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.

One bromide does pop back up, concerning kids “screaming down the trails” on mountain bikes, supposedly endangering the health and well-being of hikers, children, dogs and so on. You know, I’ve yet to encounter a documented report of a bike colliding with a hiker and causing serious injury. And this is in nearly 20 years of mountain biking. I think I would have heard.

Not to dismiss hiker/pedestrian concerns, because I’ve been in a situation where bikes ripping down a trail too fast scare the bejesus out of me. But that’s as far as it goes. Yes it’s rude and disruptive. Still, every time I hear a complaint about the occasional bad actor on a mountain bike, I think of the scores of times I’ve encountered trails littered with trash, beer cans and other crap that mountain bikers have nothing to do with. Or the times I’ve been sworn at or blocked (by 3 or 5-abreast squadrons of anti-mtbers) or even swung at with a walking stick while riding on trails open to bikes. They don’t represent the vast majority of hikers, but they do exist.

There are jerks on both sides of this coin. But the majority should not be tarred with them.

The report notes some trails are being booby trapped. The most notorious case two and a half years ago involved barbed wire across an unmarked (that is, not specifically indicated as no-bikes, although not specifically permitted either; we avoid the vague and usually inappropriate term “illegal”) and widely used trail in Marin. Most of the current booby traps are of a less potentially homicidal nature — sticks, brush, and the ever popular blowdowns dragged across connector trails.

I enjoyed hearing Mark Weir‘s commentary, but in the pantheon of spokespeople available to address Marin mountain biking issues, he’s probably not the first guy I’d think of. Still, Mark’s attempt to get official approval for a pump track is worth noting. Not that most local and regional planning authorities even know what a pump track is or have a process to permit one, it’s nonetheless a shame that they turn a deaf ear in this case.

There’s considerable hope on the horizon. Marin has a hugely popular high-school mountain biking curriculum that is going to put a whole new generation of mtbers into mainstream society. Their mindset will be completely 180 degrees from the “ban the bike” intransigence of the old-line environmentalists. Someday, multiple use will be taken for granted in Marin and the U.S., the way it is everywhere else around the world.

Seattle Times: “…a cluster of injuries reported at an intersection could get the transportation department to investigate further…” Article on Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club’s new online tool, Bikewise.org, previously reviewed on Bike Intelligencer.

Proposed Mountain Bike Park in San Francisco

In San Francisco’s McLaren Park, there’s serious discussion about installing a mountain bike park with tabletops, chutes ‘n ladders, dirt jumps and even a pump track! A bit like our own Colonnade, only on steroids…er, make that energy drinks. Anyway, you know what I mean. For all the cycling glory of the Bay Area, it doesn’t have much in the way of Skillz sites, and this would be a great enhancement to its mountain biking resume. Congrats to SF Urban Riders for a great idea, hope they can get the stim funding to make it happen.

Great snarky commentary on this year’s Giro — and the ongoing bicycle soap opera called Team Astana — from Bicycle.net: “While the aforementioned guys who were supposed to have weak moments didn’t particularly seem to, it wasn’t lost on anybody that Levi got dropped off Lance’s wheel today when Lance tried to bridge the gap to those aforementioned individuals. Nor was it lost on anybody that Lance managed to get precisely halfway across the bridge before running out of steam and dropping back to give shade to Levi. The two of them limped home licking their wounds and perhaps rethinking strategies for that little bike race in France a few weeks from now.”

The Cycling Dude: WWJST? (What Would Joseph Smith Think?) Bicycles in SLC? How dare they!