Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Parents' nightmare
Joanne Lord was driving home with her husband Nigel when they came across an accident scene. They stopped to help the dying cyclist to discover he was her 13-year-old son, Antony.
Planet Bike of the Apes
One Got Fat is a bizarre bike safety film featuring kids with creepy ape masks. This 1963 film predates the Planet of the Apes by five years and undoubtably provided the inspiration for the sci-fi classic.
The basic bike safety message is sound: "drive your bike," signal your intentions, ride right, obey traffic rules, ensure your equipment works, use lights and reflectors in the dark, avoid the sidewalk, and don't ride with more people than the bike is designed for. This isn't your basic and boring safety film, though. The happily smug narration provided by Edward Everett Horton (of Fractured Fairy Tails) along with the pleasant music results in an interesting Twilight-Zonish disconnect while the rule-breaking children are, one by one, eliminated by road hazards, cars, and a steamroller(!). One of the Internet Archive reviewers describes the tone best. "Johnny has been crushed by a steamroller. Oh dear, what a pity, he should have used hand signals."
Download this 15-minute film from the Internet Archive and play it at your next bike advocacy meeting. I howled with laughter while watching it; my two young children, meanwhile, sat transfixed as the little monkeys all disappeared one by one.
Thank you to Cleverchimp for pointing the way to this great little film.
Cyclelicious top ten
Dear Readers, you have requested a bicyling blogroll here at Cyclelicious. I'll get around to it -- this blog is only one week old as of today, after all. In the meantime, you can visit my complete blogroll is at Redmountain.
PR guy Steve Rubel makes the suggestion that bloggers list their top ten blogs and tag it "10blogs." Here are the ten Cyclelicious blogs.
One thing I just noticed is that this bicycling blogroll is heavily skewed toward mountain bikes, and I'm (mostly) a roadie! I've run across very few roadie blogs. I was following TDFblog during the tour, but they stopped posting after July 24. I get most of my road race info from sources like VeloNews, and Pez Cycling News. If you know of some good roadie blogs, please leave a comment about them.
If you want to include tags in your blog posts but don't know how, feel free to use my Technorati Tag-o-Matic script. Just type in the tags you want in the little box, click "OK," then copy and paste the created tag text into your blog editor. It's very easy to use.
In other news, you might notice that I finally got trackbacks working. It turns out I was neglecting to load the necessary Javascript in the header of my posts. Oops!
PR guy Steve Rubel makes the suggestion that bloggers list their top ten blogs and tag it "10blogs." Here are the ten Cyclelicious blogs.
- The Adventures of Crazy Biker Chick. Tonya in Toronto.
- BikeBiz.com. This UK-based resource reports mostly on industry news with some advocacy news also.
- Blue Collar MTB. Equipment reviews and advocacy news.
- Cycle Dog. The adventures of Ed in Oklahoma.
- The Fat Cyclist. "It's like reality TV, except it's real. And there's no TV."
- Go Clipless. Mountain biking in and around D.C. with reviews and commentary.
- Just Riding Along. Bike industry news and commentary. Jonathan also runs Bike Portland.
- Making It Easier. Yet Another mountain bike resource.
- Rogue Mechanic. A bike mechanic gives you his views on "repairs, upgrades, maintenance, technical info, opinions, views, photos and more."
- Velorution. Car-free crazies. Great site.
One thing I just noticed is that this bicycling blogroll is heavily skewed toward mountain bikes, and I'm (mostly) a roadie! I've run across very few roadie blogs. I was following TDFblog during the tour, but they stopped posting after July 24. I get most of my road race info from sources like VeloNews, and Pez Cycling News. If you know of some good roadie blogs, please leave a comment about them.
If you want to include tags in your blog posts but don't know how, feel free to use my Technorati Tag-o-Matic script. Just type in the tags you want in the little box, click "OK," then copy and paste the created tag text into your blog editor. It's very easy to use.
In other news, you might notice that I finally got trackbacks working. It turns out I was neglecting to load the necessary Javascript in the header of my posts. Oops!
Tuesday, August 2, 2005
girl.bike.dog
Lindsay is a freelance seamstress in Philadelphia who creates one-of-a-kind girl.bike.dog clothing, accessories, jewelry and dog products out of found material. Why girl.bike.dog? "I am a girl that loves to ride my bike and play with my dog," says Lindsay.
You might see Lindsay and her dog Indie at various streetfests and concerts in the Philadelphia area. She is trying to find stores to carry her unique designs. In the meantime, check out her website for her portfolio.
Cyclelicious feature photo.
You might see Lindsay and her dog Indie at various streetfests and concerts in the Philadelphia area. She is trying to find stores to carry her unique designs. In the meantime, check out her website for her portfolio.
Cyclelicious feature photo.
Bikes selling better than cars
Americans purchased more bicycles than new cars and trucks combined in the past year, according to this Reuter's story by Rasha Elass. "Bike sales and bike equipment is a five to six billion dollar business per year," said Tim Blumenthal, industry specialist and executive director of Bikes Belong, a national industry association. "Bicycle sales are near an all-time high (with) 19 million sold last year -- close to the 20 million sold during the oil embargo in the early 1970s."
Elass cites the Lance Factor, high oil prices, and obesity for the growth in the bike retail business. About 16 million new cars were sold in the United States in 2004. That's some pretty cyclelicious news to me.
Elass cites the Lance Factor, high oil prices, and obesity for the growth in the bike retail business. About 16 million new cars were sold in the United States in 2004. That's some pretty cyclelicious news to me.
Tags: cycling
Giant Bicycle recall
According to this press release from the U.S. CPSC and Giant, 2005 Giant Cypress and Sedona comfort bikes have been recalled because the "rear axle on the bicycle is harder than required by the manufacturer’s specification and could crack." The interesting thing is that only 76 defective bikes have been sold, according to Giant.
Icebikers talk about the heat
The IceBike mailing list is for discussion of winter cycling. With temperatures well into the 90s across portions of North America this last week, icebikers have been talking about the heat. Pete Hickey tells us how hot it was in his part of Canada.
I was cycling through an area filled with farms this weekend. On one side of the road, were dairy farmers, with their cows in the field. On the other side were rows and rows of corn.
As I rode, it was getting hotter and hotter. I was glad that I had plenty of water.
It got so hot, that the corn started popping.
Now, this confused the cows. They looked over at all that popcorn over there (cows are pretty dumb). They thought it was snow, and they started freezing to death.
Yep, a hot day.
Reposted with permission from Pete Hickey.
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