Good morning. By May, the hills surrounding Santa Clara Valley usually have turned a dusky brown as the vegetation dries up. Calfire crews stafff their stations to prepare for the fire season, and hundreds of cyclists ride the roads and local trails.
This year, however, we have rain. We have temperatures 20 degrees cooler than normal. Hypothermic racers get pulled from the podium to get them to a warm sauna. Cyclists wear hats and gloves to ward off the chill.
One of my neighbors call this “earthquake weather.” At least we don’t have monster tornadoes to sweep us away.
Grist has been publishing a lot of bike stuff recently. They’re all worth passing along.
- Four House Republicans give a nod to biking, walking.
Four GOP House members signed a letter praising Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for putting bikers and walkers on equal footing with autos in transportation planning. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michael McCaul (TX), Jack Kingston (GA), and Steven LaTourette (OH) joined 24 Democratic colleagues in giving a shout-out to LaHood’s newsmaking policy shift.
- Bike To Work Cities.
- 10 ways to kick the offshore oil habit, which includes these tips:
- Emergency funding for endangered mass transit. A chilling 59 percent of public transit networks have cut service or raised fares (or both) since January 2009, pushing more commuters into cars. Congress could save both oil and jobs by preserving existing bus and rail lines with emergency funding.
- Smarter land use. Congress could direct (and help fund) local government efforts to update zoning and land-use regulations in ways that encourage compact development compatible with transit service and friendly to walkers and bikers.
Other fun stuff:
Good.Is Bike Polo pictorial.
Bike Fairy. (Via).
Visitors from outer space, and I’ll have more about this maybe on Sunday, but think “Fermi Paradox.”
Bikes for the Rest of Us on Nirve’s new Euro Sport commuter bikes.
Long time bike blogger had a Grand Mal seizure! Dude, get well!
CYLRAB: Not into Spandex?
How’s the weather in your town?
thanks for the shout out 😀
wheeeeeee!