* The world’s largest bike show is done, and Specialized Bicycles marketing guy Chris Matthews posted his show summary to his blog, along with some lovely photos of the show (and they’e not all Specialized bike shots).

* Bike Biz reports more vendors, more booth rentals, and more show visitors for the 2009 Eurobike show over last year.

* Shimano announced their intentions to enter the growing eBike market. There’s still a lot of resistance to electric bicycles in the United States, but in Europe sales are growing.

* Carlton has a photoset of just electric bikes from Eurobike.

Watch the 2009 Tour of Missouri live online with streaming video and other updates provided via the Tour of Missouri Tour Tracker. The last couple of hours are also broadcast live online at Universal Sports

I knew Universal Sports was covering the Tour of Missouri live on their cable TV channel, but I totally missed the news about the Tour Of Missouri Tour Tracker. There’s live streaming video and updates.

Today is a great day to be a cyclist. Not only does the Vuelta a España continue with a close race, with Cadel Evans leading Alejandro Valverde by two seconds, but the Tour of Missouri starts today. According to the Tour of Missouri site, the race will be airing online on multiple outlets including Universal Sports and the Tour of Missouri site. Air times will start approximately two hours before each stage finish.

On a lighter note, French prankster Remi Gaillard created one of the greatest cyclist pranks ever seen, by organizing a stage race finish around an unsuspecting cyclist:

Funny Tour De France Prank – Watch more Funny Videos

This is not his first cycling-related prank either, back in 2001, he crashed an interview at the conclusion of one of the Tour de France stages:

For those in the USA, I hope you’re enjoying your three day holiday.

Somebody told me about a top secret access to the UCSC trails from south Felton that involved some gut busting grades on narrow single lane roads that switchback west of Highway 9, climbing from Gold Gulch (elevation 300′) to the top of Upper Scenic Drive (elevation 1,000′).

It sounded interesting and I’ve never tried it before, so I went for it this morning. After a couple of wrong turns and backtracking up some 20% grades, I finally got to the end of Upper Scenic Drive.

My guide told me to expect a dirt road that leads to UCSC’s fire roads. What I found instead was barbed wire, logs, a big “NO TRESPASSING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW KEEP OUT,” and a woman telling me I’m on private property.

Bummer.

So I turned around and got out to Highway 9, cut south and intended to take the UConn trail to get me through Pogonip and back up to the UCSC trail system. By the time I got to UConn, though, I had already traveled 11 miles on my mountain bike with over 2,000 feet of total elevation gain, and I had yet to touch any singletrack.

I bailed and went to Plan B.

I coasted down into Santa Cruz, where I took some photos of people, bikes and pelicans; enjoyed the ocean view; ate a taco; and then rode the bus, where I met a delightful retired couple touring Santa Cruz County with public transit. I hope you enjoy the photos. The end.

I really like the Reelight no battery lights (see my quick review here), but I don’t care for the low mounting at the wheel axle.

Reelight announced a handlebar mounted version of their light at Eurobike, where Reelight has been nominated for a European Design Award for the secon year in a row.

The new light still has spoke mounted magnets on the wheel and a coil mounted to the fork to generate a charge to power the LEDs, but the light and housing have been moved to their own mount with a cable running power up to the LED light. The handlebar mounted housing is larger than the fork mounted light.

Info from Rad Spannerei (in German). If somebody can dig up a photo of this new light I’d really appreciate it!

I watched Bicycle Dreams this last weekend. Bicycle Dreams chronicles the 2006 Race Across America.

I’ve never been keenly interested in RAAM. Like director and editor Stephen Auerbach when he signed on to doing this project, I didn’t think a bunch of bikes crossing America at 15 mph could be too exciting, but the drama of how these people push themselves is stunning. Auerbach was inspired and moved by the achievement of these unknown endurance athletes, and the heart he puts into this project is very evident. So far, Bicycle Dreams has won six film festival awards (and counting) and for very good reason.

I’ll post a fuller review later (hopefully next week), but for now I’ll tell you this is a worthwhile film to see. I’m not quite inspired enough to push myself across the country in 9 days, but I did want to hop on my bike and see a little of the country side after watching Bicycle Dreams. I’ll also have a copy to give away in the near future.

For much more and to purchase, visit Bicycle Dreams website.