“Cuts hair by day and crime by night.”

The motto on the business card pretty much sums up Boston Dawna, who for many years has been a one-woman, bicycle-riding, crime-fighting machine in Venice.

By her own estimate, she has initiated thousands of private citizen’s arrests of “thieves, burglars and robbers,” pouncing on them from bushes and restraining them with handcuffs she buys in bulk from the Pleasure Chest sex shop.

Venice residents sad to see Dawna is moving back to Boston. More at the LA Times: Venice’s one-woman crime-fighting machine is heading back to Boston. Props to Nick.

Maybe I should try this competitive Strava stuff all of the middle aged cyclists I know are into. Last week, I hit 45 MPH on a flat straightaway on Central Expressway, and kept it above 40 mph for the one mile from Shoreline Boulevard to about Whisman Road. That’s Mark Cavendish’s speed when he sprints to win in a stage race.

Somebody sign me up for HTC! Just don’t tell them I was tucked behind a slowly accelerating delivery truck.

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Toronto cyclists remember bike messenger Darcy Allan Sheppard a year after he was run down by a former Ontario attorney general, Michael Bryant.

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The late Paul Weyrich founded the conservative Heritage Foundation and The Free Congress Foundation think tanks. He was also one of the architects of the Religious Right in the 1970s. Weyrich was a man who knew how to organize activists and get out the vote.

Weyrich honed his political activism through rail transit advocacy. In 2005, he published “Winning Transit Referenda: Some Conservative Advice” with William Lind. In this guide to transit advocacy, he outlines the initial steps, how to talk to the public, fund raising, timing, the mechanics of winning, mobilizing, and so forth.

One of the more important lessons from Weyrich and Lind: Don’t assume you’ll win, even if opinion polls show a majority want transit.

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We’ve seen Pink before in tights and bike shoes on a Giant TCR road bike. She even tweets about her road rides.

She also rides around Venice in flip flops on a fat tire cruiser with her pal Carey Hart. She Tweeted about that too.
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President Barack Obama smiles as he and his family take a six mile bicycle ride along a path in Correllus State Forest at Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

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