May 29/08 10:57 am - "Cycling" in the News Headlines

Posted by Editoress on 05/29/08
 

Pro teams deny knowing Quebec doping doctor
Professional sports teams in Montreal are denying any connection with Dr. Maurice Duquette, who has pleaded guilty to charges of doping athletes.

Duquette has been linked to former Canadian cycling champ Genevieve Jeanson, who tested positive in July 2005 for the banned substance erythropoietin.

She admitted in an interview last year that she had taken the performance-enhancer, better known as EPO, for several years before the test.
Read more at CBC


Former BMX champ in the race of his life
Parents pray for help in son's fight against tumour
Surrounded by the trophies and medals from their son's biking competitions that crowd his room, Drew and Lori Hemmingson pray for a miracle.

On the couch in the living room of their Seymour area townhouse lies their nine-year-old son Matt.
Read more at North Shore News


Victory at Tour D'Afrique
Toronto couple pedals 4 months and 12,000 km through 10 countries to the finish line.
"Four months ago, I had a goal of simply finishing the 2008 Tour d'Afrique. Now, here I am, the women's champion.

Starting in Cairo, Egypt, the 12,000-kilometre bike tour twisted south through 10 countries. Sixty people started this trip, but only 12 crossed the finish line with the status of having ridden Every Fabulous Inch.

My husband, Dave, was one of them. While others went on side trips or took a day off, sat on the bus or fell ill, Dave pushed through sickness and fatigue to ride every kilometre of the course."

Read more at Toronto Star


Milram sack Astarloa after positive test
German cycling team Milram have fired former world champion Igor Astarloa after a suspicious blood test.
Read more at CNN


High-tech cycling: Units map routes, navigate, measure workouts

When cycling enthusiasts also are computer geeks, almost anything can happen.

Besides wanting a fast bike and a connection with the outdoors, they also want a bike computer that measures everything about their rides: speed, distance, elevation, elapsed time, cadence, heart rate, the temperature, wind and even a satellite map of where they went.

Fortunately for cyclists craving such data, bike computers are getting better - with two of the latest satellite-navigation models offering turn-by-turn directions and color road maps right from the gadget mounted on their handlebars.

Launched this spring, the Garmin Edge 605 and 705 bike computers provide mapping capabilities and street navigation on a 2.2-inch color display, in addition to measuring just about everything else from a vigorous workout or a leisurely ride through the countryside.

Read more at centerdaily.com


Cycling Still Offers Quickest City Commute

To the surprise of no one -- with the possible exception of Bike Snob NYC -- bike commuter and social worker Jamie Favaro won Transportation Alternatives' 7th Annual Great NYC Commuter Race this morning, completing the 4.5-mile route between Fort Greene and Union Square in 16.5 minutes. Driver Emmanuel Fuentebella came in second at 22 minutes, and transit rider April Greene made the trip in 29 minutes.

Read more Streetsblog


A ghostly reminder of the dangers of cycling
one white and skeletal in structure, they are tucked beneath bridges and placed on deadly corners, serving as spectral reminders of the dead.

Ghost Bikes - or memorial bikes - are tributes to cyclists who died as a result of accidents on city streets.
Read more at Toronto Star


Get rolling for Bike Month
In just the past few hundred of our 150,000 years on Earth, we have invented everything from steam engines, cars and airplanes to sophisticated weapons and supercomputers.

But one invention, the bicycle, is so efficient, beneficial and simple that it may be the best thing we've ever made. And June, Bike Month, is the time to celebrate it. The "modern" version of the bicycle with pedals and cranks was invented by French carriage-maker Ernest Michaux in 1861.

Read more atMetroNews


Public transit spin is out of control

Public transit is making progress of a kind in Canada - though it's not always visible. In its report "Commuting Patterns", Statistics Canada noted last year that the percentage of Canadians who drive to work fell to 80.0 in 2006, a decline - wait for it - of 0.7 per cent in the last decade. The car maintains its enduring edge over public transit across the entire country. Thus, 78.2 per cent of Quebec commuters get to work by car (the lowest level in any of the provinces); 90.7 per cent of Prince Edward Island commuters get to work by car (the highest). In Ontario, it's 79.2 per cent. In New Brunswick, it's 89.1 per cent. In Saskatchewan, it's 86.5 per cent.

Read more at Business Journal


Cycling sets your heart racing to healthy levels. So does watching the antics of some cyclists.

See that red light? I did, and I stopped my bike. Shame about the guy who went sailing through. The rules of the road should apply to everyone, regardless how much you believe "Four wheels bad, two wheels good."

Read more at Ottawa Citizen


A study recently published by Cycling England found that most parents don't allow their children the cycling freedom they enjoyed themselves
Teaching a child to cycle can be both beautiful and challenging. For trainers, the two extremes of child cyclist behaviour can be summarised as the Connor and the Caitlin. Connor lives on his bike, pulls wheelies at every opportunity, doesn't particularly care which side of the road he cycles on and has decided to do a course to get out of maths. Caitlin has a shiny new mountain bike she rides on Sundays in the park, and mum and dad have drilled into her that roads are dangerous, so if she goes anywhere on her bike, she goes by pavement. She's doing a course (in her cycle helmet) because mum and dad think road safety is very important.
Read more at Guardian


16th Manulife Bike and Hike for Heart set to raise $200,000 for St. Mary's Hospital Regional Cardiac Care Centre
Donation total exceeds $2.5 million for local heart health
More than 1,200 cyclists and walkers are limbered up and ready to boost Kitchener-Waterloo's heart health this weekend as they take to the streets and paths to raise $200,000 for St. Mary's Regional Cardiac Care Centre.
Sponsored by Manulife Financial since 1993, this year's Bike and Hike
takes place Sunday, June 1. To date, the Bike and Hike has raised more than $2.5 million for regional heart health, with $1.4 million directly benefiting St. Mary's Cardiac Care Centre.
Read more at CNW Newswire


Unicycle racers invade Truro for unique event
Anyone travelling in downtown Truro on June 18 will be greeted by the sight of dozens of unicycles racing.
And it should be quite the show, said Margot Bégin-Gillis of the Colchester Regional Development Agency, one of several local sponsors for the event.
While support is strong, she said, sponsors initially weren't quite sure what to think when the concept was introduced.
Read more at Truro Daily News


A seasoned cyclist - Phyllis MacDonald of Stratford is working on her eighth tip-to-tip completion of the Confederation Trail, which coincides with her 80th birthday

Phyllis MacDonald is almost eight for 80.

That's because this cycling dynamo, who celebrated her 80th birthday in January, is on her way to completing the Confederation Trail for the eighth time. The majority of these cross-Island cycling sessions were with the Island Trails recreational cycling group that annually rides the trail in sections that are manageable for all levels of riders.
Read more at The Guardian

Cycling's Drug Test
After Years of Doping Controversies, the Tarnished Sport Knows It Has to Come Clean or Become Obsolete
Read more at Washington Post


Edmonton Celbrates Bike Month with MOVIES
June is Bike Month, but that doesn't mean you've got to break a sweat. Every Monday this month, Metro Cinema will present a different cycle-themed film for gearheads both active and sedentary. Here are some brief reviews, in ascending order of how much they made me want to turn off the TV, grab my own 18-speed and hit the streets.

Bike Month Rides Wave of Popularity in Edmonton
To the uninitiated, cycling on the increasingly car-choked streets of Edmonton might seem like an undertaking tantamount to attempted suicide.
There's the crumbling infrastructure that can turn the right-hand lane into a pothole-littered, rim-bending slalom. There's the issue of the particularly Albertan affinity for oversized trucks to contend with. There are the kilometres of wide-open, multi-lane sprawl that extends out in all directions, where it seems as though city planners are actively discouraging travel by any means save the automobile.
Read more at Vue Weekly