I’m flipping through TMBK, a Taiwan mountain bike magazine, and see an ad for the Woho Firefly saddle bags and handlebar bags.

A closer look reveals these bags are actually transluscent plastic that are available in several bright colors; you put a light inside the bag so they glow.

Flash heavy website Wohobike.com has some more illustrations of the bags in action, but I think their Flickr photostream works better for me.

I see now also that my friends at Urban Velo got the jump on me and posted about the Woho Firefly last week.

Vancouver, BC and environs will be a traffic nightmare during the Winter Olympics, so organizers are promoting “alternative” transportation in a transportation plan that restricts on street parking and encourages public transportation, shuttles, walking and even bicycling.

“The goal is to reduce vehicle traffic by 30 per cent, which is about 26,000 vehicles,” says Terry Wright, 2010’s head of Olympic services. “We will have new cycling networks and bike parking in and around the venues.”

Pedestrian corridors will be established where people can walk, bike and ride pedicab to events. Temporary bike parking will be provided at Games venues and LiveCity celebration sites. Bike lockers will be available at all SkyTrain stations, with the exception of Stadium station. Olympic organizers encourage Vancouver residents to participate in Bike to Work Week November 2-9 to practice cycling in winter conditions, which I think is pretty rad.

For details, visit the City of Vancouver online map page which includes maps of the Olympic and Paralympic Venues, Vancouver bike map, and an Olympic road network map.

This stationary bike is a Wii controller.

From the game screenshot, it appears you use this bike drive a pedal powered chopper over the planet to clean up the planet.

More at Kotaku. Due for release January 2010 from French game publisher BigBen Interactive. Since they’re French, is it too much to hope for a bike racing game to use with this accessory?

Via Gizmodo. I thought I mentioned it earlier but I guess not. Also at WIRED Gear Factor, where Charlie suggests just playing Mario Cart with a normal WiiMote while sitting on the exercise bike that’s gathering dust in the basement.

This is sickening…

Five teenagers were charged with aggravated battery yesterday for dousing a 15-year-old with rubbing alcohol and setting him on fire because he stopped someone from stealing his father’s bicycle, authorities said.

Details –> AHN.

Update courtesy my loyal readers – the article I link to has info that doesn’t quite fit the circumstances of the article I originally read (which is where the title comes from). Ah well.

But the tree did get the bike and trash the front wheel.

This is Daniel. When this huge tree came down at Haight and Broderick in San Francisco, he almost ate it. More about Daniel and his adventure at SFist. Photo by expuestosiempre. H/T to Murph.

I just took a walk around my apartment complex and saw at least a half dozen broken trees, and I’ve heard chainsaws buzzing all around for most of the day.

Rather than chance getting stuck at the office today, I’m working at home. I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains, though not in the evacuation areas mentioned in the news clip below.

How was your commute today? Did you bike? And did you have to dodge any huge trees?

Happy Tuesday the 13th. For those in the Bay Area, I hope you’re enjoying the wind and the rain.

It’s kind of an open secret among cyclists in the San Francisco Bay Area that a “Bike There” mapping option is in internal testing at Google in Mountain View. We’re pretty excited about it, even if the average speed they use to calculate trip time is 8 mph.

Recently I was looking at Google Maps for Los Gatos, California when I noticed the Los Gatos Creek Trail is in Google Maps!

I immediately hunted around for other bike paths I know about. Coverage is spotty, even in the San Francisco Bay Area. Portions of the Stevens Creek Trail in Mountain View, for example, are missing, as is the Guadalupe River Trail in San Jose . The Oregon Expressway Bike Bridge is in Google Maps, but Ringwood Avenue is missing. The labeling of the trails is also inconsistent for now.

Elsewhere, I see trail info has been added to Boulder, Colorado but is missing from its neighbor Longmont, Colorado. (Note that the Open Street Map project map for Longmont includes the St Vrain and Lefthand Creek trails.)

Right now, the trail data doesn’t seem to be used at all for directions, even when you select “Walk There,” but Google says the trail data will be used and a “Bike There” option will be available Real Soon Now in Google Maps.

See also:

• Urban Velo: Google announces “Bike There” option for Google Maps.
• Bike PGH: Googles announces plan for bike there option.

Do you see trail data in Google Maps for your area? How complete is it?