What a really really cool idea: Ride your bike to the store, grab a shopping cart and fill it with groceries, pay for the groceries, then roll the cart out to the parking lot, where you hook it to your bicycle.

Shoppers at a Cambridge supermarket are being asked to saddle up for a new green initiative.

Waitrose in Hauxton Road, Trumpington, has teamed up with the city council to provide special trailers to allow cyclists to transport their shopping home using pedal power.

Shoppers will be able to fill up a trailer as they walk around the store and simply hitch it onto the back of their bikes when they have paid.

The free-of-charge trailer will then have to be returned within three days.

Read the full story here. Via Grist.

A fun bicycle powered tennis ball launcher. Via.

Here’s something cool I saw today: A backpack with a built in solar panel.

I can potentially use this to recharge batteries for my lights or camera while I’m cycling to work. It will be available at the company store in a few weeks, I’m told. Seen at the 2008 Eco Summit.

Urban Velo describes Bilinky’s S & S couplings, while James @ Bicycle Design contemplates breakaway frames for biking during his travels.

There’s a lot’s going on the world of cycling in this second week of 2008!

Cute story in the SF Chron: Kids Bike Sex Change. It involves duct tape and scissors. Spray paint is much easier and faster.

Reno, NV: Don’t let the cold keep you off your bike.

Debate: who pays for cycling facilities?

“Attack dog ripped my bicycle to shreds.”

A decent enough list of bicycle vacations, even if the site looks a little bit spammy.

I like this policy of an open work area at bike shops, but I can understand that mechanics need to get the work done.

Bike Hugger chronicles the bicycles seen at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Planet Bike has installed photovoltaic panels to generate electricity. Planet Bike’s newly commissioned 10 kilowatt solar power system began generating electric power atop the company”s headquarters in Madison, WI. They expect the 48 panel system to more than offset the company”s energy needs and Planet Bike plans to sell nearly 2/3 of the sustainable electric power back to the city’s power grid.

Trailer bike recall: Instep Pathfinder, Schwinn Runabout, and Mongoose Alleycat. These are all manufactured and distributed by Pacific Cycles and sold mostly through mass market retail outlets (e.g. Target and WalMart) and bike shops. Info on the recalls and affected models at Instep, Schwinn, Mongoose. The coupling connecting the child trailer to the adult’s bicycle can fail, causing the child’s bike to fall over.

There’s also yet another recall from Cannondale: 2008 Scalpel mountain bike frames can break. See all Cannondale recalls here.

Raleigh Bicycle History (posted at my request).

Photo: Abigail Anderson Beyond Thunderdome by David Schloss, used with his permission.