Somebody is apparently searching for the phrase, “I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Shimano.”

Exercise Compassion responded on Twitter with “I just spent more than my car insurance by switching to Campagnolo.”

And then, “Better yet – I just spent more than my car by switching to Rohloff.”

Have a great evening.

I know some Cyclelicious readers think my celebrities on bikes posts are a little strange.

I’ll raise your strange and take you to bizarre with these celebrities on invisible bikes photos.

More photoshopped celebrity fun at Holy Taco.

Jeff Detlefs is an attorney with Kerr Brosseau Bartlett O’Brien in Denver. He was allegedly driving drunk on the shoulder of I-70 at Evergreen Parkway when he struck cyclist Rex Hegyi with his Lexus GX470 SUV. Rex is an attorney with the Jefferson County public defender’s office.

Detlefs, who had three children in the car with him as he drove drunk, left the scene. Police tracked him down because his front license plate fell off in the collision. Rex Hegyi remains hospitalized in serious condition.

More:

• Denver Post: Attorney charged in I-70 hit-run of cyclist.
• 9 News: Driver accused of hitting cyclist also faces child abuse charges
• Examiner: Attorneys clash.

The Tour of Utah begins this evening with a short time trial that starts and ends near the State Capitol in Salt Lake City. After four stages of “America’s Toughest Stage Race,” the Tour of Utah concludes next Sunday with a 90 minute downtown SLC criterium.

There’s an interesting mix of local shop teams, Under 23 development squads, and local boy David Zabriskie riding solo representing Garmin Slipstream. The Continental teams include some Euro veterans and big names like Floyd Landis, Freddie Rodriguez and Oscar Sevilla; they’ll certainly give Z a run for his money. Fly V is coming in from Australia. The “KFAN Composite Team” is a team put together by the local sports radio station KJZZ.

I see some northern California names on the race roster, including Ben Jacques-Maynes of Watsonville and Jackson Stewart of Los Gatos.

Freakonomics blog contributor Robin Goldstein decided to get an inexpensive, used bike to get around like the natives on his recent visit to Portland, Oregon. What he discovered, however, is there is no such thing as “used” and “inexpensive” when it comes to bicycles in Portland.

Yeah, the bike guy answered, he had something super-cheap for me, an old road bike that they’d fixed up. It wasn’t exactly my size, but it would do. It was a 1991 model, a Trek, I think. It was in good working condition, it had some newer components, and it came with a warranty. I could have it, he said, for $475.

So I started looking at Craigslist — not just in Portland, but in other cities too. I looked at a wide range of midsized-to-large cities that I thought represented a diversity of urban layouts, bike prevalence, wealth, and so on: Austin, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle.

From each of these cities I collected an extremely basic data set: the asking prices for the 50 most recent cars, trucks, and bikes advertised. Then I looked at the medians. Here’s what happened…

In the chart that Robin created, there’s an inverse relationship between used car prices and used bike prices. In other words, in cities where used bike prices are the highest, used car prices are the lowest.

Read more at Freakonomics blog.

Who knew?

MAKE Magazine sponsored a Maker Faire in Accra, Ghana over this last weekend. Among the many projects on display are bicycle mechanic Bernard Kiwia’s power saw built from repurposed bicycle parts.

More at MAKE Magazine. See also Maker Faire Africa website.