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.

Washington Post discovers the joys of Seattle’s Colonnade Mountain Bike Skills Park, where they built trails under a freeway.

Colonnade run / Photo courtesy the MudBlog

We’ve said it before and, regrettably, will say it again: If you have to go, mountain biking is the best exit you can pick.

Former president Bush ran the country into the ground and for all his considerable authority did nothing for the sport of mountain biking, but we cannot quarrel with anyone being out on the trails.

A while back we interviewed the legendary Joe Breeze. EcoVelo talked to Joe as well, with a very different and enjoyable take.

Many thanks to Mark Davidson and the great folks at Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz for the new trail head sign at Wilder Ranch State Park, one of Santa Cruz’s prime singletrack retreats.

We were on the road and missed the Tour de Fat rolling through Seattle. Fortunately, BikeJuju was on the case.

Cascade Bicycle Club has issued its endorsements for Seattle’s Aug. 17 primary. It hardly seems possible, thinking back a year ago, that Cascade failed to endorse bike commuter and club supporter Mike McGinn — but hey, it all worked out.

Belated congratulations to Jonathan Maus and BikePortland.org on its fifth anniversary. Note comments queue.

Lance Armstrong is bringing stage racing back to Colorado (remember the Red Zinger Classic? The Coors Classic?) next year with the Quiznos Pro Challenge. Cycling Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, he of broken ribs fame, is 100 percent behind the idea.

Fresh off the best Tour de France showing by a Canadian in more than two decades, Ryder Hesjedal is a rock star in Canada! Everyone’s saying so.

Thoughtful piece from Michael Snyder at SeattleLikesBikes on Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan. The city already is moving past the plan in many ways, and to the extent that it provides a blueprint for progress, it needs updating.

At the recent Bike to Work Day rally in front of City Hall, Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen was a featured speaker on the joys of cycling in Seattle.

Rasmussen, who serves on the Council’s bicycle caucus, is a bike commuter and known as a cycling supporter. Who better to rally the troops on the biggest bike day of the year than the chair of the Council’s Transportation Committee?

So why, then, did Rasmussen subsequently show up in a Seattle Times article complaining of “indigestion” over a proposed “road diet” for Nickerson? Why did he suggest he might support waiting till 2016, which seems like a long way off for a modest and affordable project?

Why oppose a road diet at all, when a just-released SeattleStoneWayTrafficComparison indicates that a similar project on Stone Way N., another crucial bike-commuter route, showed fewer accidents, more bike trips, and traffic volumes comparable to pre-diet levels? (Translation: no discernible negative impacts on commerce.)

Why, in short, was a cycling proponent taking such an anti-cycling position?

Interpreting Rasmussen’s position requires a bit of decoding. What he told Publicola is that he has heard from both Democratic and Republican 36th district representatives on the Nickerson proposal. Ordinarily that might mean a broad-based bipartisan position, but in this case it simply refers to business interests which still harbor 20th Century misconceptions that bike and pedestrian improvements get in the way of commerce.

The constituency Rasmussen did not mention having heard from was the bike community. In Nickerson, cyclists have a golden opportunity to make their case for improved cycling access and safety — something they talk about all the time. But they had yet to make an impression on Rasmussen.

Tom Rasmussen (far right) at Bike to Work Day rally: Does the City Council have McGinn envy?

Most notable in this regard is Richard Conlin, who came from a strong sustainability background, was the city’s biggest bike-boosting official before McGinn, and still promotes green, progressive policies like making Seattle the nation’s first Gross National Happiness city. As his Seattle.gov Web site puts it, “My goal as a Councilmember is to work with you and for you to strengthen neighborhoods, foster economic recovery from the current crisis, and make Seattle a leader in sustainability by envisioning, creating, and implementing new and innovative solutions.”

After playing a prominent role in last year’s Bike to Work Day, Conlin was noticeably missing this year — vacationing in Greece. Given his quarreling with the mayor over the Deep Bore Tunnel, though, it’s probably just as well he was out of town.

Longtime supporters of Conlin and Seattle’s sustainability community are scratching their heads at the standoff between the Council president and the mayor. One problem is that Conlin has not chosen — yet, anyway — to reconcile apparent inconsistencies between his long-held philosophies — “making Seattle a more sustainable city, reducing waste, strengthening neighborhoods, improving pedestrian mobility and transportation infrastructure, and making government more transparent,” as his Web page puts it — and his recently adopted positions.

Rasmussen as well traced his concerns to the viaduct. As he told Publicola, he’s concerned that vehicular traffic will face a hard time of it during the viaduct replacement if Nickerson has to “diet.”

For cyclists, the complex nature of City Hall politicking presents both challenges and opportunities.

With thousands of cyclists commuting on its streets every day, and a No. 4 ranking among the most bike-friendly cities in the nation, Seattle is a recognized cycling hotbed. Besides McGinn, Rasmussen and Conlin, numerous other elected officials support bike agendas. Perhaps the cycling community, then, can be forgiven for assuming its leaders will automatically embrace bike initiatives. In this light, Rasmussen’s stance can be viewed as testing the mettle of the cycling lobby.

To its credit, Cascade Bicycle Club, the nation’s largest, is rolling into action. In response to Rasmussen’s equivocation, club advocacy director David Hiller posted a piece on the Cascade site’s blog that skillfully deconstructs erroneous claims opposing the road diet. Cascade has suggested cyclists send “Tums to Tom” to settle his stomach.

The blog SeattleLikesBikes and supporters have launched Google and Facebook groups as well as a Twitter feed in support of the Nickerson plan.

To fully persuade Rasmussen, though, cyclists will need to get their voices heard in less receptive quarters, including the constituencies that Rasmussen said were making him ill.

Seattle is facing a wrenching transition from expensive, conventional car-dominated agendas to new, localized, sustainable, “green” and forward-looking policies. It’s a battle between Fading Seattle and Emerging Seattle — Old Seattle vs. New Seattle.

The former jumps into action any time a cycling initiative threatens to impact truck and commercial traffic — Ballard’s “Missing Link,” Stone Way’s bike lanes, the Nickerson road diet. It doesn’t matter that bike and pedestrian improvements (they typically go hand in glove) consistently improve commerce in communities where they’re adopted by putting more people and patrons on the streets. Nor does it seem to make a difference that small businesses, especially the growing numbers of eco-friendly ones, actually support biking and walking and understand the need for people-first policies. Any time street uses other than cars and trucks are on the agenda, the old guard is going to oppose them.

Representing New Seattle are groups like SCALLOPS — Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound — Feet First, Cascade (the nation’s largest bike club), People for Puget Sound, Seattle Transition, the People’s Waterfront Coalition and the newly formed Streets for All Seattle, which signed up more than 50 supporters to help back the mayor’s Walk Bike Ride campaign (BikeIntelligencer is one).

The results of last November’s election, which swept into office streets-friendly candidates from Obama on down to Seattle municipal races, were a clear sign of Seattle’s changing politics — and New Seattle’s growing influence. But Old Seattle, which still has financial clout and the Old Boys Network on its side, is not going to roll over and die.

Cyclists are a key part of New Seattle. To follow through on the agenda they used to get candidates elected, they will have to work the community councils, precinct monthlies and civic and business groups like Chambers of Commerce and Rotaries.

Cascade’s recently formed Bike Business Forum is a step in this direction; the club also is helping generate turnout for a review of the project at Rasmussen’s committee on June 8.

It will take time and elbow grease — and maybe a few bouts of indigestion — to move Seattle from old to new.

But to make their tummies feel better, cyclists only have to use their heads and feet.

More links:

Seattle Times: Road diet gives Rasmussen indigestion.

Seattle Transit Blog: Stone Way Road Diet Improved Safety, City says.

Publicola: Cascade says send Tums to Tom.

Cascade Bicycle Club’s David Hiller: Here we go again.

SeattleLikesBikes: Support the Road Diet!

Paris bike plan moving forward.

San Francisco bike plan may move forward.

More on Seattle’s new Streets for All Seattle campaign from Josh Cohen at Publicola.

Bike sharing updated.

Portland looks to get a little bit of singletrack added to Forest Park. A mile and a half ain’t much, but it’s a start.

Brompton is riding high in the recession. “Thirty-five to 40 per cent of its customers are now women and the age of the average rider has dropped below 40.”

When Christopher Long, the cyclist who was shoved by the New York City cop in a Critical Mass demonstration, gave up driving for cycling in 2005, he never dreamed it would come back one day to haunt him.

The cyclist who struckhttp://www.dirtragmag.com/blogarific/pedros-promises-20000/ and killed an 83-year-old woman in Renton will not be charged.

Bicycle built for 5 is headed our way!

Village Bicycle Project will ship its 100th container on Saturday!

And IMBA’s public lands initiative gets $20,000 from Pedro’s.

As someone who rides this route nearly every day, some thoughts:

The rider was eastbound on a section of N.E. 45th fraught with peril. At that particular point the rider would typically be traveling very fast. It’s at the end of a medium-length downhill which, although not particularly steep, will put speed on a bike fairly quickly.

There are numerous traffic hazards from cars doing all sorts of things, including pulling out from Dick’s Drive-In. There also are stoplights at the bottom which usually are green (for 45th St. traffic), but cars typically want to make free right turns on red. Finally, it’s just plain busy along here all the time.

The police report suggests the colliding driver was waved through on a left turn by a stopped vehicle. This is a real legal hornets’ nest. Drivers acting as traffic cops can be legally liable when their actions cause accidents. In Seattle, you see a lot of this, and it endangers other drivers as well as cyclists.

In any case, this is a tragedy that gives all cyclists pause as we consider how often we narrowly miss this kind of accident every day.

Until full details are in, it’s a bit sticky to blame the driver of the colliding car at this point. That driver was responding to the yielding driver’s actions and undoubtedly did not think about needing to yield to a bike as well.

Whether negligence is a factor here or not, though, Erica C. Barnett’s points on Publicola about vehicular assault are well-taken. Police need to take bike accidents far more seriously and issue tickets on the same basis as if a car were hit instead of a bike. It’s pure insanity that drivers are not prosecuted for hitting and/or killing cyclists simply because they didn’t mean to. By that logic, no traffic tickets would be issued.

David Hiller, Cascade Bicycle Club’s advocacy director quoted in Erica’s story, notes the club will try (I assume he means once again) for new legislation in Olympia that would force the legal system to take bicycling accidents more seriously. A Vehicular Assault bill failed to make it out of committee earlier this year.

To correct the comments queue in Erica’s piece, there are decidedly NO bike lanes on N.E. 45th St. There are fading sharrows, but at BikeIntelligencer we think sharrows are next to worthless, a sop to the cycling community that has no effect whatsoever on actual traffic conduct.

Cycling accidents are up this year. If the cyclist dies he will be the fifth killed already in Seattle; in 2007 only six cyclists were killed for the entire year in the four-county Puget Sound region (3 in King County). Undoubtedly the surge in cycling’s popularity contributes, with more trips and less experienced riders on the road adding to the mix. But the fatality statistic alone begs the need for stricter laws and better enforcement of the laws already on the books.

[Although not in response to this accident, Michael Snyder at SeattleLikesBikes makes a similar case.]

And at Cyclelicio.us, Richard notes there are enlightened drivers out there.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues nation-wide.

Stanford University law profession, 72, “family members have said the nature of his injuries may indicate a hit-and-run.”

Baltimore man, 67, “got tangled in the rear wheels of a truck.”

Pennsylvania woman, 68, RIP.

Texas lawmaker will fight Gov. Rick Perry’s veto of “3-feet-please” law, which Perry was encouraged to do on grounds it would give cyclists “a false sense of security.”

Ride safely!

But here’s the Cascade Bicycle Club, representing more than 11,000 members as the largest local cycling club in the nation, endorsing widely degraded incumbent Greg Nickels for re-election. Not even a dual endorsement, just “Vote Nickels.” In a hard-fought eight-way primary where every vote counts, Cascade’s snub has to hurt.

For the record, Cascade’s David Hiller, our favorite bike advocate in the known universe, says the club acknowledges McGinn’s contributions and “we wish Mike well”:

“While I am personal friends with McGinn and have no doubts about his commitment to bicycling, our adopted policy is to support friendly incumbents first.  For what it’s worth, this approach to endorsements is shared by many organizations.”

It’s also worth noting that Nickels, for all his many faults (“As mayor I’ve made my share of mistakes,” says his TV ad), has been a friend to cycling. Hiller cites a litany of progress in Nickels’ eight looonnnggg years of office:

“It is also hardly disputable that Mayor Nickels has done more for bicycling that any mayor before him. If the mayor had not supported our changes to Bridging the Gap, including the Complete Streets ordinance and more funding for bicycling and walking, if he had not funded the Master Plan, if he had not come to the table on the Fremont Bridge reconstruction, if he had not reconsidered the configuration of Stone Way N., if he had not intervened to keep the Burke-Gilman Trail open past Suzie Burke’s property in Fremont – any of a number of decision points could have led us down a different path for this endorsement.  However, in the end the mayor did the right thing on all counts and it would be unfair to walk away someone who has demonstrated a commitment to bicycling – or at least a willingness to listen and learn.”

For his part, McGinn is taking the brush-off in stride. He has stood side-by-side with Cascade on major campaigns such as the “No on Roads & Transit” a couple of years ago (which resulted in a true transit initiative, as McGinn prophesied), the Complete Streets movement and the Stone Way flap. (Re the last, despite Hiller’s nod to the mayor, remember: We never got the full bike lanes we were promised.)

And McGinn remains the sole mayoral candidate to oppose the horrific underground tunnel, which he rightly notes will drain valuable transportation dollars from cycling projects as well as funnel traffic into direct conflict on popular bike routes like Westlake, Dexter, Leary Way and Fremont Avenue. Nickels of course is a huge tunnel advocate.

Finally, McGinn actually rides a bike. Nickels admits he does not. Asked if he’s tempted to challenge Hizzoner to a two-wheel race, McGinn laughed. “I’m not a fast rider,” he said. “But I think I could take him.”

As for Cascade, “they made a political calculation,” McGinn said, noting the signal the club’s endorsement sends to “other incumbents to do the right thing, and they’ll be rewarded.”

BikeIntelligencer found one informal glimmer of redemption for McGinn. Polling several Cascade members and veteran riders privately revealed strong personal support for Bikin’ Mike. The club’s official endorsement may carry less sway for cycling cognoscenti than for the Voters Pamphlet types.

Cyclists, in other words, know who’s got their back.

At BikeIntelligencer, we admit to being taken aback by Cascade’s stand. We wish it could have been a dual endorsement. We also think a boost to McGinn in the primary, setting up a possible head-to-head with Nickels in the general election, would have been a cyclist’s dream of two strong cycling supporters to choose from.

That said, we recognize the political balancing act a major player like Cascade has to conduct come election time. And we think the community at large understands it as well.

Cascade’s endorsements

Publicola explores McGinn’s conservative appeal. Note the comments queue. Publicola also endorses McGinn.

So does The Stranger.

Philly cyclists raised a ruckus about speed and unsafe conditions on Martin Luther King Way. Now they’re updating city’s responsiveness.

First person, albeit pseudonymous, report on the World Naked Bike Ride in Portland, from Seattle’s own Publicola.

Downieville: It’s not just for downhillers anymore.

Congrats to Bike magazine, the best-written, most entertaining sports publication available anywhere, for winning a prestigious Maggie award in L.A. Bicycle Retailer has the details:

“This is incredible,” said Bike magazine’s editor Lou Mazzante, who was on hand with fellow staff to accept the award. “To beat magazines like Tennis and Backpacker—magazines that have much larger staffs and budgets—is amazing. It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff and contributors; this award belongs to them.”