Yogurt vs. GasolineThe Neistat Brothers produce another provocative film. OK, this time the gimmick is pretty obvious and right away you can guess the outcome. But the demonstration still makes the point.
NYTimes: A Busy City Street Makes Room for BikesThe New York Times ran an article over the weekend on New York DOT's plan to road diet Ninth Avenue. A road diet is when transportation officials redesign an existing street by shrinking the number of auto lanes, making room for bicycle and other alt-transit lanes. The idea is that officials can insert new bike lanes without needing to widen a road -- a practice useful in areas where roads cannot be widened.
Locally, Durham used the road diet technique on Duke University Dr. to create its new bike lane. (seen at right)
What's unusual about in this New York example is that it's what you might call an extreme road diet. From a 70ft-wide street, 18ft are being repurposed. 10ft adjacent to the sidewalk will become a new, broad bike lane. Then, an 8ft buffer zone with planters and bollards will separate the bike lane from a 10ft parking lane. The result is that cyclists will enjoy complete separation from the swift current of automobile traffic flowing down Ninth Ave.
How bikes will negotiate intersections is my only question, but I am assuming that the bike lane will be signaled just as the auto-traffic lanes. It's an interesting idea and one that works in Europe. We'll see how well it works in NYC. While we don't really have streets in Durham wide enough to justify this kind of intervention, I am eager to see how New Yorkers (particularly the folks from Transportation Alternatives) respond to the new lane design.
A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: September 23, 2007
Cyclists and pedestrians never quite imagined it this way, but maybe there is a use for all those cars after all. The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future.
Construction is not yet complete (neither planters nor structurally significant bollards are in place), but you can get a sense of the design here.
Analysis and diagrams at Streetsblog and Gothamist.
Duke, UNC both offer students collective bikesDuke
Duke Bikes Grand Opening (from a press release)
Join fellow Duke students, faculty and staff for the grand opening of the new Duke Bikes program this Thursday, August 30th, 4pm on the West Campus Plaza. Snacks, free Duke Bikes t-shirts and other prizes will be given away to the first 100 visitors.
Duke Bikes is a new bike-loan program for Duke undergraduate, graduate and professional students. This collaborate effort provides students with no-cost options for exercise, adventure and campus commuting. It is a tangible example of several of Duke's efforts to enhance the student experience and promote sustainability.
Duke Bikes works much like checking out a library book. All you need is your DukeCard. The loan period is up to five days, and the bike fleet includes 1-speed and 3-speed Trek Cruisers, equipped with locks, lights, flashers and baskets. Helmets are available, too.
More Info
http://transportation.duke.edu/bikes
(919) 724-6417
Tavey McDaniel Capps
Environmental Sustainability Coordinator
Office of the Executive Vice President
Duke University
tavey.mcdaniel@duke.edu
919-660-1434
Carolina
Blue Urban Bikes (from the SURGE website)
Thursday, 05 April 2007
Blue Urban Bikes is a community bike-loan project serving the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro community and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The mission of Blue Urban Bikes is to provide a reliable, clean, and affordable mode of transportation for our community amidst rising gas prices and growing concerns over global warming.
Background
Blue Urban Bikes ( or “BUB”), a community bicycle loan program, was created through a partnership of the ReCYCLEry and SURGE – Students United for a Responsible Global Environment – after several meetings with local community leaders in 2005 gave rise to the idea. This program is designed to provide a reliable source of clean and affordable sustainable transportation to Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents and visitors, as well as offer a healthy travel alternative and allow citizens to take an active role in lessening the environmental footprint of our community. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are renowned for their bicycle-friendly status, and bicycling proves to be an ideal form of transportation for many community members. Considering the time it often takes to find a parking space, riding a bike simply takes less time and leaves the rider feeling strong, able and healthy. Potential BUB users include Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents, UNC students and staff, commuters, transit and park & ride users, area tourists and visitors, recreational weekend users, and potential new bicycle commuters.
BUB Hub Locations
The BUB program goal is to site “BUB Hubs”, check-out stations for the Blue Urban Bikes, at local businesses throughout Carrboro and Chapel Hill and on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. Each BUB Hub will accommodate 5 bikes, or “BUBs.” Bike racks, provided through the BUB program, will be installed at hub locations to secure the BUBs when not in use (each locked to the rack with its own cable lock). The program goal is to locate BUB Hubs along the Franklin Street/Main Street corridor from East Chapel Hill to the western edge of Carrboro, as well as to place some north/south hub locations for member convenience. The Blue Urban Bikes program is seeking partnerships with local businesses for hub locations; the following sites have already been confirmed:
* Skylight Exchange – 405 ½ W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill * 3Cups Coffeeshop – 431 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill * Townsend & Bertram - 200 N Greensboro St, Carrboro (in Carr Mill Mall) * Back Alley Bikes - 108 N Graham St, Chapel Hill (behind the Merch) * Owens 501 Diner - 1500 N Fordham Blvd, Chapel Hill (near Eastgate Shopping Center)
Contacts
Alison Carpenter, SURGE: 919-960-6886 or alison@surgenetwork.org
Chris Richmond, ReCYCLEry: 919-932-1335 or chris@recyclery.info
More information is available online at www.recyclery.info/blue_urban_bikes
Paris
Paris recently launched its own collective bikes program -- one of the most ambitious programs to date. More than 10,000 bikes became available in July, with more than 20,000 slated to be available by the end of the year. You can read more about it here or watch the video below to see some folks take the Parisian velos for a test ride.
E.T. meets Donnie Darko
Seen previously on velorution and Martino's Bike Lane Diary.
Dan Schueller, bike commuter
The Minneapolis paper, The Star Tribune, has a moving audio-slideshow of Dan Schueller's story. Schueller, a bike-commuter, was riding home when the I-35W bridge collapsed. He was one of the first people on the scene and helped a number of people off the bridge. Find it here.
"death by veganism" -- letter to the editorI'm posting below a letter to the editor written by a friend. This is her letter to the Opinion page editor of the New York Times for running Nina Planck's ridiculous op-ed, "Death by Veganism," which contains such gems of research and argumentation as
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.
and
The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
While other letter writers let Planck have it on the grounds that she can't get her facts straight, Nancy's response is, I think, more to the point.
How convenient – not to mention trite – it is to defend humanity's right to exploit animals in the name of the survival of the human race ("Death by Veganism," Nina Planck, May 21, 2007). I could not argue with well-made facts about health and nutrition, even if they had been tendered here. But why the relentless campaign against conscious living? Cannot the intelligent resources available to science and the media serve to advance our ability to meet our needs without appealing to speciesist superiority? Is our craving for universal domination so beyond our control that we would rather condemn devastated parents, by whom reasonable risks were taken in the absence of earned community support, than invest in solutions that can protect human life without demanding the misery, suffering, and death of others? Contextualizing this tragedy in the vegan diet does nothing to solve our pandemic public health problems, in a resource-rich nation where children raised on junk food suffer the most. No matter how tempting are the sacrosanct declarations of a benevolent pregnant woman, our survival does not depend on the subordination of animals. Only our hideous arrogance does. An arrogance that has claimed so many lives that it shamefully buries its responsibility for them in the despised, compassionate lives of the forward-thinking vegan in order to survive.
nancy o. gallman
Drive your Bike to Work
or, why I don't talk of "driving" my bike. I like to ride mine.
Drive your Bike to Work day, a humorous new site poking fun at VC advocates' insistence on calling cyclists drivers (visit bikeforums.net if you don't know what Vehicular Cycling is), just in time for next week.
capere journal
A little closer to home, some local (Durham) educators are starting up a new journal -- Capere.
Capere's mission is to charter and facilitate a spirit of collaboration and innovation among educators through challenging and rewarding dialogue in a local educator operated print journal.
They too are looking for submissions. Contact them through the site.
these green times
These Green Times is a new online publication with an environmental focus. Friend Bob Schildgen (better known as the Sierra Club's Mr. Green) is an early contributor. They're looking for submissions, so all you environmental writers out there, send them something.
Check them out...
NYTimes on bicycles and bicyclingFor those of you who have not seen it yet, the New York Times now has an XML feed for their articles on bicycles and bicycling. Use your favorite RSS aggregator to sign-up. 
Unfortunately, it looks like most of the articles are available only to those with Times Select accounts.
bike rack with built-in air pumpNow this is a smart idea -- a bike rack with built-in air pump. First spotted over at cycling edinburgh.
I'll find out whether any of Durham's new bike racks will (or can) include one of these.
cycleart -- bike themed art showHeck Yeah Coffee and Arleigh (of arsbars) are sponsoring a bike themed art show in Charlotte. Submissions due January 12th -- contact Arleigh for more info.
Nice to see another bike themed art show. The Altered Esthetics show this summer was a great success.
StewaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaartCouldn't have happened to a nicer guy or more committed volunteer. Congratulations Stewart.
http://www.newsobserver.com/166/story/519942.html
Tar Heel of the Week: Trail advocate isn't content to coast
Joe Miller, Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL - Stewart Bryan loves riding his mountain bike.
That's why he spent two hours on the phone Monday pricing trail-building tools, three hours Tuesday with a tool salesman, and another three at a meeting that night advocating trails for a new Wake County park. Then he spent three more hours in meetings Wednesday night and Thursday, and on Friday spent hours testing a machine that carves single-track trail from the side of a slope.
"Sometimes it's hard to find time to ride," says Bryan, 53.
What do the meetings, phone calls and machine tests have to do with mountain biking?
Everything, if you want a place to ride in the Triangle.
Bryan, of Chatham County, is the incoming president of the Triangle Off-Road Cyclists, a year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to giving mountain bikers places to ride.
The all-volunteer club's advocacy is why eventually there will be 20 miles of mountain bike trail at Forest Ridge Park on the shores of Falls Lake and smaller networks at two future parks: White Deer in Garner and the northern Wake landfill in Raleigh.
The group's latest success is at the Briar Chapel housing community being built off U.S. 15/501 south of Chapel Hill. Thanks to the nonprofit, and especially to Bryan, Briar Chapel will have at least 25 miles of trail, making it the biggest single-track trail network in the region.
That is nearly 70 miles of new mountain bike trails in all. Coupled with the 100 or so miles already on the ground, that's a lot of recreational fun -- most of it built by volunteers at no expense to taxpayers.
A hobby blossoms
Bryan's arc as a mountain biker shows how this phenomenon of cost-free public works came to be.
Twelve years ago, he was looking for a way to connect with his then 12-year-old son, Nathan. Nathan had just started mountain biking with a friend; Bryan decided to give it a try.
"I borrowed an old mountain bike that was too small, and we rode to some local trails," Bryan recalls. "I looked like a circus bear on a bike."
Despite his sideshow appearance, Bryan was hooked. He bought a bike better suited to his lean 6-foot frame and started looking for places to ride. That was when the seeds of his volunteerism were sown.
"There wasn't much else around here," Bryan says.
The only legal trail at the time was a four-mile network at Lake Crabtree County Park in Morrisville. The trail Bryan had cut his teeth on in Chapel Hill was "bootleg" -- a trail cleared by enthusiasts on private land with (or sometimes without) the tacit approval of the landowner.
In the mid-1990s, during mountain biking's boom nationwide, bootleg trail was pretty much all local mountain bikers had. The old Morrisville network, Capital Boulevard, Regency Park and Dunn Road were all good places to ride but were short-lived -- gone when landowners decided to build.
Bryan had never volunteered for anything -- "I guess I was never that passionate about anything" -- but he realized that if he was going to ride trail, he would have to build it.
Forging a path
He started attending workdays at Lake Crabtree, where the NC FATS Mountain Bike Club had built the trail and was responsible for maintaining it. He later volunteered at Harris Lake County Park, which opened with trails in 1999.
In 2002, he learned that a few other mountain bikers from the western Triangle -- Brian Williford and Gaynor Collester -- were talking with park planners about building trail at the new Little River Regional Park north of Durham.
A club -- the Durham Orange Mountain Biking Organization, better known by its pachydermic acronym DOMBO -- was formed for the sole purpose of building the trail. In 2004, after a core group of a half-dozen riders had put in 50 or so Saturdays building trail, the park opened with seven miles of single-track.
"We worked out there for two years," Bryan says. "It was a long process."
Bryan could have felt he had paid his dues, that he could retire his chain saw and pulaski ax. Instead, he played a key role in starting TORC, a Triangle-wide club intended to replace smaller local clubs.
The significance of the umbrella group with affiliations to regional and national mountain bike clubs became apparent earlier this year when development company Newland Communities started mulling amenities for Briar Chapel. The community in eastern Chatham County plans 2,389 homes built over seven to 10 years.
"We wanted nature to be one of the cornerstones of the community," says Ed Timony, project manager for the development.
Out of a two-day "envisioning process," Timony says, Newland decided it wanted lots of trails. The company hired Greenways Inc. to build hiking trails and walking paths. The Durham firm had no experience with mountain bike trails, so it called the Colorado-based International Mountain Bicycling Association. IMBA's statewide representative at the time, Carter Worthington, said Bryan is your man.
A 'why not?' attitude
"I met with Stewart out on the site with a huge map and showed him the walking trails," Timony says. The map included what someone at Newland thought might make a nice little mountain bike trail, along a power line easement.
Timony chuckles. "Stewart looked at it, scratched his head and in a polite way said, 'That's really not that good of a trail, in a power line corridor.' "
Bryan recommended a network significantly larger than Newland's three-mile ride through a clear-cut. Timony, Bryan recalls, looked at it and said, "Sure, why not?"
As Bryan has continued to explore the property and find additional terrain suitable for riding, Timony has continued to say "Sure, why not?" So far, 25 miles of mountain bike trail are planned for Briar Chapel.
Newland is so pleased with the plan that it cut TORC a check for $25,000 to buy a mini-skid steer, a kind of junior bulldozer that expedites the trail-building process. That was three times more money than the largest grant ever awarded a local mountain bike club.
Yet it is still a bargain for Newland. Williford, IMBA's current representative for the state, says commercial contractors charge about $8,000 per mile to build mountain bike trail.
Briar Chapel, Forest Ridge, White Deer Park, the northern Wake landfill and TORC's various other projects -- from providing skills clinics to leading rides -- promise to keep Bryan busy as club president. This week alone, a month before his official induction, Bryan put in nearly 20 hours -- in addition to his regular job as a self-employed general contractor.
As Bill Camp said Wednesday night as he presided over his final meeting as TORC president, "I've enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to getting my life back."
A year from now, when his reign as the Triangle's chief mountain biking advocate is over, Bryan, too, can look forward to getting his life back.
Maybe he'll even have time for a mountain bike ride.
weekend cycling and duke cycling
Two more new local bike blogs to let you know about. The first is put together by high school student Nick Drago. Check it out; it's called weekend cycling. It's mostly a collection of photographs and stories from rides -- solo and with friends.
In addition to cycling, he's a skilled web-designer -- his site is pretty slick.
The second one is the Duke Cycling team's blog -- a race report log and truly community site. You'll notice there are several authors, each with his/her own sense of humor.
flexsunNeed some more shade while you ride? Sunglasses and helmet visor not enough? Check this out -- it's like riding with a sun umbrella, but without having to hold it. For the photophobic, this looks pretty cool. It also helps with rain and visibility in general.
The Flexsun is made by a Spanish company in the Murcia provence. First noticed over at Bicivilizate.
See more photos of the Flexsun over at the company's site.
Nutcracker Alleycat
see Arleigh for more info...
human velocity
Talk about a graduation gift...
Nathan John, in his final year of college, won a fellowship competition that allows pays him to ride his bike, shooting stills and video, through several of the major metropolises of the world. The project is an attempt to document, artistically, the experience of traveling through the world at a human scale. His first (and so far only) video chronicles a ride through Shanghai with a thumping soundtrack by The Books.
Watch the video, check out his pictures from Shanghai and Tokyo, and read more about the day to day experience over at HumanVelocity.
highway robberySo, who causes traffic congestion? The slow(er) bicyclist, or the car?
What you're looking at is the visual representation of the difference between 35 people in single-occupant cars and those same 35 people in a multi-modal distribution. The municipal government of Denver, CO was the creative force behind this visualization.
What are the Hidden Costs of Free Parking?November 2nd 6:00-8:00 p.m. Fletcher Opera Theatre Raleigh, NC
The Raleigh Urban Design Center, a division of the City Planning Department, with support from Kimley-Horn and Associates, the Triangle Transit Authority, and the Raleigh Convention Center, will present a lecture on parking management by Dr. Donald Shoup, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, and author of The High Cost of Free Parking. An internationally renowned parking expert, Dr. Shoup has extensively studied the issue of parking as a key link between transportation and land use, with important consequences for cities, the economy, and the environment.
Professor Shoup’s research on employer-paid parking led to the passage of California’s parking cash-out law and to changes in the Internal Revenue Code to encourage parking cash out. For more information about Dr. Shoup, see http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu.
There will be a question-and-answer session following Dr. Shoup’s lecture. The lecture is free to the public. To register to attend, go to www.raleighnc.gov., click on “Departments” at the top of the page and then click on “Planning.” See the link, “Hidden Costs of Free Parking Lecture.”
If you have any questions, please contact Trisha Hasch.
Note that in addition to available parking, the Moore Square Bus Station is within walking distance of the Progress Energy Performing Arts Center. For a service schedule, click on http://www.ridetta.org/Bus_Shuttle/Maps_Schedules/routesSchedulesAndMaps.html.
See you on November 2.
__
Trisha Hasch, MUP
Downtown Revitalization Planner
Raleigh, NC
Enrique Peñalosa on making cities people-friendly
Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, now advises other major cities on transportation policy. Under Peñalosa's tenure, Bogotá (a city of about 7 million people) established a very successful annual Car Free Day and reprioritized integrating bike- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure into the city's transportation policy. He's now a senior fellow at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in New York City.
The Gotham Gazette recently published his article, "Putting Cars Behind," where he says,
"Public space is fantastic, not only because of the obvious thing that we meet as equals in public space but also because upper income people and poor people at work in the Third World are more or less equally satisfied. The difference comes when they have their leisure time. The upper income person goes to a large house, to clubs, to country houses, to restaurants. The poor people and their children have no alternative to public pedestrian space for their leisure time.Therefore a democratic society should have quality pedestrian space. People can go walk and at least see their city."
See the Gotham Gazette for the rest of the article.
"can the bicycle save civilization?"Ryan McGeal asks whether the bicycle can save civilization over at Raise the Hammer.
I didn't know we (cyclists) might be saddled with such a responsibility.
bike stencil
From the Buenos Aires Daily photoblog.
Specialized films
Following in the footsteps of BMW and SeaDoo, the bicycle manufacturer Specialized is using self-produced films as part of a new marketing campaign.
Frankly, neither the Roubaix escaping the police nor Dave strapping on his life-vest before taking on pirates from a motorcycle-on-water are as endearing as Clive Owen playing the driver hired to shake up Madonna before her next show. But hey... it's still fun to see a bike outrunning a squad car.
Toronto's post-and-ring bike racks are "vulnerable"Editorial: Repair the bike locks The Toronto Star Aug. 21, 2006. 01:00 AMToronto is a city of bicyclists, who strive to save the air and the roads while adroitly dodging motorists and ever-rising gas and parking prices.
So it is disconcerting to learn those ubiquitous post and ring bike stands that have dotted the city for 20 years are vulnerable to breaking with a simple two-by-four piece of lumber.
Eight cases of attacks on the stands by lumber-wielding thieves have been confirmed and another six are under investigation,
Even red-faced city biking officials have had to admit after conducting their own destructive attacks that the $200 stands are "vulnerable."
City officials are looking at ways to strengthen or modify the 16,000 bike lock-ups, but warn that all the options are relatively expensive.
Individual cyclists can thwart thieves by using two hefty locks and the techniques on how best to use them that are outlined in a 20-page city booklet. But that is a confusing and costly alternative.
What should be done is that the city spend the money to fix the stands.
In a city where an estimated 7,000 bikes are stolen every year, the price is a good investment.
TCC Ring Post Sub-committee on Vimeo
Durham will be installing new city-owned bike racks later this year. I'm glad we chose not to go with the post-and-ring design, even if they are more aesthetically interesting that upside-down U's.
Queen's Quay bike archI don't know what it is or what it's for, but it's bad, it's in Toronto, and it appears to be made of bicycles.
More photos over at Martino's Bike Lane Diary.
wheel guitar
by Ken Butler
where the hell is matt?Matt Harding, in his original dancing video, flails arms and legs in a dance so ingenious it frightens giraffes, annoys dogs, and inspires children.
The only appropriate follow-up to a phenomenon like this is to do it again, right? So, with the help of a sugardaddy sponsoring his travels, he circumnavigated the globe again -- and of course, he danced all over as well.
He's just released the new video today. Check it out over at wherethehellismatt.com or watch it below.
love generationSkip school, ride your bike, and there's no telling what you'll see. Or maybe this all happened at school. Either way, this is a fantastic music video for Bob Sinclair's "Love Generation." It gets at some of the exploratory joy of cycling.
(Kid needs a helmet, though.)
First noticed over at Martino's Bike Lane Diary.
aggressive cyclingYou've always thought that cars pose more of a danger than cyclists to pedestrians, but the NanacaCrash game just goes to show that inside that seemingly innocent velorutionary may lurk every pedestrian's worst nightmare.
Notice on the intro screen that she's riding a Cannondale with Headshok, and from the screen-capture just above, it looks as if she may even be on a Super V.
ingenious bike lane designs
The BBC recently ran a series of pictures that might as well have been titled, "how not to build bike lanes". Enjoy the rest of the series over on the BBC's website. Thanks to McDowell for pointing it out.
training wheelsa thoughtful stop-action animation on taking the training wheels off too early
bicycle lift for roof rackWhen I first saw this, I thought it unnecessary. But as I watched the video and thought it through, I reconsidered. Something like this lift assitant makes using a roof rack possible for people under 6ft or without the upperbody strength to lift your 50lb downhill rig on top of your car.
I remembered conversations with friends who have commented that they would never be able to use a roof rack. I don't know what this lift costs, but it looks like a simple lever system that DIY-minded folks could figure out. Nice idea.
April Fools goodnessWith beautiful concept creations like these already out there, I can't wait to see what's in store for this year's April Fools jokes.
Unfortunately, Specialized really has no plans to develop the Venom line promoted here. The Scorpion looks like it would be a fun commuter bike. It's already got fenders... it might be difficult to hang some panniers from the rear, however.
Mountain bike tour of Oaxaca, Mexico offered this fallAndy Bohlmann over at Sand Creek Sports (based in Colorado Springs, CO) is organizing a guided mountain bike tour of Oaxaca, Mexico this September. The state of Oaxaca extends from Mexico's southern-most Pacifc coastline (where Puerto Escondido is known as the Mexican Pipeline, drawing surfers from around the world) to the peaks of the Sierra Madres. The elevation changes make for some incredible mountain biking, and a 15 day tour of the state is sure to hit some of Mexico's best singletrack.
The Sand Creek Sports tour will be led by Pedro Martinez, former cycling world champion and member of the Mexican national mountain bike team, who lives in Oaxaca. I was lucky enough to visit Oaxaca this past summer, and while I was there, I rented a bike from Sr. Martinez -- an extremely nice guy with a shop full of quality mountain bikes.
For more information about the tours, check out the Sand Creek Sports website or contact Andy Bohlmann.
traffic calmingClick the image to see a video of an innovative, experimental traffic calming technique being used in the U.K. Notice everyone, including the cyclists, makes it through the intersection safely. I hope that soon we can implement some of these in Durham.
First noticed over at goclipless.com
can't afford a porsche?Carrera out of your price range? Maybe a Porsche bike is within reach.
I'm sure they're not cheap, but anytime Porsche designers conceive of something new it's worth a look. Enjoy...
filmed by bike IV
This year's Filmed by Bike, the fourth annual bicycle film festival in Portland, OR, will be held on a Friday in April -- I guess you can contact filmed[at]riseup.net to find out which Friday.
The organizers are accepting submissions, and the jury looks representative of a wide spectrum of bike culture/sub-culture. Hardcore cyclists tend toward being creative types, so this art/bike event promises (in the words of one my favorite one-line book reviews) to be "a rare visitor's pass to a cloistered [sic] enclave."
Thanks to TreeHugger for pointing it out. Entries are due March 15th.
a dream deferred
Red's Dream is an early Pixar short film about a bike with a dream. You know Pixar even if the name doesn't sound familiar; they're the geniuses behind Toy Story; Monsters, Inc; and The Incredibles.
Sustainable Energy in Motion Bike Tours -- this summerLooking for a meaningful way to spend your summer vacation on a bike? 
I received an email from Vladislav Davidzon of the Portland Peace and Justice Center announcing a series of Sustainable Energy in Motion Bike Tours for this summer.
One to three week tours follow scenic routes along Oregon's coast or the Columbia River gorge. The trip is part educational learn about permaculture and sustainability, part political plenty of time to think about what sort of impact you leave on the planet, part giving back to the community participants will complete service projects at each host site, and best of all they provide all the support and food vegan and organic you'll need for the trip. You can bring your own bike, or they can arrange for you to rent one from a local bike shop.
Sounds like an interesting trip. You can read more about the Portland Peace and Justice Center and its values on their website.
-- photo courtesy of the Orgeon Tourism Commission
