Rain Wednesday, a correction, and a news roundup

bicycle montage

Attention San Francisco Bay Area: Enjoy the sunshine and record high temperatures while you can, but be prepared for cooler temperatures and rain that’s forecast to briefly return beginning during about the Wednesday evening commute, and ending during the morning commute. About a half inch of rain is possible; South Bay trail users can check South Bay flooding status on selected trails here.

Look for bicycle and transportation updates below the photo of Italian pro Daniel Oss of BMC Racing setting the pace at the front of the peloton during stage one of the 2016 Tour of Oman, a 145km road stage from Oman Exhibition Centre to Al Bustan on February 16, 2016 in Muscat, Oman.

High-tech solutions using mobile-device transportation data to speed traffic across town in Austin, Texas includes a “green wave” system for cyclists, according to Government Technology Magazine:

Austin is installing a bicycle detection system, so that cyclists who have an app on their smartphone can “catch the lights” more often when they are biking.

A cyclist turns the app on and starts biking, and the app uses GPS to communicate with the cloud to tell the city’s system where he or she is, Pennington said, adding that it uses parameters to eliminate non-cyclists — those going to fast or too slow. “Our system pulls that GPS data, and if the light is close to turning red [due to set parameters], it may hold a few more seconds. The app’s GPS then tells the system it is past the light, and the system starts to watch the next light in your path.”

Strava doodles: Stephen Lund in Australia draws pictures with his bike, and they’re really really good.

The Chicago Area Bicycle Dealers Association show the other week included a seminar on how to make a bike shop more appealing to women. Po Campo Bags founder Maria Boustead gives her talking points on this seminar here.

Mobility Lab: Debunking myths about bike share in the suburbs.

Bay Area Bicycle Law says follow the rules of the road for your own safety.

Planetizen on the “coming Bay Area Freeway Revolution“:

This will not be a revolution against freeways, as some may have hoped, but a revolution marked by new express lanes totaling 550 miles, beginning with a new stretch of 14 miles on I-580 through Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore in the East Bay.

Governing Magazine says the dramatic 8% spike in road fatalities last year was due to more vehicle miles traveled because cheap gas, higher speeds, and a declining culture of safety.

Don’t try this at home, kids: straight vegetable oil in a bike chain gives you a sticky, gooey chain that makes derailleur shifting problematic.

vegetable oil bicycle chain tweets

David Folch (whom I earlier called “David French”, sorry about that!) talks about development of his bicycles for big and tall riders.

Finally, please see corrections in my earlier story about Shaq’s new 36er bike from DirtySixer bikes. You can see these bikes at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show coming up the weekend of February 26. Buy your tickets now.

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