Check it out — bike hacker Bruce Ingle created a two chain fixed gear bike from leftovers, spare parts, and aftermarket modifications.

Of this bike, Sheldon Brown writes, “Disclaimer: This is a highly-advanced hack! Do not attempt it unless you have great confidence in your metalworking and mechanical ability. This article assumes that you are already very familiar with the inner workings of Sturmey-Archer AW 3-speed hubs. If you have any questions that you can’t figure out the answer to from this article, you’re not ready for this!”

Read the details and see more photos of this “bichain fixed/free bicycle drive system” at Sheldon Brown’s website of wonderful things.

BikeBiz is calling it a case of putting his foot in his mouth, but if bike retail in the UK is anything like the USA, maybe Raleigh UK managing director Mark Gouldthorp’s recent comments should serve as a wake up call and opportunity for improvement. Instead, the UK bike retail industry group shot back at Gouldthorp noting that nearly 80% of bikes sold in the UK are through the independent retail channel.

Gouldthorp recently was quoted in the Guardian newspaper saying, ““Independent retailing in the UK is a shambles. It is real Steptoe and Son (the UK inspiration for the US “Sanford and Son” show) stuff. If you want to imagine the typical independent bike dealer, he is 50-60, highly cynical, miserable, moaning, scruffy. That’s my customer.”

In spite of Gouldthorp’s apparent views on his retailers, Raleigh UK is profitable and growing in sales. Read more at Bike Biz.

LED turn indicators for bicycles. A UK design company has created a set of front and rear bicycle lights with integrated turn signals. The Bicygnals indicator bicycle lights feature a 5 LED white light for a front light with 8 orange LED turn signals and a 3 LED rear light with 6 orange LEDs for the rear turn signals. A switch on the handlebar-mounted front unit activates both front and rear turn indicators via wireless communication.

This light is available from UK distributors for about £40, which works out to about US$80. Some of the online shops will ship to the USA for another $20 or so, with shipping from these online retailers also available elsewhere worldwide.

For product and buying information, visit Bicygnals. I know Sue (who published a bike haiku today has been looking for something like this. These run over $100 including shipping, so I think I’ll stick with hand signals for now.

I’m trying to find the website for a new bicycle built around an infinitely variable drive system. I vaguely recall seeing something about it, something that I noticed only in passing. The reason I ask for help is because I simply cannot find it, and my increasingly porous memory doesn’t help at all.

We were talking about electric cars at work today, and someone mentioned this drive system as a better alternative to an automotive automatic transmission.

Google to invest tens of millions in renewable energy. “RE < C” effort to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.

Google today announced a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, known as RE<C, will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other potential breakthrough technologies. RE<C is hiring engineers and energy experts to lead its research and development work, which will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and will also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas. In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns.

“We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers,” said Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products. “We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal.”

Page added, “There has been tremendous work already on renewable energy. Technologies have been developed that can mature into industries capable of providing electricity cheaper than coal. Solar thermal technology, for example, provides a very plausible path to providing renewable energy cheaper than coal. We are also very interested in further developing other technologies that have potential to be cost-competitive and green. We are aware of several promising technologies, and believe there are many more out there.”

Page continued, “With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.” (One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco.)

“If we meet this goal,” said Page, “and large-scale renewable deployments are cheaper than coal, the world will have the option to meet a substantial portion of electricity needs from renewable sources and significantly reduce carbon emissions. We expect this would be a good business for us as well.”

Coal is the primary power source for many around the world, supplying 40% of the world’s electricity. The greenhouse gases it produces are one of our greatest environmental challenges. Making electricity produced from renewable energy cheaper than coal would be a key part of reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind,” added Sergey Brin, Google Co-founder and President of Technology.

Strategic Investments and Grants

“Lots of groups are doing great work trying to produce inexpensive renewable energy. We want to add something that moves these efforts toward even cheaper technologies a bit more quickly. Usual investment criteria may not deliver the super low-cost, clean, renewable energy soon enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, “Google.org’s hope is that by funding research on promising technologies, investing in promising new companies, and doing a lot of R&D ourselves, we may help spark a green electricity revolution that will deliver breakthrough technologies priced lower than coal.”

Working with RE<C, Google.org will make strategic investments and grants that demonstrate a path toward producing energy at an unsubsidized cost below that of coal-fired power plants. Google will work with a variety of organizations in the renewable energy field, including companies, R&D laboratories, and universities.

Deutsche Telekom announced they will end their sponsorship of the T Mobile cycling team effective immediately.

“We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically. This was a difficult decision given our long history of support for professional cycling and the efforts of Bob Stapleton in managing the team in 2007”, said Deutsche Telekom Board member and CEO of T-Mobile International Hamid Akhavan. “We have an obligation to our employees, customers and shareholders to focus our attention and resources on our core businesses”, added Akhavan.

“We have worked very hard with the current team management to promote a clean cycling sport but we reached the decision to continue our efforts to rid all sports of doping by applying our resources in other directions. Deutsche Telekom AG wants to make it clear that this action is not based on any disagreement with or misconduct by team management”, Akhavan emphasized.

Team manager Bob Stapleton added, “We hope to go forward independently with the team to achieve our goals of continued competitive success and being a leader in anti-doping efforts in professional cycling.”

The cycling team will continue under the name Team High Road.

A number of high profile cyclists on the team have been involved in the doping scandals that have rocked pro cycling over the past couple of years.

Thank you to Bike Greenville for the heads up. Read more:

• Velonews.
• T Mobile Team website.
• The Guardian.
• Deutsche Welle.