Speaking of Aptos, we were riding there the day before Christmas Eve, coming down the road in Forest of Nisene Marks, when who should pass us driving up but Cam McCaul & the boyz, pickup full of bikes ‘n lads. It’s kinda cool when you can see the stars from Crankworx and DVDs cruise by like any other day in the woods. Hope they did some maintenance on the trails, someone took out the jumps and the lips are all ragged on one of our favorites anyway.

Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club, along with Silverdale Cyclery, will host a bicycle advocacy workshop for Kitsap cyclists beginning 9:30 a.m. Saturday Jan. 9 at the shop, 9242 Silverdale Way NW in Silverdale on the peninsula. RSVP at cyclery@silverdalecyclery.com or 360 692-5508.

And Cascade’s Transportation Advocacy Day will be Jan. 28 in Olympia. RSVP to Chris Rule.

Mobiky the folder king

Chris Kovarik tells his secrets.

Bike sharing in Silicon Valley now has a date — March.

Reason No. 2,369 to ride a bike: It helps your marriage last … and last!

Should be quite the show. More here.

Also coming up: Tyler Farrar, the best pro sprinter the U.S. has produced in two decades, will be at a Cascade Bicycle Club “Evening With” at 7:30 p.m. next Wednesday, Nov. 18, in Magnuson Park Theater (7110 62nd Ave. N.E.). Get a discount on the $15 tickets by ordering with code CBC Member (if you are one!).

Cyclelicio.us: Is bike sharing coming to Silicon Valley?

New World Disorder 10, “Dust and Bones,” is now available on iTunes, which is where I hope “Race Across the Sky,” the Leadville 100 epic, soon winds up, because I can’t seem to carve out the time to go to an actual theater and watch it.

RC posts his $.02 on siping mountain bike tires. My rear Nevi is a little worn around the lugs. I’ll give RC’s advice a whirl and see what happens. My gut tells me that siping won’t affect tire longevity simply because if you’re siping you’re undoubtedly riding a lot, and riding a lot is what wears out tires, siped or unsiped.

I’ve long compared mountain biking to meditation, especially to my long-suffering spouse, in an effort to communicate its transportive dimension. Not sure what to make of the Bicycle Meditations site, but if you’re into this sort of thing, here it is.

Is the bike biz in Portland defying gravity? Certainly the Rose City tends to look through rose-colored glasses. Latest case in point, from BikePortland.org: the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show.

What’s the Hippocratic Oath say again? Along the lines of, “First, do no harm.” Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson, the LA wacko who got his kicks door-stopping his car in front of cyclists, gets nailed on all 7 counts by a jury of his peers and now faces as much as 5 years in prison. The good part: When intent can be showed in cycling incidents, the judicial system is finally stepping up to the plate. (We hope we aren’t speaking too soon here; sentencing still to be set.) The bad part: When there’s no intent, the system lets even killers in cars walk free. Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club is trying to change the system.

The Oath’s closing admonition: “If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”

The Bike-Sharing Blog responds thoughtfully to New York Times story on failure rates for bike sharing in Paris, the highest visibility for sharing in the world. Good point: “Outside of the social unrest factor, bike-sharing is a good value for its expense. If you calculate the cost per trip of moving a person by bike-sharing, foot, transit, and car, I’d put my money on bike-sharing being the most cost efficient at moving a person per mile…”

That said, the real truth is that bike sharing doesn’t work without generous subsidies. Hey, even in rosy Portland the “Yellow Bike” program eventually collapsed. Solutions: Up the deposit and put transponders on the bikes. Just a thought…

One thing that could aid in promoting bike sharing, which basically involves paying a fee to take a bike from a rack, then returning the bike to a rack at the rider’s destination, is transponder technology. Transponders are satellite or other wireless-enabled devices that provide tracking capability for their hosts. The tech may not be quite there for bikes (in terms of power source, robustness and protection against disabling or removal), but is improving all the time. If there were a way to monitor independently the movements of shared bikes, the shrinkage rate might diminish. At the very least, abandoned bikes could be recovered.

Some good sources for Sea Otter coverage. MTBR.com has its own queue, Cyclelicious has the wonderfully named Yokota Fritz on the case (altho she was a bit, ahem, on the fritz last night), Velo News is out and about and of course the site’s own news team is all over. And there’s this from the Monterey County Herald.

Don’t forget the Sea Otter hash at Twitter, #seaotter. I’m twittering as well from @BikeIntel.

Why ride? Robb at Mountain Biking by 109 says it all. Wish you were here at Sea Otter bro!