BikeRumor.com

PRESS RELEASE: San Diego, Calif. Hundreds of underprivileged children will be pedaling brand new bicycles thanks to the generosity of art collectors who attended the 2009 Bike Art Spectacular reception on Saturday, November 7th. The Bike Art Spectacular raised over $14,000 during the event’s reception.

“It was a great evening,” says Dan Gindling, president of Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids, and Kimberlee’s husband. “People came to celebrate bike art, to celebrate Kimberlee. We had great food, two barbershop quartets, a caricature artist, and of course the stars of the evening: The bicycle art, which was all donated. I can’t thank the artists enough for their donations.”

The most expensive piece, “Tour de France”, a 6’ x 3’ hand-painted aluminum wall sculpture by Israeli artist Dave Gerstein, was sold to a New York collector for $6,600. The collector also bought the gallery-framed Leroy Neiman “Indoor Cycling” limited edition print for $2,575.

“I am so pleased to be able to contribute to your wonderful and worthy cause,” the collector said.

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Found this in a round-a-bout way following a story about 10 ways to become a cycling activist.  It’s a classic James A. Fitzpatrick Traveltalks: The Voice of the Globe movie about bicycle traffic in Copenhagen.  Quite interesting given how old it is, and has some history on the city as well as the bicycle culture, as well as some socialist commentary.  If you’re interested in that whole activism thing, here’s the breadcrumb trail…

Urban Simplicity –> Planet Green –> Slow Bicycle Movement

There was simply no vantage point to capture the entire crowd of cyclists that gathered in the High Point Regional Hospital parking lot.  Estimates range between 500 and 600 riders, and the photo montage above was from panning my iPhone across the start of the 50-mile group from atop a small hill (click to enlarge).

Thankfully, the ride garnered a ton of local media coverage, increasing the likelihood of more drivers seeing that there are so many people in their community that ride bicycles on the road.  Maybe the more they realize that it could be their neighbor, friend, pastor, doctor, attorney, co-worker, boss, employee or relative out there, the more they’ll realize that it’s a life on the road, not an obstacle.  Check out some of the coverage:

http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-memorial-bike-ride-091115,0,6616660.story

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/11/16/article/a_ride_to_remember_we_ride_for_dave

http://www.digtriad.com/video/default.aspx?aid=238912&storyid=133212

Heck, even CyclingNews mentioned the event in an article about Dave Zabriskie’s Yield to Life advocacy campaign, which was the benefactor of the money raised from the memorial ride:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/david-zabriskies-yield-to-life-seeks-safer-roads-for-cyclists

And if you’re big into Facebook, you can check out the massive photo gallery from the event here.  I even made it into a few of the pics and *gasp* am wearing a competitor’s jersey!  See Maurice, I told you I’d wear it!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028851&id=1006822553&ref=mf#/album.php?page=1&aid=2028851&id=1006822553

The 2009 Cranksgiving alleycat bicycle race is coming up this Saturday, November 21.  Entering its second decade of racing around while gathering cans of food and donations for the local food bank and soup kitchen.  The idea’s catching on…UrbanVelo has cranksgiving events listed for twelve other cities, and a few more added in their comments section.

Help support Southern California scholastic mountain biking and be entertained by Bob Roll, Pua Sawicki, Brian Lopes and Sid Taberlay at Cyclefest 2009 this Saturday, November 21, 2009. Check out SoCalDirt.org for ticket purchases and more info.

If you were looking forward to following the upcoming pedal-powered trip from Canada to Hawaii, here’s a little update on his latest test run:

PRESS RELEASE: A mechanical failure thwarted Calgary endurance athlete Greg Kolodziejzyk’s human-powered nautical circumnavigation of Vancouver Island Oct. 31st.

“When you attempt something that has never been done before, you are going to be learning a lot from trial and error,” said Kolodziejzyk. “I’m very happy that we were able to ‘learn’ about this problem with the gear box before my Hawaii crossing!” Crucial drive train components failed near Buckley Bay, 3.5 hours and roughly 17 kilometres after launching from the Comox (BC) Harbour. Kolodziejzyk and his partner in the record attempt, trans-Atlantic rowing veteran Jordan Hansen, were unable to make onboard repairs, forcing a premature end to the ambitious pedal-powered voyage.

“We were running out of time (for the Vancouver Island attempt) and I made some assumptions about our mechanical equipment,” explains Greg. “It took us twice as long to build this state of the art human powered boat as expected and while it was always my plan to thoroughly test this boat on Glenmore reservoir here in Calgary before setting out for sea trials on Vancouver island, we didn’t finish WiTHiN until late in October. Most lakes around here start freezing up in November, so we sort of rushed the sea trials without properly testing the drive leg out on a lake here at home first.”

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Found via BikesBelong, this is from David Hembrow’s blog about cycling in the Netherlands.  Recently, one local school banned vehicles from stopping at its curbs, effectively discouraging parents from dropping their kids off by car.  Even so, he claims the rate of car drop offs was pretty low, especially when compared to U.S. or UK trends.

Granted, the music in the video above makes it watchable, but can you imagine seeing bike traffic like that anywhere on our shores?  *dream*

FROM LEAGUE OF AMERICAN BICYCLISTS: Great news!  FTA has published a federal registry notice describing the eligibility of pedestrian and bicycle improvements for FTA funding and proposes a formal policy on the catchment area for pedestrians and bicyclists in relationship to public transportation stops and stations.

The proposed policy would expand FTA funding eligibility for bicycle and pedestrian improvements beyond the current threshold distances of one-half mile for pedestrian projects and within three miles for bicycle improvements.

To view the registry and provide comment, click here.

FROM BRAIN (Bicycle Retailer & Industry News): The instant Mike Mayefske saw the man pushing a $12,000 Pinarello Prince signature edition into Revo Cycles, he had a hunch.

And his hunch proved correct.

The man, wearing board shorts, flip-flops and no shirt, asked Mayefske to install flat pedals on the Pinarello. The man didn’t seem to know much about the bike, so Mayefske reasoned that something wasn’t quite right.

While spinning on some inexpensive Wellgos, Mayefske scribbled down the bike’s serial number and snapped a photo with his cell phone. The bike, a Prince of Spain limited edition, features a distinctive color scheme (yellow
and red) as well as a full Campy Super Record set up and Fulcrum Racing Zero wheels.

“When he asked me to put on those pedals, I thought to myself, ‘Why would he want to do that?’‚ I then casually asked where he had gotten the bike. He told me he had just moved here from Arizona and a friend had given it to him,” the 27-year-old Mayefske said.

After the man left˜paying cash for the pedals Mayefske, suspicious of the man’s story, called Gita Sporting Goods‚ local rep, Frank Raduziner. He asked Raduziner to look up the serial number to learn where the bike had first been sold.

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Easton is recalling all EA30 stems produced and sold from 2007 through 2009.  While the stems passed industry standard tests for safety, Easton has identified a problem not uncovered by those tests which it claims may cause the stem to crack and fail.

This is a voluntary recall and is effective in both the U.S. and UK.  U.S. customers and dealers can find the appropriate PDF recall notice here, and the UK version is here.

The stems were sold aftermarket and as OEM on bikes, and here’s how to tell if your stem is affected:  The production date will identify if the EA 30 stem is included in the recall. You will find a production code on the side of the clamp next to the lower clamping screw (see pictures). The production code is comprised of the calendar month (denoted by a letter A - L) and the year (denoted by a single digit). Please see the chart below for a complete listing of the markings required to identify the affected stem.

Easton’s toll-free recall info number is 866-892-6059.

Pro Downhiller Gee Atherton bares it all for the December issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine in the UK (we haven’t checked to see if the U.S. version has this, too).  The strip down is to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer charity Everyman.

If you’re not one of delicate sensibilities and want to see more of what makes him so ballsy on the bike, hit ‘more’ to see the full monty…

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NYC’s not the only major city making headway.  On Thursday, November 17, San Jose, California’s City Council will meet to (hopefully) adopt its new Bicycle Plan.

The plan would reverse decades of traffic engineering focused almost exclusively on the automobile and shift priorities to bicycles, pedestrians and public transit.  The plan includes policy objectives to double the number of on-street lanes from 250 to 500 miles, add 5,000 new bike racks and bring bicycle mode share to 5% in an effort to achieve League of American Bicyclists’ Gold level bike friendly status.  And they want to do all this by 2020.

SF.Streetsblog.org reports that San Jose has tripled bicycle mode share in the past three years to 1.2 percent, putting the city 15th among the 70 largest U.S. cities (SJDOT statistic).

According to Cyclelicio.us (which is based around San Jose), that translates into 11,000+ cyclists riding to work, and it represents a 206% increase of bicycle commuters from 2005 to 2008.

A New York City transportation study released Monday claims the number of people riding bicycles to and from work rose 26% from last year, mimicking an increase of 32% from the same period 2007 to 2008.

“Cycling in the City continues growing rapidly as our bike network expands and becomes safer,” said Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

Besides the obvious (the 200+ miles of recent bike lanes), the city continues to show it’s fully behind improving cycling opportunities with little touches: They handed out free light kits Monday to cyclists as they exited the Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges to help with the dark commutes home.

Full story on NY Daily News.

No, it doesn’t mention cycling, but it’s eye opening as to why highways are so dominant and public (mass) transportation suffers for it.  Quick takeaways:

• Mass transit accounts for 40% of transportation in areas that it serves, but only 1% of total trips by Americans.
• Half of Americans have access to public / mass transportation, and only half of those say it’s satisfactory.
• 80 years ago, the privately owned/operated railways began being taxed to subsidize the government run highways, leading to the current dominance of car-centric transportation.
• There is a misconception that transit requires subsidies, but in reality, both highways and public transit require about 50% of their operating costs to come from subsidies.

Kudos to Streetfilms.org and the other cycling bloggers for putting this out there.

Wanna ride your road bike for 24 hours on an airfield test track?  Here’s your chance: The 2010 RIDE24 endurance relay has just opened registration.  The event started this year and drew 25 teams, mostly from corporate firms, so get your shop team out there for 2010 and hammer those blue chippers.

Entry fee is £240 and includes food and drink, free massages, music and entertainment, a T-shirt and a medal (everyone’s a weiner!) and the opportunity to ride the 4.5km Top Gear test track on your bike.  Register before the end of November and it’s half off.  Proceeds benefit Action Medical Research, a children’s health charity.  The event is scheduled for June 19-20 at Dunsfold Aerodrome.