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.

Monday night in San Luis Obispo: Monday Night Mountain Bike Ride, 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. 1422 Monterey Street, San Luis Obsispo, CA 93401. 805-543-1148 for details.

Thursday in San Francisco: Bike Ed Day One from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. This is the “day 1” course for League of American Bicyclists’ Bike Ed Road I certification. Each class is free, but registration is required.

Friday in San Francisco: Critical Manners ride at 5:30 p.m. northeast corner of Larkin & Grove.

Early Bird Criterium continues next Sunday in Fremont, California. Details.

I may add a cycling calendar sidebar, focusing mostly on California events but I’ll include other important national and international events. If you have items for inclusion on this calendar that are not already on the Cycle California calendar or Quick Release TVs calendar, please feel free to contact me with your event information.

I’ve been sitting on this story since September and now Bike Europe has broken the news: Bicycle production costs are going up significantly in China. The Bike Europe article notes that labor costs are increasing in China, along with other costs of doing business such as new pension requirements and new taxes.

Bike Europe mentions a six to seven percent increase in the cost of bike components, which just happens to match the seven percent drop of the value of the dollar against the Chinese yuan. Bike Europe also fails to mention the skyrocketing cost of raw materials used to build bikes, fuel shortages in China that make it increasingly difficult to manufacture product there, along with rapidly rising costs of energy and fuel. While the cost of transporting product from China to the rest of the world is still negligible, this is also increasing.

I expect more demand for bikes in the USA, Canada and Europe, especially for the low end bikes that are typically produced in mainland China. Some of these cost increases will be passed along to consumers, but the increased production cost of bikes will eat somewhat into profit margins.

I plan to work on a Facebook Application over the holiday break. It’s a bike racing game in which you join a cycling team to race in the big American and European races. You “train” by visiting the bike application, and more time spent training equates with better racing times. The races will occur at the same time as the real races, and I might even include real world events (such as weather, crashes, and DNFs) into the game world.

Recruiting friends to the game earns you sponsorship money which you can use to buy equipment, coaching, training aids and so forth. I’m trying to decide if drugs should be an option. If you get tested, you will be caught and if you win you will be tested. What do you think? What should be the consequences if you’re caught doping?

More below…

In the real world, Floyd Landis has now been officially suspended from French, non-UCI cycling races by the French national doping agency. The UCI, which is the international union which regulates most pro cycling, had banned Landis already. The ASO is an independent organization that runs the Tour de France and Paris-Nice.

We also see that Iban Mayo’s “B” sample has tested positive for the banned substance EPO. The sample was taken during the 2007 Tour de France. The Spanish sport federation had previously cleared Mayo and now they’re in the uncomfortable position of going back on their assurances to Mayo.

Speaking of dopes, Richmond, VA police officer William McKay blew through an intersection at 40 mph without checking to see that the intersection was clear (as required by law). He hit cyclist Kristin Stokes, who was still in the intersection when the light turned red on her. The city of Richmond then sent Stokes a $3,000 bill for the damage to the cop car. After criticism from around the nation and offers of pro bono legal assistance to Stokes, the city dropped its claim. “In a state like this, the motor vehicle guy is always right and the cyclist is cluttering up the road,” says Bud Vye of the Richmond Area Bicycling Association.

From Jack’s reports, we also know that the car is king in St. Louis, Missouri, where cyclists are anticipating increased harassment from motorists and law enforcement along bicycling corridors that will be overrun with traffic from the I-40 highway project.

We also see dopiness in Auckland, New Zealand, where errant cyclists who chain their bikes to ramp railings are fined the same $200 “towing fee” that illegally parked motorists are charged.

On a lighter note, VeloNews site of the day is this shocking news of another drug scandal from unexpected quarters.

I’m only posting this to scoop my friends in the Kansas City area: Gladstone, Missouri plans to build a pedestrian / bicycle bridge over Shoal Creek to improve access to Happy Rock Park.

Finally, Jennifer posted some wonderful bicycle haiku while commenting on urban cycling and the goofiness of outlandishly decorated Christmas bikes. I might as well just post a permanent link to Sue’s blog in Urbana-Champaign because she posts several baikus every day! You can also find the answer to the question: Why did the chicken cross the road?