in the Future City Mobility design competition with their comprehensive “London Garden” transportation vision. (click image to enlarge if you want to read all the fine print)

Centered around the concept of removing cars from a central part of London to create the “London Garden,” the plan revolves around electric bicycles that function as bikes, scooters, bus seats and energy generators.

The bike would be rideable with or without electric assist, and could be switched to an Exercise mode that would allow the rider to generate additional electricity, which could then be used as credit for bus or taxi fare when the bike was nested into the vehicle to transfer its energy.  Additionally, the bus stops would be energy generation stations, and the bikes would be held in “trees” to help collect wind power while the rest of the structure captured solar and water power.

It’s quite a concept, and it’s shown very well in their illustrations and photos after the break…

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Ever wonder what it takes to deliver the kind of power Mark Cavendish generates into the pedals without tweaking the frame into oblivion?  Well, this prototype Shimano Pro stem certainly helps….it’s massive!

(I grabbed the pic from Bikeradar…I think…sorry for not crediting)

While we’re on the subject of other bicycle bloggers, most of whom have been around longer than us (we’re only one year old this month!), Fat Cyclist has updated that his wife ain’t doing so well.  In case you aren’t familiar with him, here’s the elevator summary:

Elden (aka ‘Fatty’) became fat and out of shape.  He started a blog to tell people how fat he was while riding himself back into shape. He now has monstrous quads and a sweet bike jersey.  He has four kids and a wife.  He’s a prolific supporter and fundraiser for Livestrong because his wife is suffering from Metastatic Breast Cancer. He’s issued a challenge to Lance Armstrong, trying to get him to wear Fat Cyclist arm warmers at Leadville 100 this year if his group can raise $500,000 for the Livestrong Challenge.  They’re at $430,885 right now.

Unfortunately, lately his wife’s condition has been tumbling downhill.  If you have a minute, any words of support via a comment on his site are surely appreciated.

BikeSnobNYC, the anonymous critic of all things unfashionable in the cycling world, was featured in Sunday’s NY Times newspaper (the online article was actually published two days earlier).

The big news of the article is the forthcoming book, to be published by Chronicle Books next Spring, in which The Bike Snob said he would probably acknowledge his real name.  Of course, the cynic in us wants to say it’s a clever way of hyping his book (as if a NY Times article isn’t enough).  Truth is, taking away the anonymity will likely take away a large part of the aura that he’s cultivated since launching his blog in 2000.

Congrats on the press, and on the column in Bicycling…here’s hoping you stay anonymous.

(photo by Christian Hansen for NYT)

A fancy new toy arrived at our office last week…the Storck Absolutist 1.0.  My first ride, a quick jaunt to the movie store to pickup Watchmen turned into a 20 mile joy ride.  Full review in a month-ish, but first impression is “Wow!”

Look Cycles, which signed an official pedal sponsorship agreement with 2009 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador this year, provided him with these custom painted yellow Look KéO 2 Max for Sunday’s ride into Paris.

The KéO 2 Max is Look’s newest pedal, featuring a more resistant more resistant INOX stainless steel contact surface area (that’s also 12% larger) versus the KéO Carbon. Weight is 120g for Carbon and 125g for Composite. They have dual seals, a carbon injected pedal body and an oversize axle. KéO grip cleats provide walking confidence with built in rubber contacts.

Click ‘more’ for another picture…

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Sometimes it IS a plate.

Photo and caption from Slonie‘s flickr photostream.

The plate was used during a Bikemonkey Lake Sonoma Series race.

For more Pics Of The Day, click here.

Seriously…I can’t figure this top bike out.  Click on the image to enlarge, leave a comment if you have any idea what happened to this poor velociped.  Maybe it was a Livestrong bike art project gone awry.  Terribly, terribly awry.

Thanks to Steph for the pic!

This interview was conducted about three hours after the end of the tour…this is just the 45 second version.  CNN has the full 3:51 version but it’s not a version we can embed here thanks to the scripting.

Takeaway Lance quotes (some from the longer version):

“Well, I wanted to come in first. But sometimes in sports, there’s somebody that’s better.”

“A 38 year old man does not wake up like a 28 year old man.”

…and from Dr. Gupta:

“A couple things worth pointing out, Lance’s heart and lungs are different than most people. He pumps about 9 gallons per minute versus 5 gallons for a normal healthy 20 year old.  Also, with every breath he takes he gets about twice as much oxygen as anyone else, which could be advantageous.”

Gee…do ya think?

The NY Times posted a story today citing a study of tractor trailer drivers studied and video recorded for 18 months that showed a 23x increase in collision risk, as tallied by actual or near collisions.  Think about that…it’s not 23%…it’s 23 TIMES!

The study showed that in the instance before the collision or near collision, the driver had their eyes on the phone (and off the road) for an average of 5 seconds, or enough time to cover a football field at highway speeds.  A similar study showed that teens and others typically have their eyes off the road for about 5 seconds, too, when texting.

14 states ban texting while driving, including CA, AK, LA, NJ and NC, but some states say there’s not enough evidence to ban texting while driving, primarily because until very recently (and many still don’t), most police responding to an accident didn’t ask whether the driver(s) was/were talking or texting on a cell phone at the time of the accident.  And, of course, we’re all better drivers than the next person…we don’t need to stop, they do.

Comic by Mike Luckovich.