Early warning: Biketoberfest returns to Fairfax on Oct. 16. Last year was a total hoot!

BikePortland.org is running a reader survey. We filled it out; so should you.

Publicola’s Bike Nerd covers PARK(ing) day in Seattle.

It can get so routine driving a bus in Portland that at least one driver resorted to reading a Kindle just to break the monotony.

At Interbike, once again BikeHugger will ride the strip!

Fargo N.D. must be one flat town.

Stage 5 tomorrow will be pretty much a repeat of today’s race, with an anticipated sprint finish.

[As an aside, we continue to be distraught at Tyler Farrar's wrist injury, believing firmly that Tyler would have won either yesterday or today or both, given his prime conditioning and perfect team dynamic on Garmin-Transitions. It looks like Cavendish has been spending too much time promoting his new book, Boy Racer. Those chicken dinners can really catch up with you.]

Overall, Stage 4 was a fairly routine, flat and crashless race — marking a departure for this year’s Tour. And the weather, although on the hot side, was at least clear and dry.

After the oil-slickened pavement of Stage 2 and yesterday’s cobblestoned nightmare, a flat profile and leisurely pace must have been a welcome change of venue for the peloton.

Random notes:

We’re still in awe that Wenatchee’s Tyler Farrar is hanging in there with a broken wrist. It has to be a dispiriting turn of events, but if anyone has the character to handle it, it’s Tyler.

Alan at EcoVelo muses on fandom burnout and is running a poll on whether you’re watching [so far pretty equally split between yes, no and shrug]. We noticed similar sentiments from David Schloss at BikeHugger. The feeling seems to be that with all the doping allegations, Lance’s star is crossed, the peloton is tainted and cycling’s reputation provides little incentive to cheer for anyone. But David seems to have gotten back on board and our view is that as the Tour progresses, particularly if it’s in a wide-open fashion, the initially alienated fans will come back in droves. It would help if Americans had a homeboy to root for (besides Lance), which role Tyler Farrar would have served admirably and, we hope, still may.

Anyone who’s ridden even a few hundred yards with a warped wheel handicapped by brake rub knows how annoying and demoralizing it can be. Turns out Alberto Contador rode with brake rub for 30 kilometers yesterday. That must’ve been one bad boy, since usually you can eliminate the problem by adjusting or quick-releasing the brake.

Good point from Barry Ryan on CyclingNews.com re Andy Schleck: “The loss of his brother Frank will doubtless be a blow to his morale, but perhaps he will now be freer to ride his own race. Last year, it could be argued that the younger Schleck focused a little too much on trying to get his brother onto the podium alongside him.”

Apparently bicycles aren’t the only vehicles gaining electric motors in the wheels.

Do women represent the fastest-growing demographic in cycling?

Fox Racing Shox is the latest company to post recovery-type revenue spikes in the first quarter of 2010.

The Pacific Northwest missed out on $50,000 in Bikes Belong grants, but Alaska scored.

Interesting mashup from Ecology Action on bicycle collisions in Santa Cruz County in 2008, but I wouldn’t trust police reports to assign blame in a cycling-automobile accident any further than I could fold them up into paper airplanes and fly them.

Spokespeople’s monthly ride is this Saturday. Start from the Wallingford Playfield at 2 p.m. for a tour of the Ship Canal Trail, it’ll be a relatively laid-back pace, with a stop to watch the big boats going by for Opening Day of Boating and another stop to enjoy a free snack at the Fremont PCC. The ride will go past the Republic of Fremont’s signature Lenin statue and Fremont Troll. Michael Snyder, the bike guru behind SeattleLikesBikes, will lead.

Now there are doubts about the big NYC bike commuter count.

Cycle University is holding a swap meet on Sunday to bikeswap Cascade Bicycle Club’s Major Taylor project.

Lexus is touting a hybrid (e-bike) concept bike using … 20-inch wheels? Further confirmation that when a car company tries to do bicycles, the result is what we saw with typewriter companies trying to do computers.

Cascade Bicycle Club blog: What can we learn from a bike striking and killing a pedestrian?

Car counts are down in Seattle. So why is the city so focused on huge highway expansions like the 520 project?

La Vuelta de Bisbee has no apparent relation to Gene Bisbee of BikingBis, but it sure seems like it ought to.

Lance Armstrong has bought into Honey Stinger energy foods.

Bike to Work Day in San Francisco is shaping up nicely. Plans by Cascade Bicycle Club and the mayor’s office are still being formulated but it looks like a blowout year. The League of American Bicyclists has the overview on Bike Month 2010. The full schedule for Seattle is still being finalized, but promises to include some interesting wrinkles.

BikeHugger on the Bike My Way app. “We’ll use this with our Biologic iPhone mount when we ride the Mobile Social in Portland during Webvisions next month.”

BikeSnobNYC reports in Outside magazine on Portland’s relentlessly velocular culture.

Glenn Erickson, the remarkable Seattle cycling icon who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease last year, will host a Davis Phinney Foundation benefit ride on May 16 starting from Marymoor Park velodrome. A great way to say hi to Glenn and support a worthy cause.

Meanwhile, EcoVelo mulls the iPad’s use as a mobile blogging device.

Cyclists win one for a change!

And lose some as per usual.

And here’s a new wrinkle on Rider Down. Say you’re just riding along and a car comes at you but somehow fails to hit you. You might think, hey, it’s my lucky day! But wait … there’s always the passenger-leaning-out-the-window-to-push-you-over maneuver to worry about.

Yet another update on mountain biking in Marin, this time focusing on the Novato mtboomlet…see comments for the predictable NorCal perspective.

Gratifying news on the mountain biking in national parks front. IMBA re-ups amid good vibes.

The Bike Library is back up and rolling!

On designing “bicycle cities” …

BikingBis: Bicycle Sundays return May 2 to Seattle’s Lake Washington Boulevard.

SF Streetsblog continues to document the SFPD’s brutal and insensitive treatment of cyclists.

SeattleLikesBikes: C’mon out to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board meeting on Wednesday.

Of all the varied and clever April Fool’s Day cycling spoofs, Cascade Bicycle Club’s “Drive to Work Day” was our favorite.

The state of mountain biking in north central Washington. More on this later, but a good overview for starters.

IMBA’s cheap accident insurance to members seems like a good deal, but YMMV depending on what your plan comprises already. Check it out via Adventure Advocates.

Among all the many helpful responses in this Yahoo! forum regarding what to do about a cat peeing on your mountain biking shoes, not one of the many helpful respondents suggested the obvious: Trade in the cat for a dog.

Seattle bike bloggers in full dudgeon

Where most cities struggle to maintain meetups for bloggers, any bloggers, of the generic variety, in Seattle a call for a bike blogger meetup met with a response so instantaneous and thunderous that logic dictated a gathering asap at Brouwer’s raucous Cafe in the Republic of Fremont.

Last night’s turnout was rewardingly affirmative, leaving us smiling, sated (except for BikeHugger’s inglouriously deprived Mark V) and hoarse from having to shout above the Final Four rabble gathered below. More later on what we accomplished and our vision for bike blogging in Seattle and beyond, but we agreed on one goal — restoring Seattle from the respectable but nonetheless unsatisfying No. 4 ranking (as per Bicycling magazine) among America’s top cycling cities to its No. 1 glory days of the ’90s. At the very least we should be giving Portland stronger competition!

To be continued…

CarFreeDays photo link

BikeHugger’s coverage

Maybe it’s in this pile of bikes — a bicycle chop shop in north Seattle.

Lance gives Sarkozy a bike. Why? Anybody know if there’s quid pro quo?

RIP James Williamson. Not just a cyclist but a bike blogger as well. A shame.

Partnership leads to mtb trail access success near Black Diamond WA. We’re seeing more and more of these as it becomes patently obvious that, in many cases, it’s easier and faster and more productive to work with private landowners than with public officials. Of course, there are exceptions, starting with King County, which supported Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park from the beginning.

Over at Popwuping they’re demo’ing a turn signal cycling jacket. The video gives an idea of how it works but the arrows are not articulated enough in my opinion to get the point across. The still photos show sharper arrows and communicate the action much better.

DrunkCyclist: Another rider mowed down on the highway, another slap on the wrist. But there is progress! It now appears that if a driver attempts to pass a car and strikes a cyclist riding lawfully and legally in the opposite direction, killing the cyclist in the process … it now appears that the driver is guilty of a traffic infraction.

Steve Peat just passed 5,000 Twitter followers.

BikeHugger has over 1,000 Facebook fans.

My dog loves me.

First the checklist:

Cash. Entrance fee is $10 and they don’t take cards or checks. Print out the coupon below to save yourself a couple of bucks.

Big shopping bag or, better yet, hugeass backpack (for hands-free sherpa-ing). Lots of stuff will be given out, and you may wind up buying more than you can carry.

Printout of exhibitor list, with must-sees highlighted. Yes you’ll get a program with a floor plan at the door, but it’s far more efficient to map out a game plan ahead of time. Here’s the exhibitor link, now go!

Camera and/or iPhone. It’s always fun to take photos or video at Expo. Plus you’ll undoubtedly run into friends and want to commemorate the occasion for Twitter or Facebook.

Bike Intelligencer’s shopping guide. We provide some hopefully useful tips and suggestions for working the floor.

Don’t forget it’s a new venue, at Smith Cove under the Magnolia Bridge. Directions here.

Now for a roundup of what folks are saying about this year’s Expo.

Host Cascade Bicycle Club’s blog has lots of updates and goodies.

BikingBis has some thoughts on riding to Expo.

Totcycle is leading Kidical Mass to the show.

BikeHugger will be hosting a blogger’s lounge and after-hours par-tay!

SLOG has a predictably snarky take. Ignore the bit about mowing down cyclists who happen to be exercising their right to a lane. Also the ref to cyclists as “self-satisfied turds.” The writer just happened to need their diaper changed at the time.

Crosscut has all the right links.

From one of our veteran correspondents, the lowdown:

HUGE crowd!! Probably the most I’ve ever seen. The economy…nobody can pay list. They changed the direction of the lineup outside pointing the bodies down the sidewalk to the north. By 9:00 it had almost reached the gates to the building where the Expo has been. That’s a freakin long way. It was so packed in there after 30 min or so you could hardly move. As usual my hunter gatherer instincts held me in good stead. Got what I went for; an oversize stem for that sexy 26” handlebar with the gold trim and a new carbon road bar. Both were crispy, brand new. List for the 2 was somewhere in the vicinity of $350.00 and I shelled out $90.00. Was tempted by a few items but held firm.

Chilly Hilly a record-breaker. BikingBis was there. But wha…? No video?? (Update: Michael Snyder at SeattleLikesBikes says he has some coming. In the meantime, check out Garrett Wesley Gibbons’ time lapse.)

Is that 100 their IQ? Cozy Beehive weighs in on the Leadville scamola. Basically what happened was that the folks who lost out in the lottery to enter the Leadville 100 (chance to ride with Lance!) and pay $275 for the privilege got a “SECOND CHANCE”! All they had to do was pony up $1,250 for a training “camp,” and an entry ticket would be theirs for FREE!

Warning to bike promoters everywhere: Bad idea.

Always yield to Bambi. Teen feeling better after hitting a deer while riding a bike. I’ve almost hit deer on mountain bike epics. Doesn’t seem like it would be a whole lot of fun.

SF Gate: Bike camping in the Bay Area. Good piece, bookmark it if you do bike camping. I’d add to the list New Brighton State Park in Santa Cruz. Its bike camp area is close (100 feet) to restrooms and the stairwell down to the beach, with spectacular views off the bluff. Plus it’s nicely segregated from the main campground, which can get a bit noisy and trafficky.

EcoVelo’s server change is complete. Now pedaling isn’t the only thing Alan is doing faster…

Is there someone you’d like to injure and maim in L.A. and get away with it? It’s easy: Make sure they’re riding a bike at the time. Cyclists conducted a protest ride in the City of Angels on Wednesday to highlight the lack of justice in a hit-and-run incident. Driver hit cyclist, got out of car to look, ignored stricken rider’s pleas for help, got in car and drove off. No ticket. No justice. No comprende. But there is hope: The chief of police says things will get better. LA Streetsblog: Yeah right.

On the other hand … Try that kind of crap in Seaside OR and you’re in big trouble.