1 World 2 Wheels

I came across a great site today: 1World2Wheels. Its a program sponsored by Trek to encourage people to use their bikes as transportation. They describe it as follows:

One World, Two Wheels, a Trek Commitment is just that; a pledge by Trek and its dealers to make the world a more bike friendly place.

The goals of the program are to:

• Give $1 million to the Bicycle Friendly Community program of the League of American Bicyclists to increase the number of Bicycle Friendly Communities in the U.S.
• 
  Give $600,000 to the international Mountain Bike Association for their Trail Solutions Program.

Increase the number of trips taken in the U.S. by bike from the current 1% to 5% by 2017.
There is a lot of compelling evidence to support why more trips can and should be taken by bike. You’ll read about some of them on this website. From traffic congestion to pollution to global warming, there are many reasons for us to ride, especially for trips under two miles.

They also have a widget that you can embed in a site (see left ->) that tracks the number miles, gas saved, and C02 not created by riding your bike. You go to the site, post a pledge, and then the counter tracks the net of all rider pledges. Great idea.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer on bike stimulus

From The Earl on the benifits of bike stimulus on The Huffington Post:

Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from home, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.

6 days!!!

Less than one week to go 'til the Tour of California. Lance, Levi, Christian, Mark, Carlos and more right here in Cali.

Stage 2 rolls through Sausalito, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and down along Highway 1 to Santa Cruz.

For many in Southern Marin, the ride from Sausalito across the Bridge is actually the daily commute. I wonder how fast Lance could ride into work?

See map

See Stage 2 schedule

Bike storage on CalTrain to improve

This article on SFGate.com reports on the recent approval of a plan to increase the amount of space allotted on CalTrain for bike parking:

Caltrain reports space problems on about 1 out of 10 runs, according to Chuck Harvey, Caltrain's chief operating officer. The trains now can handle 16, 32 or 64 bicycles. Cyclists aren't sure until the trains pull into the stations how many bikes will be allowed on board.

Under the new policy, the Bombardier cars, which now have rack space for 16 bikes, will be re-outfitted to carry 24. The older gallery cars, which now hold 32 bikes, will be reconfigured for 40.

With the change, the total available bike slots in the peak commute period will increase from the current average of 2,300 to 2,900, said Caltrain spokeswoman Christine Dunn.

For people who work on the Pennisula south of San Francisco and want to bike to the train to catch a ride into the City, and then bike from the train station to their office, this will be a help. As is, a lot of riders end up biking to the train only to find out that there bikes are not allowed on the train due to space constraints.

The same article explains that a plan to give bikes access to the Richmond-San Rafeal bridge was not approved.

Bike parking feature

I came across this on grist.

Video on bike parking on farmer's markets.

Bikes on BBC

I ran across an interesting audio segment from the BBC on bicycling in the modern world.

From their description:

"This three - part series illustrates how the bicycle is used today and what impact it has on people's lives.

With more than a billion models worldwide, the bicycle has found a place in every society.
Since its invention in 1817 people have redesigned and used the bike for hundreds of different purposes.

From sporting events and policing the streets to sharpening knives and selling ice cream.
Using a lot of leg power, the Bicycle Diaries journeys into three different places around the world to discover the communities and people for whom two wheels are better than four. "

Bike parking at the Super Bowl?

Can you ride your bike to the Super Bowl? I was curious. As far as I can tell, there was no official bike parking at the Super Bowl. I found a blog that discusses the topic here.

One interesting bike related item is this. I guess Trek and Amp Energy drink created a promotional deal where they had cyclists generate power by riding at stationary bikes, stored the power, and then used the power they created to run part of the Fox pre-game show. Kind of an interesting idea.