Ruth Slovenski is my hero.

She rides a blue 1943 Huffy bicycle with a basket to get around. The cool thing — Ruth is older than the bike: she’s 83 years old.

She got the bicycle as a gift from her parents when she was a teenager in 1943. It’s the only bicycle she’s ever needed or wanted. When she was out for a coffee run last weekend, somebody stole the bike.

A happy ending: When they heard about the theft, several people offered reward money for the bike’s recovery. Somebody who claims he received the bike saw Ruth’s story and turned her bike in to the police.

See photos of Ruth as a 15 year old girl and today with the same Huffy bike.

Wend Magazine blogged about this too.

A Happy Good Friday to you.

Some tweeters have started a tradition of “#followfriday” in which they list other tweeters that they follow on Twitter. I’ll list some of the blogs (mostly on bicycling) that I looked at today.

A PedX Courier on Ocean Street in Santa Cruz makes a delivery. Photo by Richard Masoner.

First of all, Velo Vogue has been running a neat series on how the Paris Velib program maintains their bikes: A fleet of mechanics on bikes takes care of most of the day to day maintenance, trucks do the heavy lifting, and they even use floating bike shops on the Seine for storage and maintenance.

SF Streetsblog has exceeded my expectations. I’m thrilled that the Streetsblog franchise works well in the San Francisco Bay Area and they’ve become a wonderful resource for transportation news and advocacy.

The Streetsblog Network highlights the interesting stories from around the United States.

Tom Vanderbilt’s How We Drive.

Bennet rides his fixed gear bike down Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA. Photo by Richard Masoner.

Charikichi aka “Girls on Bicycles.”

Rich Layman’s Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space. Note to Rich: That bright green background is a little rough on my eyes.

Harsh my mellow

Rail neighbors hope to shed NIMBY image.

Michigan State student newspaper editor threatens to run over cyclists.

Adios! Have a good weekend, all.

New York Times: Middle School Lessons in Traffic Safety. Some interesting stuff:

• The number of child injuries during school dropoff/pickup times has increased over the years.
• Nationwide, roughly 21 percent of morning traffic is generated by parents driving children to school according to Safe Routes to School.
• “Traffic patterns around schools in Los Angeles have become clogged and often dangerous because of a large growth in student enrollment and an increase in the number of parents who ferry their children to and from school out of fear for their safety.”
• Sidewalks get narrowed as roads are widened to make room for more cars.

Read more at the New York Times.

See also:

• Soap Box LA: Crosswalk sting operation. “Watching the LAPD conduct a crosswalk sting operation is like watching the home team win the big game, over and over again. The impact of the sting was dramatic to watch, especially when the motorcycle officers rode into the traffic with one arm in the air like cowboys herding cattle and pulling over up to four motorists at a time.”
• Los Altos Freiker. Imagine if over half the kids at your child’s school walked or biked there.
• 70% of students walk and bike to some Boulder County schools after implementation of Safe Routes to School programs.