As the person who built this fire-breathing bike wrote, this is major “Hold my beer and watch this” action here. Don’t try this at home! Do it in an empty parking lot instead. By remote control.

Here’s video of this bike in action. This might be useful for the bike commuters out there.

Update: Comments are now closed! I hope to announce the winner this evening.

Guess what the futures price of NYMEX Light Sweet Crude Oil will be when the markets close on Friday, November 9 and you could win a $10 Amazon.com gift card in this contest!

The New York Mercantile Exchange is where oil futures contracts are traded in the United States; it’s these prices which have been making the news over the past couple of weeks as crude for December delivery approaches $100 per barrel. The person who guesses the closest per barrel NYMEX price (as reported on CNN.com) when the markets close on Friday wins a $10 Amazon.com gift card.

BONUS PRIZE: The individual with a website you directs the most traffic to this article (as tracked by Google Analytics) also wins a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate. I must be able to figure out who you are and your email address. Because I’m using Google Analytics to track the inbound links, you must post the “permalink” address of this article to a website, which means spamming your friends with email won’t work. If there’s a tie, winner is determined by random drawing. The permalink address is

http://www.cyclelicio.us/2007/11/contest-guess-price-of-crude.html

First, read this to get a handle on where prices might be headed. Then read the rules, then make your guess. If the price busts through $100 per barrel any time this week, I will double the prize, even if the price later retreats.

Rules:
1. Only U.S. and Canadian residents are eligible. Entries must be received through comments on this . You must provide a valid email address, either through your Blogger.com profile, your web page that you link to in your comment, or by contacting me directly before I announce the winner this weekend. If you have a contact form through which I can get an email address, that’s good too.

4. When I close comments on this post Thursday night or Friday morning, no more entries will be accepted.

I may make this a regular feature, though I’ll probably change things around to stuff like “Guess the U.S. average gas price” and so forth, so stay tuned!

Jason @ Rocbike interviews Bike Snob NYC and posts it in his 22 minute Rocbike Review podcast. I didn’t use any of his wonderful similes and euphemisms in the interview, but it’s still a good listen. “We ride bikes for fun and we read about bikes for fun.”

Jason also interviewed The Fat Cyclist but I haven’t had a chance to listen to that yet.

I also owe Danielo a link for his 2007 Halfbakery Baiku Olympics.

Citizen Rider writes about geeking out over transportation cycling. “When I left racing behind I took that intensity into transportation,” he writes. “One commenter said that he got as excited over lighting systems and other practical componentry as he had over go-fast racing equipment. It’s true.”

Adam write how TerraPass turned him into a bike commuter.

Peter McKay gives his harrowing tale of getting shot on his bike commute in Seattle. Apparently, thugs are shooting BBs with .22 handguns and randomly shooting people. I’m researching on article right now on personal safety while cycling and have some feedback already from a local police officer. I hate random violence.

“Folk cycling” is the antithesis of “vehicular cycling.” While vehicular cycling is the practice of bicycling in a visible and predictable manner in accordance with the principles of driving any other vehicle on the road, most cyclists don’t believe the rules of the road apply to them. They either don’t care about the law, don’t think of themselves operating a vehicle or (most likely) don’t even think about of this stuff.

With the increased popularity of cycling for transportation in France, somebody has published their Outlaw cycling manifesto in which they affirm the right to run red lights and ride the wrong way “for my own safety.” Alex @ Streetsblog at least acknowledges that he does all this for convenience sake in his proposal to loosen up traffic regulations for New York cyclists. He notes that traffic engineering and rules and laws became a requirement after automobiles made streets substantially more dangerous for other road users. Several commentators in the discussion following note, of course, that outlaw cyclists often make conditions dangerous for the other large group of road users — pedestrians.

Speaking of laws, CycleDog posted some good commentary on American Lawbreaking is it relates to traffic law enforcement and bicyclists. He notes that the concerns of cyclists on the road can vary widely from that of motorists. It’s good stuff: go read it.

Photo: Wrong way cyclist in the bike lane on Folsom, Boulder, Colorado. Photo by me.

Here’s the scene today on State Highway 99 near Fresno, California.