Clueless concept

When I read the phrase “concept bike”, I always get a strange uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Except in the case of this new fixie concept bike which made me throw up a little in my mouth. [Thanks (for nothing) tom]

On the rack

Cyclehoop turns every street-sign into a bike rack. Trying to think of a downside for this idea…can’t come up with one.

Shine on

• PUYL is a bicycle pump and portable light combined in one device. [Thanks tom]
• Commuter light comparison. Wow, those rear Smart lights are really worth having.
• The PHOTON BELL for bicycles: “If there is a group up ahead with their backs to me, I dab the switch and an intense brightness, for a quarter of a second, causes a spinal arc reflex in the group and they gently part to the sides of the path, looking around for the cause.”
• Awesome Twin Spotlamps: Take two matching torches, “the sort that take the big 6V batteries with the springs”…whoa, this is not going to be a lightweight setup!

Road rage? My arse!

• Cyclists and motorists on collision course
• Justice Served?

Rights

Bike Writers Collective’s Mission Statement claims to be the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights.

Share the road?

• 9 Driving Habits that Most Annoy Cyclists
• Top 6 things we cyclists love to do to annoy drivers
• Annoying things people do on the roads (includes “Special Cycling Section”)

Carrying more stuff

Transporting (more) luggage with a Brompton [twitterer]

Worth the ASL?

“Bike boxes”: do they work? Behaviour at cycle advanced stop lines. [PDF]

Campus cycling

Verlyn Klinkenborg waxes lyrical in The New York Times on the right kind of cyclist (i.e. those who don’t wear “sleek and gaudy costumes”):

There is a deeply pleasing randomness about the campus cyclists, as though one morning university officials had assigned a bicycle to every member of the Stanford community, come as you are, without considering for a moment matters of fit – or fitness.

Too ugly for the beauty contest

Yet again I fail to make the cut in the online beauty contest: A list of top 50 Cycling blogs by Blog Rank.

Cars, teens and phones

Teens and Distracted Driving:

One in four (26%) of American teens of driving age say they have texted while driving, and half (48%) of all teens ages 12 to 17 say they’ve been a passenger while a driver has texted behind the wheel.

Unsurprising, yet still chilling.

It’s good for you. No, it’s bad for you.

The ABC reports that:

A study obtained by the ABC shows cycling injuries are being grossly under-estimated…

Official bike injury statistics are based on police records. But not all bike injuries are reported to police, and the report shows that 98 per cent of cycling injuries are not showing up in official statistics.

The data are used to support this argument by Prof Drew Richardson of Canberra Hospital for more segregation on the roads:

“I am very wary about cyclists and larger or faster vehicles sharing the same space. When human beings share the same space they do tend to bump into each other, whether it’s in supermarket aisles or lifts. And it’s certainly true on the roads.

There’s also a similar study in the UK mentioned in The Guardian.

Bike doily

tom suggests that a little reflective lace might go well with my Aldi cycling shoes. Uh-uh, I’m not going to make that sort of mistake again!

It’s supposed to be cheap!

10 Most Expensive Bicycles On Earth [Thanks tom]

I ♥ local bike shop

Your local bike shop: a source of good advice, good deals and good fun.

Bloggage

• The Hungry Cyclist: “one man’s inter-continental pursuit of the perfect meal – on a bicycle.”
• Vélo Vogue—”where the bike lane meets the runway” (Ooh, look—I’m fleetingly fashionable!)

Frankly, I lack the superlatives to describe what I think of this idea—although I’ve got to say I’m not overly taken with the prospect of having a self-tapping screw jammed into my forehead in the event of frontal impact…

atelier v is full of some wild (but then again, maybe not so wild) gadgets knocked together from everyday implements. And if you want more cycling innovations, have a look at Flexabstand and Sommerpedale.