During our epic rainstorm here in northern California a couple of weeks ago, I was a little bummed because my usual shoe drying solutions are no longer available. My ski boot & glove dryer I used to keep in the office caught on fire, and the other office standby — a hot CRT computer monitor — had been sent to the recycler months ago.

Fortuitously, I got a call from Lindsey in San Francisco that day. She told me about the Stuffitts Shoe Savers. They were created by a triathlete who wanted a way to dry his shoes and found that cedar shavings work really well. I hate putting soggy shoes on at the end of the day and the next morning, so I’m eager to try them out.

The Shoe Savers arrived in the mail today. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to put them to the test anytime real soon. Here’s the 5 day forecast for Palo Alto, California.

As soon as we get some rain I’ll let you know how they work out. They’re pretty cute, though — blue feet shaped inserts stuffed with cedar shavings that make my shoes smell really nice like Christmas trees!

I’ve enabled Google Social and Google now (occasionally) returns results from my “social circle” to, theoretically, get the latest dirt on what my friends are talking about.

I typed in “Tour of California” for example, and Google Social returned Steephill’s 2007 AToC dashboard, my Sacramento photoset from earlier this year, and a call for volunteers by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition for 2008.

Google Social completely missed, however, Hayduke’s back to back rants about the 2010 Amgen Tour of California and hypothesizes a correlation between large racing events and scofflaws running stop signs in Santa Cruz. I’d say Google Social is, for now, a work in progress, which is partly why they call it “experimental” I suppose.

Speaking of experimmental and innovation, I’m impressed with the work that apparently went into the E-HUB. A couple of cycling enthusiasts in Slovenia developed this spring loaded rear hub to help “round out” eccentric leg motions when pedaling. Many Cyclelicious readers know of past attempts to improve the pedaling stroke with elliptical chainrings, and I’m personally dubious of this attempt. Some of the endorsements for E-HUB, however, got my attention, especially that from RAAM winner Jure Robic (from, incidentally, Slovenia).

James @ Bicycle Design discusses the design of the E-HUB at his blog, and Ron at Cozy Beehive does an impressive job analyzing the numbers and breaking down the claims of performance improvements behind this hub.

I’m hardly a trackstanding expert, so I’ll point you to this video of Jiro Nakamura from Bikeskills.

Update: I made a little diagram of what I had in mind. Thanks to the commenters for their ideas and suggestions!

Update 2: The fact that this is dangerous, possibly deadly, and probably illegal is blindingly obvious, but several of my friends felt obliged to tell me so anyway. Don’t try this at home, kids.

I was joking around with somebody about using one of these on a bicycle or skateboard to pull myself uphill using the San Francisco cable car cables.

The cable is 28 inches below the street surface and moves constantly at 9 mph. What’s to keep somebody from hitching a ride by reaching down with something like this and grabbing the cable?

San Francisco being what it is, I’m sure somebody has already tried something like this.

Happy Friday, all!

Curtis responded to a Speedvest discussion on BikeForums.net with his own photoshopped Speedvest. He tells me he met the Speed Vest people at Maker Faire and they loved his version.

Steephill has all the latest on the 2010 Tour of California.

Speaking of which, a lot of people (including myself) liked how AEG used Twitter to announce the 2010 host cities. During the press conference yesterday morning, Michael Ross of AEG sports said, “Twitter is the social network most preferred by cyclists.” I don’t know how true that is, a lot of us like Facebook as well. The Santa Cruz Local Organizing Committee also recognizes the importance of social media in getting attention for an event and has appointed my friend Karen Kefauver as Social Media Director. Teh Santa Cruz stage has a Facebook page and lives on Twitter @TOCSantaCruz.

Minneapolis Cycling Examiner talks studded bike tires for winter (and uses one of my photos woo hoo!).

Dude! Via.

Masi Guy is recruiting.

Brooklyn By Bike: Video Guide to NYC Bike Lanes.

I haven’t mentioned Jill in Alaska in a long time.

Somebody stole his fixie har har har Gwadzilla.

Umm, the Go Girl. Via Industry Outsider who uses words like “relieve” and “whiz” in punny ways.

Have a great weekend.

David aka Fred, Mark aka “Thighs”, Tim aka Uncle Giant, Rich aka Mr Interbike, Chris aka Belgian Head Case, Scott aka Sleepy, and I talked about cycling on issue #45 of the Spokesmen.

I think we talked about Interbike (more filling, tastes great!), Taiwan (food and fun in the tropical sun), the future of Team Astana and Alberto Contador, the Tour of California vs the Giro d’Italia, helmets on kids (as illustrated below), and important tips for cycling.