Okay, so it looks more like Morocco or someplace like that. Camelback bike:

Via Steve.

This video’s in Danish, but you don’t have to understand the language to figure out what’s going on.

Props to @Wuss912.

Riding a bicycle on California Route 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains is legal between Los Gatos and Scotts Valley, but in no way do I recommend trying to share the road on this highway. You’re sharing the road with very heavy high speed traffic which is often moving well beyond the 50 mph speed limit. There are significant stretches with no shoulder and sketchy road edges; many of these narrow lanes are around blind curves.

Even the most aggressively hard core of lane taking vehicular cyclists in the Bay Area will tell you to avoid Highway 17 and take alternate routes. I occasionally see cyclists between Bear Creek Road along Lexington Reservoir and Highway 9 in Los Gatos, but even here I strongly recommend the Los Gatos Greek Trail to Alma Bridge Road to the dirt trail to Old Santa Cruz Highway. As I type this on the northbound Hwy 17 bus we just passed a cyclist pulling a trailer by The Cats.

The cyclists I most often see on 17 seem to be loaded for touring. Is there a bike touring map or guide somewhere that says to take 17 to Santa Cruz?

I saw a report of a bicyclist last night during rush hour of a cyclist on southbound 17. Here are the CHP dispatches:

 5:33PM  BICYCLIST ON RHS, APPEARS SCARED, IN BAD SPOT
 5:33PM  FSP17 ADV SUBJ IS IN BAD SPOT
 6:20PM  FSP17 L/L SVPD 10-97 W/FSP SVPD REQ ETA
 6:40PM  17B / PROVIDING TFC BREAK TO ASSIST BICYCLIST TO NEXT TURN OUT
 6:41PM  17B / REQ FSP RUN BREAK AT VINE HILL

“FSP17” is the courtesy towing service, SVPD is the Scotts Valley Police Department, Vine Hill Road is on the final downhill into Scotts Valley, where the speed limit is 65 MPH and there’s little to no shoulder. The Scotts Valley PD ended up providing an escort to the cyclist to the Granite Creek Road exit.

Avoid Highway 17 on your bike. Take Old Santa Cruz Highway instead, or ride the Highway 17 bus.

The popular Capitol Corridor train route — Amtrak’s 3rd busiest with 1.7 million riders last year — has added more bike racks to the older 1995 cab cars, increasing bike capacity by 34% with seven bike racks now in the older cars. The Capitol Corridor Joints Powers Authority plans to retrofit the newer 2002 cab cars in the near future to further increase bike capacity.

More than 150,000 cyclists — about 9% of riders — bring their bikes on board the train each year.

The Capitol Corridor is primarily a commuter train service with 32 daily trains running between San Jose, California and Sacramento, with stops in Santa Clara, along the East Bay, and along I-80 to Sacramento. Capitol Corridor is managed by BART. Incidentally, onboard the train is the only place you can buy discounted BART tickets. Amtrak Capitol Corridor is funded entirely by the state of California.

More:

• SF Streetsblog: Bike Capacity to Increase on Capitol Corridor Trains
• Sacramento Business Journal: Capitol Corridor adds bike racks to trains.
• Amtrak Capitol Corridor.

Alfred locks his Cannondale up outside the cafe where he’s eating. He sees a guy pull out a drill and start drilling out his u lock! Alfred and his friends run out and this is what happens [some language and violence].

Via Prolly.

I think almost all of us speed and have made mistakes while driving, but this guy takes the cake: Chris Christie was driving the wrong way down a wrong way street when he hit a motorcyclist. He told the reporting police officer that he’s a U.S. Attorney, and the police officer decided not to cite Christie. What a guy. I’m not sure what the worse problem is — the obvious corruption of the Elizabeth, NJ P.D., or a man with influence getting his way.

Christie reminds me of former South Dakota Attorney General, Governor and Representative Bill Janklow who blew through a stop sign at 70 mph in a 55 zone and killed motorcyclist Randolph Scott. Janklow was convicted of manslaughter and served a whopping 30 days in jail. Unbelievably, Janklow’s license to practice law was reinstated in 2006. Probably part of the reason the local attorney even charged Janklow was because motorcyclists are a noticeable crowd in South Dakota politics, and they made sure their collective voice was heard in this case.

What do you bet that Toronto attorney Michael Bryant, who killed a bicyclist last week with his Saab, will be acquitted?