May 6/09 22:37 pm - Cycling News of the World

Posted by Editoress on 05/6/09
 

In my living room there are no photographs from my career but there is a big cobblestone. It's the trophy they give to the winner of Paris-Roubaix. And every morning when I wake up, that big cobblestone looks at me - Hennie Kuiper (winner 1983)

Getting people on wheels
At first glance, the Bike Dump appears to be the most accurately named operation in town.

The courtyard behind its small Main Street location is littered with bicycle frames, twisted wheels and various other bike parts. The scene is similar to the setting on Sanford & Son, the 1970s sitcom that starred the late comedian Redd Foxx as a junkyard dealer.

A line snakes out the back door as a greeter takes names to monitor the traffic inside. Maybe the Bike Dump is a new dance club?

But once inside, you see what the place is all about -- fixing bicycles for primarily inner-city residents and often giving away rebuilt bikes to underprivileged kids, all for free.
Read more at Winnipeg Free Press


Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad
Score one for the cycling community. After an intense and late-breaking campaign, and with a crucial assist from Councillor Kyle Rae, bicycle advocates have successfully introduced bike lanes into a major redevelopment plan for Jarvis Street. Yesterday afternoon the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC) voted to remove the centre, reversible-direction lane of traffic, and use the freed-up space to install bicycle lanes in both directions from Bloor to Queen.
Read more at Torontoist


Shifting gears
Inclement weather held back many bicyclists from participating in the 26th Annual Vancouver Bicycle Club’s Ride (VBC) Around Clark County (RACC) on Saturday, May 2, but certainly not everyone. It is, after all, the Northwest.

About 725 riders chose routes of 18-, 34-, 65- and 100-miles, taking in some of the best scenery Clark County has to offer.
“It was probably the worst weather we’ve ever had,” said VBC Press Secretary Lauren Baker. “You hate to see that kind of effort put forth and not be 100 percent successful … but people really made the best of it that they could.”
Read more at Vancouver Voice


Amgen organizers to push back 2010 cycling race in California, richest in U.S.
The country's largest professional cycling race will push back its 2010 schedule in hopes of catching better weather in the spring.

Amgen Tour of California spokesman Michael Roth confirmed Wednesday that AEG Sports, presenter of the race, will move the date from mid-February to take advantage of warmer, drier weather.

Roth declined to confirm a report on the bicycling Web site VeloNews that said the California race would move to May 16-23. Those dates would compete with another major cycling event, the Giro d'Italia.
Read more at Yahoo Sports


Pro Mountain Bike Gravity Tour - Downhill #1
Congratulations to all the racers that competed in the new Pro Mountain Bike Gravity Tour (Pro GRT). While the Port Angeles course may have been a bit challenging for competitors to get there, racers were rewarded by a great course and excellent competition. SRAM racer Curtis Keene was not only there, he won the inaugural event! Here’s what Keene had to say about the Port Angeles Pro GRT race...
Read more at Whistler Mountain Bike


Vancouver leaning to feet and pedals
It was first attempted more than a decade ago but drivers rose up in indignant revolt. Now Vancouver City Council, led by an environmentally minded mayor, is poised to once again cede a key chunk of the city's roads to cyclists.

The place in question is the Burrard Street bridge, one of the city's busiest spans, and the plan is to shut two of its six lanes to vehicle traffic and hand them to cyclists and pedestrians.

Opponents say the plan is foolhardy, arguing that closing off one-third of the bridge's surface will cause gridlock in a city already grinding to a standstill with Olympic road and rail construction.

But proponents say the era of automobile domination in urban centres is nearing an end and it's time cyclists were given more space on the road.
Read more at The Globe and Mail


ICBC's top safety tips for cyclists and other road users ahead of BC's Bike to Work Week, May 11-17
As the warmer weather approaches, May is traditionally the start of cycling season around the province. This means more bicycles will be on the road and the need for cyclists - and other road users - to take extra caution.

May 11-17 also marks the annual Bike to Work Week in British Columbia, and this year's event comes at a time when more and more people are turning to their bikes as they begin to shift to more environmentally-conscious forms of transportation.

There are approximately 1,300 crashes and 1,400 injuries involving cyclists each year in BC - a number that has stayed consistent but it is still too high. We can all do our part to help make these numbers even lower - the following are ICBC's top five road safety tips for cyclists and top five tips for other roads users to consider:
Read more at NewsWire


Police pedal their message of hope to area schools
Police operate more than one ride program. The best-known goes by the name of RIDE and is directed at catching impaired drivers. The other is Pedal for Hope and involves officers riding bikes raising awareness of, and money for, pediatric cancer research.

Members of the Peterborough chapter of Cops for Cancer have been pedalling for hope since 2005, delivering their message to high school and elementary students over a three-week period each spring. This year’s 1,000-kilometre circuit of 48 schools in four counties began April 20 and ends this Friday.
Read more at CommunityPress.ca


Could the cycling industry do more to attract women?

According to the last census, women outnumber men in the UK at over 30 million. Is the bicycle trade doing enough to appeal to this huge potential market? Is the right kind of female-specific product available to retailers? Jonathon Harker asks the questions...

As an industry we are massively behind the marketing curve in all aspects: product development, retail, communication at POS and merchandising to communicate with and attract the female market. The industry does not do or try enough to manage female customers.

The potential of the female cyclist market is huge and great success can be realised with investment and education in conjunction with a far greater quality of marketing and products – not just communication of products.
Read more at Bike Biz


Pfannberger suspended after positive test
Austria was hit by another doping affair when Christian Pfannberger was suspended from racing by his Katusha team on Wednesday after a positive drugs test.
"In the late morning of today, May 6 2009, we received a communication from Pfannberger's manager about a non-negative test," the Russian team said in a statement.
Read more at Guardian


Lance Armstrong's Astana team could lose its licence
Lance Armstrong's Astana team is on the brink of collapse on the eve of the American's comeback to a major tour. With the Giro d'Italia due to start in Venice on Saturday, it has been reported that his team, backed by a consortium of Kazakh companies, has a week to find $2m, or the International Cycling Union could withdraw its licence to race.
Read more at Guardian


Armstrong to bail out Astana
Lance Armstrong is understood to be behind a planned management buyout of financially troubled Kazakh-backed Team Astana.

The Australian understands the team has to find fresh funds totalling more than $2million -- the amount understood owed to riders in back pay -- or face handing back the ProTour license to the sport's world body, the Union Cycliste International.
Read more at The Australian


No Giro d'Italia on Versus
U.S. cable network Versus will not be televising any of the Giro d'Italia, the world's second-biggest road biking race. Lance Armstrong had targeted this event for a major victory, another step in his comeback.

The network gave no reason for its decision.
Read more at MediaPost.com


German state TV to broadcast Tour after all
German state TV is to broadcast the Tour de France after announcing last October they were ending their live coverage of the event because of a number of doping cases in the sport.
"The Tour de France will be broadcast live this year again by ARD and ZDF," ARD said in a statement on their website (www.ard.de) late on Tuesday.
Read more at Guardian


Valverde files complaint against Italian committee
Alejandro Valverde has filed a complaint in court in Spain against the Italian Olympic Committee's attempt to ban the Spanish cyclist for doping.

The Italian committee confronted Valverde in February with DNA evidence and documents that allegedly showed he was involved in the Operation Puerto blood doping case.
Read more at AP


UK Sport under attack over London 2012 finance
The former chief executive of British Cycling has launched a stinging attack on UK Sport for its handling of the Team GB budget for London 2012 and accused the government agency of turning a good-news story into a bad one.
Read more at Telegraph


The Digital Ramble | Bikes in Film
May is Bike Month in New York City. To celebrate, the Film Society of Lincoln Center screened a new film, “Veer,” described as “an inside look at bike culture that follows five lives invested in and growing alongside a booming social movement.”

Bicycles and film go way back, from Buster Keaton gliding down the road in “The General” to that great American dream of becoming an Italian racer in “Breaking Away,” a movie that seemed to be available on television every Sunday when I was a teenager, and made me want to shave my legs.

“L’Ecole des Facteurs” is a 1947 short (later becoming the feature-length “Jour de Fête”) about a French postman training to deliver the mail just a bit faster. The moments when an errant bicycle careens around without a pilot are an early special-effects delight.
Read more at NY Times Blogs


Cycling and the Law: Where Does Education Begin?
Today, in honor of bike month on the Streetsblog Network, we hear from a cyclist in Long Beach, California, who was forced into the position of (unsuccessfully) educating a police officer about the right of a bike to ride safely out of the door zone.
Read more at www.streetsblog.org


Monster Bikes - Boise Bike Week gets creative with Frankenbikes
It might be a bicycle built for two, or four, or maybe just involves the cannibalized corpses of multiple bikes welded into a towering hulk, but whatever it is, it's undoubtedly one of a kind.

Don't call it a monstrosity, or a contraption; call it a Frankenbike.

The creations will be the newest addition to the seventh annual Boise Bike Week, running Sunday, May 10, through Saturday, May 16
Read more at Boise Weekly