Now comes the “ride-by shooting.” At least the article didn’t call the perp a “cyclist.”

Interbike 2011 may move to August, when it’s cooler out, the cycling community is sitting at home bored, and everyone wants to ride in the desert…

A somewhat cryptic article in the Bellingham Herald on the transfer of ownership/stewardship for Galbraith Mountain. It sounds like a routine financial handoff, but hey, the Northwest’s “Little Whistler” is on the line here, thousands of hours of trail work and miles of really romping singletrack, features, structures and what have you.

Eternal vigilance, in other words, is the price of freeride.

BikeRadar: On the heels of a rippingly successful high-school mountain biking program in northern California, a new National Interscholastic Cycling Association has been formed. Quote: “Cycling’s been around for over 100 years, but only now is it becoming a high school sport.” Congrats and best of luck to Matt Fritzinger, NorCal league founder and executive director who is the driving force behind NICA.

We haven’t spoken with Fritzinger, but there’s certainly potential for NICA in the Pacific Northwest. Already we’ve noted a biking (repair) class in Bellingham High in the shadow of nationally recognized mountain-biking mecca Galbraith Mountain, and Issaquah (Duthie Hill), Renton (Lake Sawyer), Seattle (Colonnade) and Federal Way (Sea-Tac) all have strong youth mountain biking populations.

Kids all over are gathering informally to build ad hoc stunts and structures and otherwise grow the sport. If NICA can formalize a lot of the random and impromptu energy that goes into mountain biking as an “extracurricular” activity, we could be on the cusp of a whole new level of participation.

This will be intriguing to watch.

One more reason to avoid L.A.: Not having a bike license in Santa Monica can get you thrown immediately into jail … and subject to a $1,000 fine. Note the disparity between bike licensing and car tab penalties. Even driving without a driver’s license has no minimum penalty.

If you steal a bike in Grants Pass, OR, you apparently are in a world of hurt.

This Day in Doping: Humanplasma says OK, we fess up … to tax evasion. But we never helped anyone dope, even the cyclists who say we did. From Bicycle.net.

More kudos to Tyler Farrar, who won it all in Franco-Belge.

Attendance a mixed bag. Overall attendance declined, but buyer numbers were up. Exhibitors were said to be happy, so that’s good, because if the exhibitors aren’t happy, then the booth bimbos aren’t happy, and if the bbs aren’t happy, well, you know…

Great video from Mountain Bike Action with Richard Cunningham showing off Ibis’ new HD Mojo (beefy, very beefy), Magura fork/brake combo and a new rack from Kuat that, face it, puts the Thule T2 to shame.

And BikeSnob goes off on Reynolds’ $6,000 set of carbon wheels.

Finally, re our standing feature This Day in Doping, check out this video on new anti-doping controls that somehow feels like a 5th grade tutorial on urine testing for pot. No wonder Lance gets annoyed with these people. We support rigorous dope testing of cyclists (emphasis on rigorous, because so far there’s little evidence testing is inhibiting doping). We also support doing it in a professional and respectful way.

A former mountain biker, Australia’s Cadel Evans, has won the world road racing championship. A former road racer has never won much of anything in mountain biking, so this proves which is the tougher sport. Moreover, Evans is a “clean” rider, so it’s an even bigger deal.

GoPro’s early stuff was junk, but credit where due, they’re keeping at it and getting it right. The Hero HD was at Interbike 2009 and I think I’ll give their line another go-around.

IMBA’s industry breakfast at Interbike 2009 packed ‘em in. We’re looking forward to the mentioned bike-umentary, “Pedal Driven.”

Alberto Contador may not have to ride for Astana next year, because Astana may not exist next year.

The Tour of California, shaping up as America’s premier contribution to the world cycling calendar, is moving to mid-May next year. Hopefully no more April showers, and it’ll be a lot warmer. We fans thank the organizers! (And thanks to Lance Armstrong for bringing out the crowds this past season, guaranteeing the event’s future.)

OK OK, what I said about Cadel Evans was just a joke, OK? Besides, Lance is NOT a former road racer who left road racing for mountain biking. And the Leadville 100 is hardly the world championships. OK???

Anyway, the bike world’s big wheel keeps on turnin’ …

IMBA is coming to the Point Reyes National Seashore this weekend for trail work with Chris and Leslie Kehmeier of the Subaru Trail Care Crew. It’s always a great time with the IMBA gang, and there’s a ride scheduled for Sunday as well.

Bike magazine, the No. 1 in readability, will produce something big and fat and self-important that it is modestly calling “The Bible,” full of reviews and other mtb stuff. It’s a bit curious because Bike magazine’s reviews are not its strong suit, not nearly as technical and in-depth as Mountain Bike Action’s. Instead, we love Bike mag for its feature articles and ‘tude. But we’ll see. Good writers should be able to write insightful reviews.

And when it comes to descriptive bike prose, nobody can write quite like Cedric Gracia … which is probably a good thing:

“The race was really good! Even with the rain, in the final I was in a 2nd place but I try to hard in a corner, I lost the grip and crash.” More on Cedric’s Red Bull Road Rage exploits here.

Moment in the Sun: Ellsworth’s long-travel trail bike, the Moment, has nabbed “Best 2009 All-Mountain Bike” from Singletracks.com. Taking nothing away from Tony and the gang, I’ll stick with my Pivot Firebird in that category, thank you.

Huffington Post has an excerpt from David Byrne’s new book, “Bicycle Diaries.”

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one’s own town. Unlike many other U.S. cities, here in New York almost everyone has to step onto the sidewalk and encounter other people at least once a day–everyone makes at least one brief public appearance. I once had to swerve to avoid Paris Hilton, holding her little doggie, crossing the street against the light and looking around as if to say, “I’m Paris Hilton, don’t you recognize me?” From a cyclist’s point of view you pretty much see it all.

More here.

Cyclelicio.us already has his tongue hanging out over Interbike ’09: “Cyclelicious will be at Interbike 2009 in Las Vegas posting daily from the show floor September 23 – 25…” Yeah I’m getting stoked too Richard…

Mavic sales were down 15 percent over the first six months of 2009, and as Mavic goes, so goes the bike industry. The high-end stuff particularly is soft, although niche bling is still selling. I’m thinking Evil Bikes, for one…an Intense rep told me last week, “Evil has really cut into our sales.” Intense is on the rebound, though, with the 951…both of these are soooo purty…

Maybe time to rename it in his honor?