BikeRumor.com

New York City has added more than 100 miles of bike lanes over the past few years, but the latest 1.75 miles seems to be getting some people along the Brooklyn Waterfront up in arms.

The first part of a planned 14 mile bike/walk greenway to connect Greenpoint to Sunset Park, the new lanes were painted at the expense of 100 parking spots, reducing the already tight parking in NYC and making pickups and drop offs at schools and deliveries at local businesses harder.  It seems the only people happy are the cyclists, and already local officials are planning to ease things by allowing pick up/drop offs as long as the driver stays in the car.

Apparently, the most vocal griping is coming from the Hasidic (Jewish) community in the area, and they’ve taken matters into their own hands by directing school buses from the Hasidic school to park at an angle, blocking both bikes and traffic in a claimed effort to keep the children safe from wreckless riders (illegal).  They’ve also posted the homemade detour sign along the way to redirect traffic (illegal).

Of course, cyclists aren’t without their own hijinks.  In mid-December, some clowns (literally) rode around giving fake tickets to people parking in the bike lanes.  From the article on Curbed.com, this was in response to the Hasid’s complaints about “scantily clad” women riding the lanes through their neighborhood, which their religious views prevent them from appreciating looking at.

Get the rest of the story on NY Times and the New York Post. (photo from NYPost.com, totally without permission.)

Jackson County, Alabama, tourism director J.P. Parsons is pitching the idea as a way to build tourism revenue for the area…which is smart.  Not only are then in a good area for potential trail building (good terrain, close to several major urban areas), but there’s precedent for believing a quality trail network and facilities can bring riders to the area.

Our friends at BMCC in Wilkesboro, NC used an initial $10,000 grant from their local Chamber of Commerce to build the incredible Dark Mountain and Over Mountain Victory Trails, and they continue to build more.  This has helped the area land several large events (BURN 24 Hour) and let’s the club host their own events.  Ski resorts like Mammoth, Whistler (photo above is from Whistler’s online gallery) and more use their growing mountain bike parks to keep business up when the snow melts.

Even IMBA supports the concept and offers seminars and training for areas that want to develop mountain bike parks and resorts.

Read “more” to see a map of the area…

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Following in the footsteps of NYC, Washington’s Golden Triangle Business Improvement District is calling for entries to design creative and functional bike racks for the area.  The winning designer gets $1,500 and a two night stay in a posh DC hotel, and the pride of having their design installed across the city.

Entries are due February 9, 2009 at 5pm, and the winning design will be selected in March.  Download the informational/entry form PDF here.

Seriously, we get a huge amount of “stolen bicycle” stories coming across the wire, but this is ridiculous:

(AP) A former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner who helped create a program to combat bicycle theft had his own bike stolen while trying to help people involved in a vehicle crash.

Tim Smith said he witnessed the traffic accident as he was cycling to the beach on Monday. He said he left his bike on the sidewalk to rush to the cars involved. But after finding both drivers uninjured, he went to retrieve his bike and discovered it was gone.

To add insult to injury, Smith, as a commissioner, had successfully pushed for a citywide bike registration program to help police track stolen bikes. But when he contacted police to report his own stolen bike, he had to admit it was not registered.

Read our earlier post for more details on the proposed policy change.

• Register 20,000 public comments supporting the rule change (File YOUR comment here…it takes two minutes).
• Attend meetings across the country with key stakeholders.
• Continue reaching out to trail user groups to discuss the improvements the rule change will bring to National Parks.
• Click here to Donate Now.
• Click here to send your Comment to the NPS

Chris King, Nutcase Helmets, Vanilla Cycles and Bike Friday are just a few of the cycling companies based in and around Portland, Oregon, and the January 2009 issue of Oregon Business covers the explosion of the industry there and the cycling culture that surrounds it.

Bikeportland.com, a local cycling blog, was quoted as saying they’ve had to hire additional reporters to help cover all the cycling news in the area.  Vanilla Cycles apparently has a five year waiting list (maybe that’s why he hasn’t responded to our interview request from November…).

The article also discusses the spill over benefit of such a mad cycling culture.  More jobs are created in industries like alternative power, organic farming and craft brewing.  Some of these new companies or industries may not stand the test of time, but they help to alleviate the rash of job losses in automotive-related industries (car and RV dealers, etc.).  Portland also enjoys a tourism boost by hosting the Bicycle Film Festival, Oregon Manifest and countless cyclocross and other events.  In fact, Bend, OR, was just awarded the ‘cross nationals for 2009 and 2010. 

It doesn’t come right out and say it, but I walked away with several reasons why a strong cycling culture improves the local economy.  There’s a good lesson to be learned for those working to improve their own local cycling culture through transportation planning and local policy.  Read “more” for that and the link to the full story… 

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Aaron Fotheringham set a Guinness World Record for most consecutive backflips…in a wheelchair.  There’s actually video of him pulling off this trick from about two years ago, so the news here is the world record in October, and that he was just given $20,000 on Fox’s “Secret Millionaire” television reality show.

In an Las Vegas Sun article, Fotheringham said he plans to use the money to start Hardcore Sitting Company, a business idea to help others in wheelchairs realize their athletic potential. 

Trek Bicycle has partnered with World Bicycle Relief and a USAID-funded, World Vision-led coalition of relief organizations to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zambia. With an overall goal of providing 23,000 bicycles to community-based healthcare workers, disease prevention educators, and school children and their families, World Bicycle Relief’s Project Zambia is working to ensure that healthcare and education reach those directly affected by HIV/AIDS. Project Zambia also strives to train and equip more than 400 bicycle mechanics in the field as well as provide micro-finance loans to those in need. It is estimated that the program will positively affect more than 500,000 adults, orphans and children.

In October and November of 2008, Elaine Burke, philanthropist and mother of Trek Bicycle President John Burke, traveled throughout Zambia with World Bicycle Relief founder F. K. Day (shown above training two locals in bicycle repair) and a team of relief-worker volunteers.

“Our goal was to identify and then distribute bicycles to those who could benefit most from them,” said Burke. “We visited schools, healthcare workers, and businesses across the country to explain the program and identify those who could really use a bike.”

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A team from Appalachian State University’s industrial design department won Juicy Idea’s national competition with a bicycle made of used plastic bottles.  With just ten days to develop something that can change the world using only one item commonly thrown away (they were told at the start of the 10 days what object they would have to use).

For a full list of runners up and links to their videos, check the press release here.  Second place, also from a NC college, was a wind turbine made of plastic bottles, and one of the others was something to recover ocean “dead zones” due to fertilizer run off.  These are some pretty spectacular achievements considering a) they’re college teams and b) they only had 10 days to do it, but one of the factors they were judged on were scalability, so I’m guessing that’s what put the bike project on the podium.

Click “more” to see a pic of their bike…

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IMBA has issued a call to action.

If you’re interested in preserving and creating opportunities to mountain bike the National Parks, you need to act now.  There is a lot of opposition to this from the usual suspects (hikers, equestrians, etc.), and they’re well organized and vicious.

Read “more” for the full press release, but this is the deal:  There is a proposed rule change that will give individual park managers more decision making authority over whether to allow mountain biking in their National Park.  The benefit is that decisions are made on the local level based on local usage, trail conditions and environmental concerns.

Critics don’t like this because they still (ignorantly) believe that mountain bikers erode trails and they don’t like the concept of shared-use trails (which, honestly, is understandable…but then again, we don’t want to ride horse trails either).  The real threat to opponents, though, is this:  If decisions are made on a local level, they will have to fight battles on a case by case basis all over the country to try to keep mountain bikers off the trails.  Right now, they simply pay a lobbyist to go to D.C.  If this makes you as angry as it makes me, click here to use IMBA’s auto-fill form with a prewritten letter.  Seriously, it takes two minutes.

If you want to read an opposing view, there’s this post from NationalParksTraveler.com…but the funny thing is, most of the comments following the article do not support their anti-mountain bike rant.  Actually, there are some pretty well written, well researched comments…worth perusing if you have ten to 15 minutes. 

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From Bike Pure:
Bike Pure are pleased to announce that Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team have requested to be part of our anti-doping campaign adding to our growing list of teams and riders. The team’s Commercial Manager Frank
Kwanten confirmed their inclusion in a statement to Bike Pure recently.

The new Dutch Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team recently added Dane Martin Mortensen to it’s team. Mortensen won a stage in this years Boucle de L’Artois, the Trophée Arras and the Duo Normand. Dutchman Gerben
Löwik and Italian Matteo Carrara are also new additions to the team for 2009. 31-year-old Löwik recently rode for Rabobank while the 29-year-old Carrara makes the transfer from Quick Step.

Cyclo-cross international Thijs van Amerongen is already a Bike Pure listed rider so it is great news to get his complete team on board in support of our anti-doping campaign. We wish them every success for 2009.

The team’s page will be listed on our site in the coming days but in the meantime please visit Vacansoleil’s official site at www.vacansoleilcyclingteam.co.uk

From the League of American Bicyclists:

Congress is currently putting together an economic stimulus package to have ready when the new Congress returns in early January. While public details of the forthcoming stimulus bill is not available, we are hearing that there is a chance that funds for transportation and infrastructure projects in the stimulus package may go overwhelmingly to road projects-the same unbalanced strategy that has created our existing transportation problems. 

We must speak up now to make sure that the economic stimulus language maintains the established transportation funding allocations including the Transportation Enhancement set aside which is the primary source for bicycle and pedestrian projects. 

Please take a moment and hit the link below to the take action and contact your Congressional Member now (very easy, takes 1 minute). 

http://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=12324346&queueid=

Editor’s note: I did it, it takes less than a minute, and it’ll automatically deliver it to the right congressman (or woman) for your territory.

If you want to read a lot of CPA tax jargon while learning how to claim a transportation benefit, check out this article by WebCPR editor Howard Wolosky.

Now, you can get the answer to that question you’ve been dying to ask someone:

“What is a qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement fringe benefit?”

Personally, I say the answer is “that good feeling you get from exercise.”  But, according to Uncle Sam, it’s an employer reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during the calendar year for the purchase and repair of a bicycle, bicycle improvements and bicycle storage, provided (here we go) that the bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employement.

Does that mean I can get credit for some new King hubs on my commuter bike?

Although this interview has been in progress for about a week, it’s a great followup to the NYC Critical Mass post below.

I spoke with Atlanta’s Courteous Mass ride organizers, Jeff McMichael and Jett Marks, about their softer version of Atlanta’s Critical Mass, about the ride and why they differentiate it from a typical CM.  They’re both daily, year-round bike commuters, are members of the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign and work with a few local bicycle groups.  In other words, they’re pretty much like you and I, except they’re doing the right things to get more people on bikes…

BIKERUMOR: Are you the organizer for Atlanta’s Critical Mass or Courteous Mass?

JEFF: I am helping to organize the Atlanta Courteous Mass Rides. I seek opinions on routes and other matters, and post announcements on various local websites.

Critical Mass is a ‘leaderless ride’, often with just the people in front going where they want.

BIKERUMOR: Sounds like Fight Club…you don’t talk about Critical Mass, or at least not the “organization” behind it. Why not?

JEFF: I think this quote from the Wikipedia Critical Mass article says it better than I could:

“The “disorganized” nature of the event allows it to largely escape clampdown by authorities who may view the rides as forms of parades or organized protest. Additionally, the movement is free from the structural costs associated with a centralized, hierarchical organization. In order for the event to function, the only requirement is a sufficient turn-out to create a “critical mass” of riders dense enough to occupy a piece of road to the exclusion of drivers of motorized vehicles, pedestrians, and other road users.”

Read “more” for the links, pics and the rest of the interview…

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