This bike is a pipe bomb

While I've been globetrotting, other bicycle bloggers have been reporting the news.

• Certain stickers may result in confiscation of your bike. As if a real bomber would actually label the purpose of his device.
  
• Americans rock at Paris-Nice. See the racing blogs for coverage: VeloChimp, Cyclosm, Podium Cafe.
  
• Change a bicycle tube without getting your hands dirty.
  
• Fat Cyclist gets a job. I may be moving in the near future also for the same reason Fattie is moving. It's also why I've been jetting all over the U.S. for the past three weeks.
  
• Photos from lots of sources from the Hand Built Bicycle Show in San Jose. Pretty pretty stuff!
  
• I've thought the same thing about the goofy bluetooth earpieces. (Other unkind commentary deleted by me).
  
• Video of a Honda launched with a trebuchet. Via Randomdreams.
  
• Grassy Knoll recap: 1540 photos and videos of the Tour of California!
  
• Masi Guy interview at Diva Marketing blog. This is a must read, folks.
  
• Bicycle powered washing machine.

Austin Velodrome Project

USA Olympic cycling may move to Austin

The non-profit Austin Velodrome Project wants to build a $35 million indoor velodrome in Austin, Texas. That's great news for American track cycling and promotion. It may be bad news for cycling in Colorado Springs, the current headquarters for USA Cycling. Gerard Bisceglia, head of USA Cycling, said he would consider a move to Austin should a state-of-the-art VeloDrome be created. "It would be a great opportunity to be (in Austin) as a national cycling center instead of as a tenant at the Olympic Training Center," said Bisceglia. "Our sport is beginning to ascend to the point where we need to have our own home."

There are some downsides to a potential move of the US Olympic team to Austin. In my opinion, the roads around Austin are worse for cycling than the area around Colorado Springs (and I've ridden around both cities). USA Cycling would lose it's proximity to the U.S. Olympic Committee. This article about the proposed velodrome cites the fact that athletes can't benefit from high altitude training, but there is no benefit to high altitude training so that one isn't a valid concern.

The Austin Velodrome Project will probably seek taxpayer financing. This xenophobic blogger will have nothing of that. Ms. Jerri Ward (AKA Sue Bob) writes, "I would hate to see businesses or parks or ballfields that Austin residents have been enjoying for years, swept away to attract outsiders." Ironically, Ms. Ward wrote quite a bit just two weeks ago about her travels to the Big Bend area of Texas, where she is, presumably, an outsider and where the roads and national park facilities were built primarily for the benefit of outsiders such as Ms. Ward. I'm pretty certain my Uncle Robert B. -- who ranches near Marfa -- would consider Ms. Ward an intruder.

See related: austin, texas, velodrome, colorado+springs, usa+cycling, olympic

Denver Post seeks input from bloggers

Steve Raabe is the energy and utilities reporter for the Business News department of the Denver Post. He's not at all familiar with blogging, but he's involved in a project in which the Post uses the blogosphere to try to find leads and insights on the beats the he and his colleagues cover. Although Cyclelicious is a bicycle blog, we often mention energy issues of energy here, especially where they intersect with transportation policy.

So how about it? Steve has already written stories for the Denver Post concerning Peak Oil, rising utility and heating costs, high gasoline prices and so forth. Is there a good business angle regarding energy (and perhaps bicycles) and its impact on business in Colorado that Steve should write about? If so, he solicits your input. His email address is sraabe@denverpost.com.

See related: denver+post, energy, blogging, media

Bike-less in Seattle

Actually, I was in Bellevue for a day, but Seattle is nearby. I walked all around what seemed to be the downtown area, watched several city buses and tons of cars everywhere. After about three hours outside in pleasant, partly cloudy and maybe 30 minutes of very light rain, I saw exactly one bicycle. The bicycle was sitting parked in a parking garage. In spite of very mild temperatures in the low 50s, this bicycle has pogies mounted on the handlebars. Who needs pogies in Puget Sound? It's not like it ever gets cold there.

See related: pogie, seattle, bellevue, washington

Many mispleddings of Cyclelicious

Common misspelling of this bicycle blog: [cycle licious] cyclelicoius cyclelicous cylelicius cyclicious cyclelic.us cycle.lici.us

Who honestly remembers where the dot goes in "de.licio.us" without having to think about it? Does it ever trip you up?

I admit that even my own domain name, Cyclelicio.us, gets misspelled when I leave comments on other blogs. That dot in between two letters is not something my 72 wpm fingers are accustomed to typing and they stumble when forced to move in weird and different directions.

It's interesting, however, that a good number of visitors to Cyclelicious come after searching for the term "Cyclelicious." I guess it's something like brand awareness -- you remember the name of this blog, but you can't remember exactly where the dot is supposed to go. I imagine several people also remember something about Cyclelicious-something, but can't figure out how to spell the word. I've probably lost them forever unless they run across me by accident.

I do the same thing when I visit the websites of my local bike shops. I Google for high gear cyclery. Or is it higher gear cyclery? High gear cycles? Or maybe it's high gear bikes.

Bike shop webmasters, you're completely familiar with the name of your bike shop, but your customers -- even loyal customers -- may not remember exactly what your bike shop is named. If your web traffic is important to you, think about optimizing your site for some alternative names for your shop. If you run "The Bike Mart," your customers might be hunting for Bicycle Mart, Cycle Mart, or even BikeMart. Locally, we have a shop that is called Acme Bikes. I think -- it might be Acme Bicycles, or Acme Bike, Acme Cycling, or Acme Cycle -- I'm not really sure without looking in the phone book.

Your customers will probably eventually find your website, but you might as well make it easier for them to get to you. Here's an evil thought: create a web page based on a misspelling of your competitor's bike shop name.

If you're not convinced, check out Google's data on misspellings of Britney Spears. If people use a legitimate variation of a word rather than a misspelling, Google's spelling correction won't kick in.

Here's a hint if you do forget how to spell Cyclelicious: Do a search for bicycle blog. Cyclelicious will be on the first page at least for the important search engines.

See related: seo, sem

Winter Park, Colorado

I've been at a conference near Granby, Colorado this past several days, hence the lack of posts here on Cyclelicious. I spent a day and a half skiing at Winter Park Ski Resort. Near the end of the day today I wiped out in a mogul field and pulled something in the back of my leg. It was too painful to ski but I did it anyway. By the time I got back to the lift the pain was gone, so my son and I went for a steep black hill for our final run.

I also tried out Sol Vista Basin in Granby while I was in the area. SolVista is the new name of the Silver Creek ski area. In three hours I went down every blue and black run at least twice. SolVista a tiny local ski area with four slow lifts, short runs, 1000 feet of vertical, and $40 lift tickets. SolVista/Silver Creek has never been popular in Colorado, but it's not a bad place if you want to learn to ski and hate crowds.

Most of the adults were wedging down the slopes. If you're a confident blue-level skier, SolVista probably won't do much for you. SolVista is out of the way enough, however, that I was able to find fresh powder along the edges of the runs. At Winter Park today, every square inch of the every mountain was scraped clean -- even the Parsenn Bowl and Vasquez Cirque on the backside of Mary Jane were bare of powder.

Two weeks ago, I was in upstate New York and I tried the Catamount Ski Area along the NY/Mass border. This was my first experience skiing on New England ice. Once I figured out how to control my skis on the ice it wasn't too bad. Catamount isn't especially steep, but the monster bumps on one of the runs kicked my tail. I'm not a bump skier anyway so that's not saying much.

Although it was cloudy and foggy in New York, the temperature was pleasant at around the freezing point -- my business casual attire with longjohns plus hat and gloves kept me warm enough, though I did stand out from all of the teens wearing heavy snowpants, parkas, and goggles. I think 20+ years of riding my bike in the winter has acclimated me to cold weather.

That is not a photo of me at Winter Park -- it's just a random Flickr photo of somebody at Winter Park.
Photo info: WinterPark 068 by dawgfanjeff.