International Win for Susan day

Here's an absolutely lovely idea from David Schloss on Bike Hugger. Let's observe August 23rd as the International Win for Susan Day. Wear your LiveStrong bracelet, Fat Cyclist apparel, or simply a homemade sign. Let's try to raise more money for cancer research in Susan's memory.

This was David's idea. Go thank him for it.

(...and Fritz, I hope you don't mind me sneaking in to post this!.....Ed)

Lunch with Paul Andrews

Semi-retired journalist Paul Andrews is visiting the Bay Area from his Seattle home. He used to write for the San Jose Mercury News back in the stone ages before he packed his bags to become the technology columnist for the Seattle Times.

We had lunch at Cafe Borrones in Menlo Park where he told me about his bike rides with Jobst Brandt (mountain dirt trails on skinny road tires), Dave Scott (super nice guy who pulled the entire ride, kind of like Fabian Cancellara pulled Saxo Bank during the Team Time Trail), Greg LeMond (ran into him once), and other Bay Area cycling legends.

In 2000, Paul met blogging pioneer Dave Winer and tried out Winer's early blogging software. "I tried it out and was blown away," writes Paul in his old tech column. "For a career journalist, blogging was like dropping a newsroom, printing press and fleet of trucks in my lap," so he began blogging about bikes and other topics at the turn of this century, which is five years before I began blogging about bicycle issues in Boulder County, Colorado. As far as I can tell, the other "oldest" bike blog is The Cycling Dude who began publishing, I believe, in 2003 or 2002 (Kiril, please feel free to correct me).

These days, Paul Andrews blogs as The Bike Intelligencer. He knows road biking and the people involved and there's good stuff to read over there -- I've added it to my RSS feed.

Jon Winston of Bikescape

More bike blogging people: Say hello to Jon Winston of the Bikescape Cycling Podcast.



Jon lives in San Francisco and mostly covers urban issues, transportation and how they relate to cycling. You can see him carrying portable recording equipment to record his podcasts on the fly. Go find some good stuff at his blog.

Logan was his name-o

These are Amanda and Doc Logan in Sacramento.



Logan blogs about cycling and other stuff from Sacramento. I've known him online for probably two or three years and it's always great to meet these people in person.

Amanda rides a Schwinn Madison; Logan's bike is an old Raleigh. Big props to them because this was at a big bike blogger meetup in Sacramento and these two were the only ones who *ahem* rode their bikes there.

Drop by and say hello to Logan.

The BR&IN has a blog

In a surprisingly transparent article about the fears she has jumping into the world of blogging, Bicycle Retailers and Industry News editor Megan Tompkins expresses her skepticism about new media while acknowledging the influence blogs can have in politics and business.

You can find the BR&IN blog here, and so far it looks like they've got things right: comments, RSS feed, and transparency. Good work, Ms. Tompkins, I'm looking forward to more.

Bicycle Retailers and Industry News is the publication for bike retailers, covering all aspects of the bicycle industry ranging from the state of retail sales to labor rates in China. The BR&IN is published by the National Bicycle Dealers Association and is run by people in the bike business. If you can snag a copy it has some fascinating stuff.

Streetsblog Network

Streetsblog announced the the Streetsblog Network, which brings together more than than 100 blogs to create a place where people who blog on smart growth, livable streets and sustainable transportation issues can come together and learn from each other.

California blogs in the Streetsblog Network so far include Green Wheels in Humboldt County, The Overhead Wire in San Francisco, San Francisco Cityscape, the new and excellent San Francisco Bike Blog, Transbay Blog (SF), Fresno Bike Coalition, Bicycle Fixation (LA), Bottleneck Blog (LA), Gary Rides Bikes (LA), LA County Bicycle Coalition, Streetsblog LA, The Bus Bench in Los Angeles, LA Visions, Metro Rider LA, and Long Beach Cyclists.

Nipple Works

Nipple Works sells their Jersey Bag, a heavy duty plastic bag to keep your stuff dry and with a friction strip so it doesn't bounce out of your jersey pocket.

The Nipple Works bloggers blog mostly about bicycle gear stuff -- clothing, wheels, women's underwear, and cyclocross -- with lots of stuff as seen in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you're not familiar with "P" and "D" go check them out.

People of Interbike 2008

RoadBikeReview and MTBR have their Virtual Tradebooths; I'll do my Virtual Social Meetup.

Ron of BikeWorldNews, Dennis Bean of Fixed Gear Gallery, and Steve Woo of Sportgenic.



Mia of Momentum Magazine and Brad of Urban Velo.



Fossil Fool rocks the best party at the Las Vegas Criterium. Behind him is Benjamin of Yuba Bikes.



Tyler of Bike Rumor.



Brian of Raleigh looks dapper with his Nan of Joy Rider Clothing.



Tracy, Stacy, and Tanya are the Vegas Criterium Umbrella Girls.



For more photos, see my Urban Legends Fashion Show bike photos over at Commute By Bike.

Yehuda Fritz?

I think VeliPete might have me confused with somebody else :-)

Just a note that I periodically like to give a shout out to everybody who links to me when they do it, but I've noticed that, lately, Technorati seems to miss a lot of these backlinks. Blogger.com doesn't really handle trackbacks that well, either, and I have way too much invested in using Blogger.com to change blogging platforms now. If you link to a post in Cyclelicious, please don't be shy about leaving a comment here so I know about the link love and I'll send it back your way.

Recent links that I know about have come from

Backcountry Goat,
Bicycle Design,
Carbon Trace,
Interbike Times,
Bike Commute Tips,
Lion Hug,
Tomorrow Morning's Weather, Bicycle Musings,
Le 1er Magazine Web du Vélo Urbain,
Pedaleiro,
Get Outdoors,
Dooby Brain,
Liberation Cycling,
Urban Velo, and
Green Caltrain.

There are others, but I've already mentioned them in other posts. :-) And let's hope I didn't mess up all of those links too badly :-)

Now lets hope this bicycle blog doesn't get marked as a link farm!

Bikes and rumors of bikes

Tyler of BikeRacer.com races in the Fool's Gold mountain bike race the weekend of August 15.

Bike Rumor started in June of this year as a source of news, product information, and product rumors in the bike industry.

Tyler of Greensboro, North Carolina is the publisher of Bike Rumor. He has been an avid cyclist since 1995, when he picked it up as a junior in college. "I raced a lot for about eight years," says Tyler. "Then I had kids and realized that cycling was more fun when it was just for fun and fitness, not racing."

"While I enjoy the competitive spirit, my riding is focused around fun rather than keeping in top physical form for a 90 minute race."

Welcome Tyler to the biking blogosphere. Drop by and say hello.

SSWC08: Singlespeed World Championship photos

Photographer Carson Blume spent the weekend in Napa and shot some nice photos from SSWC08.

Elsewhere on his photo blog he's posted some nice Tour of Utah photos. His cycling blog is in a way Yet Another Ride Statistics journal, but the elevation profiles and GPS tracks are punctuated with wonderful photography of the scenery and cyclists in and around Santa Barbara, California. His photos encourage me to get out and ride!

Eco Velo

The Bike Hugger gave me a big hug earlier this week -- in a list of his Top 10 Bike Blog List, guess who he put at the very top of the list? That makes Yokota Fritz feel so wonderful that it's worth a big photo of the Bike Hugger Team here; the tall guy in the middle -- Rich Kelly of Interbike -- is I guess an honorary Bike Hugger. Byron's the dude in the blue cap.



The other blogs Byron mentioned are high on my list also, but I wasn't familiar with #2 on his Top 10 -- Eco Velo from Sacramento.

Alan and Michael utilize bicycles as transportation to reduce their impact on the environment. Eco Velo is the public expression of their commitment to reduce their impact on the environment by employing bicycles as their primary mode of transport. They use Eco Velo to share what they learn from this endeavor while celebrating the beauty of the bicycle and the joys of everyday bike riding. Alan an Michael hope to inspire others to make a similar commitment through Eco Velo. So do I!

---

Remember, this weekend August 23-24 2008 is the Single Speed World Championship in Napa, California. Most of the bikes in this race are singlespeed mountain bikes, but singlespeed and and fixed gear cyclocross, road and "other" bikes also take part. It should be fun stuff.

Bikes as transportation

Mark Stosberg of Richmond, Indiana uses his bicycles for transportation.



He's pretty active in the blogosphere commenting on other people's blogs. He's gathered up his bicycling material and put them together into a new blog, Bikes For Transportation.

Cycling in Wichita, Kansas

I've only been to Wichita, Kansas once in my life. My dad's family is in the area south of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Wichita is due north of Oklahoma City not far from the Oklahoma / Kansas border. I recall freeways, industrial sections of town, a riverfront, and aircraft industries on the edge of the city.

We drove through Wichita on our way to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, KS. The largest collection of Russian space junk in America is there in the middle of Amish country.

John B in Wichita, Kansas, is a relative newbie to bicycle commuting. His blog Cycling in Wichita, has a growing local readership of people who are interested in raising their visibility and the consciousness of Wichitans in their decidedly not bike-friendly town.

"We are interested in exploring some of the implications of cycling as a lifestyle choice," says John. "How does choosing to cycle change how one thinks about one's community?"

Cycling in Wichita is less a blog about reviews of equipment and practical advice on cycling than it is about John's reflections on how cycling can change a person's state of mind, with a little advocacy thrown in.

Drop by and give those cyclists in the heartland a hello. Cycling in Wichita, Kansas.

Bike world news

Ron in Cincinnati, Ohio publishes Bike World News. Ron focuses mainly on UCI Pro Tour racing, but he also look at cycling culture, technology and new products. His latest post, for example, is on one of my favorite road bikes, the Specialized Roubaix SL2. He even writes of the Roubaix that it has that "perfect balance of stiffness and vertical compliance." What else do you need to know about a bike?

Bike World News.

New Orleans by bike

Kate Drabinski in New Orleans has a delightful blog: What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today. She rides her bike around New Orleans, photographing the people, the scenery, and the activities of post-Katrina NOLA and posts them online.

Father and son to trace ancestors trails by bike

Matt Stewart and his dad David are going on a bike trip this summer through Eastern Europe in search of family roots. They plan to trace the travels of Jewish relatives who fled Europe for New York in the first part of the 20th century. Starting in Warsaw and ending in Odessa, it'll be a physically and emotionally demanding trip traveling a part of the world his ancestors fled in fear decades ago. Not a bad ride either when you consider Matt's dad is 57 years old.

See Stewart Bike Trip: Odessa or bust for the tale of their journey.

Bicycle blogs

I don't remember if I've mentioned The CyclePig yet. He has good stuff. Go check him out.

Other Bicycle Blogs that I don't think I've mentioned before.

Vik's Big Dummy is all about pictures of people riding the Surly Big Dummy.

Charlotte in Boston blogs as Chic Cyclist and posts photos of women in short skirts riding their bikes around her town.

Sub 20 OLH. Because he wants to do Old La Honda Road on the San Francisco Peninsula in less than 20 minutes, which puts him in a different class than me; I'm the guy holding the flashing rear end device red lantern at the back of the train. The record for OLH is something like 15 minutes I think.

Hayduke Bikes blogs from Santa Cruz. He's one of those bearded dudes who's been riding bikes since before I was born.

Chris Cowan is another Bay Area cyclist.

Sabine Duke blogs to Bella Babble. She's a cyclist in Santa Cruz and also a good photographer.

Empathy Test wants to ride his bicycle more.

Lego Andy is another Bay Area cyclist with things to write about cycling.

Random Dreams is my former riding partner in Colorado and a good friend.

I've mentioned CycleDog a plenty, but today you need to see his special announcement from a sponsor.

Norcal bicycle blogs that you read

On the survey, I asked what northern California bicycle blogs you visited. Personally, I think of NorCal is the region north of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, but in common usage the SF Bay Area and even the Monterey Bay area are included -- I see a lot of Nor*Cal logos on trucks and surfboards around Santa Cruz, for instance. For Cyclelicious I'll use the common usage because, frankly, there aren't that many people in Chico, Redding, Eureka and Arcata, California.

Here are the blogs you mentioned:

• Jim G's SF Cyclotouring is about cycle touring from San Francisco.
  
  
• Ramblings from Cyclofiend in the Bay Area.
  
  
• How To Avoid the Bummerlife is Swobo's hugely popular, professionally written and slickly produced marketing blog out of Marin County, California.
  
  
• Somebody mentioned Naoto's Hole In The Wall blog. I happen to work at the same company as Naoto.
  
  
• 295 Bus is about transportation issues on the Peninsula.
  
  
• NorCal MTB Racing
  
  
• Get Hot 81 is a San Francisco Bicycle Messenger.
  
  
• Velogirl bikes around San Mateo, California.
  
  
• Paul Dorn writes Bike Commute Tips Blog from Sacramento, California.
  
  
• BikeScape on bikes and space.

Elsewhere in California

• Somebody mentioned that Commute By Bike covers cycling as transportation in the South Bay, and that's because I'm a contributor there.
  
  
• Somebody also mentioned C.I.C.L.E., which is a very good resource that I follow in Los Angeles.

There are, of course, several others in Northern California and elsewhere around the Golden State. Feel free to post links to your favorites and your own blogs in the comments!

Thank you for taking the survey

Thank you to all of you who took the Cyclelicious survey. I'll look over the responses over the weekend. I really appreciate that you've given me your thoughts about Cyclelicious and I really appreciate the encouragement that several of you gave.

I've selected a winner and sent notification this evening. I used a random number generator from Random.org to select from among the email addresses that were entered.

Thanks again!

I'm fairly busy this week, so I'll direct your attention to a new bike blog I ran across: Cycle Pig. CyclePig is Pete, and his site is not about racing or the serious side of cycling; it’s about how to have fun on a bike. Whether you are a recreational cyclist or long distance cycle tourer you will find hints and tips that will help you get more out of your cycling.