Entries Tagged 'News' ↓

From the New York Times…
By JAMES C. McKINLEY JR
Published: August 15, 2008

HOUSTON - Lance Armstrong is one of the favorite sons of Texas and a model citizen known as much for his social conscience as his cycling. So it came as a surprise when it was revealed this week that he is one of the biggest individual users of water in Austin, where he lives.

Say it ain’t so, Lance.
In July, Mr. Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times, used a whopping 330,000 gallons of water at his lush Spanish-colonial home, with an acre of gardens and a swimming pool, city water authority officials said.
This tremendous flow of H2O, which is 38 times what the average household in the city uses in the summer, comes as Texas is going through a dry spell and officials are asking people to cut back on watering their lawns. “We are definitely short on rain,” Lisa Rhodes, a spokeswoman for the authority, said with a sigh.
Mr. Armstrong declined to be interviewed. He has been in Colorado and California all summer and only noticed the surge in water use when he saw his bills go up, his spokesman, Mark Higgins, said in an e-mail message. (The bill for July was $2,460.) “Lance and all the folks involved are looking into it and will for sure get it under control,” Mr. Higgins wrote.
The Austin American-Statesman, which broke the story on Friday, quoted Mr. Armstrong as saying he was unaware his water use was so high. “I’m a little shocked,” he told The Statesman. “There’s no justification for that much water.” He added, “I need to fix this.”
But city water records suggested that his home has long been a guzzler of water, using an average of 158,000 gallons a month since January 2007. Then, in June, the cyclist shot ahead of the pack, topping the city’s list of residential water users for the first time, officials said. That month his house and garden drank up 222,900 gallons.
Daryl Slusher, an assistant director of the Austin City Water Authority in charge of conservation, said the city had ruled out a leak. Mr. Slusher offered to scrutinize Mr. Armstrong’s irrigation system and perhaps recommend native species that require less water.
Getting Mr. Armstrong on board with water conservation would be a public-relations boon, Mr. Slusher said, although it was a disappointment that Mr. Armstrong had ended up on the top of the city’s water-gluttons list.
“I was surprised he was No. 1,” Mr. Slusher said. “But his response is very encouraging.”

Former WB resident Alejandro sent me this…

http://pdn.philly.com/photo/audio_slides/bikeshop/index.html

Youngest Tour Rider Remounts After Harrowing Fall…

John-Lee Augustyn, the youngest rider of the 2008 Tour de France was the first rider of Stage 16 to reach the teardrop summit of the Col de la Bonette.
Check out his spectacular crash on the descent…

http://www.cycleto.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=412

John-Lee will be looking for a new sponsor since South Africa’s Barloworld (an industrial group representing Caterpillar, Avis and other activities in SA) has decided to withdraw from cycling following the admission of Spaniard Moises Duenas Nevad to doping during the TDF.
Here’s a little Wiki bio on John-Lee Augustyn…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Lee_Augustyn

17th Juillet, LAVELANET, France (AP) - Saunier-Duval team withdraws from Tour de France after Riccardo Ricco tests positive for EPO.

Let’s see, in the past month man opens bike shop, man falls head over heels in love (again) with an Almost Famous blonde, (again) and according to a reliable source plans to spend this summer in a swank California coastal community.

The new bike shop owner is Lance Armstrong, who opened Mellow Johnny (Lance’s twang term for the Maillot Juane, the Tour Day France’s yellow leader’s jersey) last month in Austin, TX.

Goldie Hawn’s daughter Kate Hudson is the new blonde in Lance’s life. The pair have been spotted lately in public. Will a Trek Madone be in Kate’s future?

The swank California community where Lance is rumored to be spending this summer is Santa Barbara California. -source; James Bond of Cycling

Add to that…

Do you feel that some of the press Lance recieves in his personal life trivializes his accomplishments in cycling and the war on cancer with the Livestrong Foundation? Read more in this recent NY Times article…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/fashion/22lance.html?ex=1214884800&en=f83785219a75f506&ei=5070&emc=eta1

***

Saw Them, Thought You Might Like Them!…

That was the Sim Redmond Duo, composed of Sim Redmond and Jen Middaugh, who opened for friend and spring’s ‘Bike Social’ musician Charles Havira, last week at River Street Jazz Cafe. Great harmonies!…

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=75737795

***

Here are the directions for this week’s SMR…(special request from the peanut gallery)…

The Saturday Morning Ride is headed south this week. Join us as both courses wind their way down the W. Kirmar Parkway to Vandermark St.
The shorter ride will continue through Newport, and into Nanticoke. We’ll cross the river, head north on Rt.11, and return to the city.

Shorter Ride; 26.37 miles

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/wilkes-barre/430129424

The longer option will continue down lower Middle Rd. through Glen Lyon, Glen Lea, Mocanaqua, cross river @ Shickshinny, and return to city on Rt. 11
Long Ride; 38.18 miles

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/wilkes-barre/954538117819

***

Team High Road to be ‘One Tough Mother’s’ in This Year’s Tour…

Team High Road announced this week that it has signed a 3 year sponsorship deal with Columbia Sportwear of Portland, Oregon. Team Columbia as they will be known, will make their inaugural appearance July 3rd at the Tour De France. The deal includes sponsorship of both men’s and woman’s teams.

Imagine the fun that a marketer could have, (as they have using Columbia’s Chairman ‘One Tough Mother’ Gert Boyle in past ad campaigns) with the cycling team? Tough as nails sprinter Mark Cavendish would get my vote as a poster boy for a joint ad campaign!-tj

Add to that…

Team Slipstream just signed on GARMIN and Saab as corporate sponsors. Riis Racing will also be hoisting new corporate sponsorship with the introduction of Saxo Bank.

Are the dark days of Pro Cycling starting to pass? Interestingly, Team High Road, Slipstream, and Riis Racing have been at the forefront of the new athlete doping controls and testing. Seems like a change may be coming-tj

Did you happen to catch the photographs of Barack Obama riding with wife Michelle and their children this past week?
Last night (June 12th), an impromptu fundraiser was held at the home of a bicycle industry executive attended by suppliers, advocates, cycling personalities, and some retailers.
According to Stan Day of SRAM (Grip Shift, Rock Shox, Avid, Truvativ, Zipp, and their own SRAM-branded components) who organized the evening, a fundraiser had been proposed by Day to the Obama campaign committee several months ago. The Obama camp contacted Day last week to see if he could organize the meeting on less than one week’s notice. The Obama’s were taking in some down-time at home in Illinois. SRAM’s corporate headquarters are based in Chicago.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee pledged support for increased funding of cycling and pedestrian projects, and that he would also endorse the Safe Routes to School programs.***

I found a supposed earlier biking pose of Obama. Going by his age, (46) his wheels appear to be period correct!

SMR Stage 10: (06/14/2008);Blue Bikes for US Soon?

This week the Saturday Morning Ride will incorporate two loops. First, we’ll do the usual by riding up along the river to West Pittston, over the Ft. Jenkins Bridge, turn onto Parsonage, left at Stevenson, another left onto Rt.11. The longer ride will be making a right off Rt.11 and continue to ride toward Coxton, then wind our way back to the city.

Here are the directions for this week’s SMR…

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/wilkes-barre/764755545481

Length of ride approx. 37.52 miles. Shorter and longer options too.

New York • Toronto • Minneapolis • LA • SF • Chicago • Boston • Tokyo • Austin • London • Vienna • Zurich • Paris • Sydney • Melbourne • Milano • Portland

During the last week of May, the annual Bike Film Festival launched the first run of its 2008 world tour in New York City. This year the Festival travels to 17 major cities around the world including Tokyo, London, San Francisco and Paris. A celebration of all things bicycle and the culture that surrounds bike riding, there is something for everyone regardless whether you are a Critical Mass urban messenger type, serious road racer, micro-brew drinking mountain biker, tourist with panniers and box of maps, or an anti car person reducing your carbon foot print by getting bread and milk in a homemade basket you rigged up on the back of your bike. As a result, the film festival is more than just a chance to be entertained by films centered around the bike. It’s a chance to hang out (which we know is one of the things cyclist do best) discuss big ideas, look at art, drink at cutting edge bars, tool around in the streets of cool cities and be a hipster for a day.
I stumbled upon the festival on the internet a couple of years ago (probably at one of my jobs where I couldn’t leave my desk and was forced to seek out adventures vicariously through the web like some futuristic human devoid of contact with the real world, but that’s for another blog). Impressed by the whole idea, I added attending the bike film fest on my life list (This one seemed slightly more achievable than winning the Pulitzer prize for poetry) And since I am currently shooting a mountain bike documentary which I would like to enter in the 2009 festival, I figured this would be a good year to check it out.
Since flying to Tokyo seemed out of my price range at the moment, I found myself on Saturday, May 31 on a 10:30 a.m. Martz bus heading to the Anthology Film Archives an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video with a particular focus on American independent and avant-garde cinema and its precursors found in classic European, Soviet and Japanese film n New York City where the festival was occurring. I had a ticket for the the 5:00 p.m. screening which involved several shorts and a main feature called What Bobby Saw, a documentary on a legally blind mountain biker. (I guess I really don’t have any excuses for not riding)
I figured I should check out the street festival that runs from 1:00-7:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. is the main screening and an after party at Love, a club on MacDougal Street with apparently the best sound system in the city. But as much as I would love to hang out in New York City till the week hours of Sunday morning, I have to catch a 9:00 p.m. bus.
The street was blocked of in front of the Anthology Film Archives, an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video. at 32 2nd Ave. which is across from the famous New York Marble Cemetery where many famous citizens are buried. People have stacked their bikes along its wrought iron fence. The whole street is like a giant installation piece. There are the usual type vendors and bike advocates scattered around touting there wares along with a DJ blasting tunes. As one could guess, there are bikes everywhere, and a variety of people to match. It is a cross section of old, young black white, yuppie and hippie, although the crowd definitely is labeled more of an off beat crowd. Lots of tattoos: from the a girl natural type with the honey blonde hair and Chinese symbols tattooed on her back to a guy whose whole right arm is decked out with blood red roses and thorns. There are guys wearing t-shirts that say things like, Tour de drugs juxtaposed next to people in racing jerseys and cycling caps. All kinds of bags, beat up colorful shoes, dyed hair and dreadlocks. And of course a variety of bikes parade around the streets. A few guys try to out do each other with tricks and turns. There is even a bicycle beauty contest with men and women a like parading their bike and themselves around in a circle before three judges.
At 5:00 p.m. I left the party in the street and ducked in to see the feature. There were few opening shorts which range from a story about a guy who makes whiskey and rides a fixed gear mountain bike to a tongue-in-cheek horror piece about a monster in the woods. The films aren’t necessarily exceptional works of art, but there is an intoxicating feeling of seeing them together and having a diverse group of bicycle stories one after the other. The main feature, The Way Bobby Sees was gripping as you watched a man with severe visual impairment (he can only see outlines of shapes and light) and two replaced kidneys race in the Downieville Classic, an incredibly tough course with drop offs, cliffs and rocky terrain. This was an inspirational nail biter.
The 7:00 p.m. show was sold out and as I left the Anthology Film Archives a crowd wound down the stairs and out around the block. There were people from all over the world attending this event and I was happy to have experienced a small part. It made me stop for a moment and be grateful that I am able to be part of a world wide cycling movement.

If the bicycle represents anything it is freedom. The freedom to move, to express and to be. Perhaps some might argue a car offers greater mobility, but as we all know a car can become a prison. It robs us of our freedom as we spend more hours sitting and commuting. It removes us from the landscape. It detaches us from our bodies as we find ourselves driving three blocks to the store. Cars may be necessary but they are not necessarily a choice. The bicycle on the other hand offers us another way of being. It is transportation, it is recreation, it is a return to our inner child, and it is bucking the system and creating alternative ways to live. In essence it is a lifestyle to be celebrated.

For more information check out: www.bicyclefilmfestival.org. Contact this writer poetic_stage@yahoo.com.
-M

The Time is Now 10 o’clock. Do You Know Where Your Bicycle is?

Kryptonite, who pioneered better bike security with its U-lock, has compiled a list of the worst US cities for bicycle theft. Leading this list according to Kryptonite is Philadelphia.

1. Philadelphia, PA
2. Chicago, IL
3. New York City, NY
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Tucson, AZ (tie)
Portland, OR (tie)
7. Denver, CO
8. New Haven, CT
9. Cambridge, MA
10. Austin, TX

“When we did the compilation, there wasn’t even a city close to Philly,” stated Donna Tocci, Kryptonite’s marketing manager,“Not even close.”

According to Tocci Kryptonite compiles the information from various sources. In addition to police statistics, the company uses information from college campuses, visits to bike shops, and data from their own customer service department.

Looking 20 Years Back; Hampsten Sleighs the Gavia…
The 1980’s were the coming of age for American cycling. Greg Lemond, impressive victories at the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA, and the American-based 7-Eleven team brought US cycling respect that it had lacked from the Europeans.

On June 5th 1988, 7-Eleven’s Andy Hampsten pulled off a stunning ride on Stage 17 of the Giro d’Italia to what many consider the toughest day in the history of the Grand Tours. Hampsten rode onto the narrow dirt covered mountain passes of the Dolomites and then left his nearest competitors on a treacherous snow-covered descent into the tiny Italian village of Santa Caterina.

Hampsten credits the preparation of his team manager, (7-11 had purchased ski wear that morning to keep their cyclists warm) and the hard work of his fellow riders for the eventual win.

His victory of the Giro d’Italia is considered one the finest achievements in US cycling history.
Today, Andy is a much sought out speaker on his recollections of that most memorable day in 1988.

SMR Stage 8: 05/31/2008; 7:30AM Start Time this Week!…
Note; Rain cancels ride!

This week the Saturday Morning Ride will incorporate two loops. First, we’ll do the usual by riding up along the river to West Pittston, over the Ft. Jenkins Bridge, turn onto Parsonage, left at Stevenson, another left onto Rt.11. The longer ride will be making a right off Rt.11 and continue to ride toward Coxton, then wind our way back to the city.

Here are the directions for this week’s SMR…
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/pa/wilkes-barre/764755545481
Length of ride approx. 37.52 miles. Shorter and longer options too.

Thank you for making the 2nd Annual Bike Social a success!

Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People & The 8th Habit has added another habit for change; ride a bike!

Not only is biking a healthy activity, ride time with others can act as a powerful networking mechanism. Golfing has long been considered a way to connect with business acquaintances in an informal atmosphere. Seems like biking has stolen a page from the golfers! Biking elevates the heart rate, is more fast paced and half the time of a round of golf.

Similar stories have recently appeared in the New York Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,