Daily Roundup: Bike Business Forum, 22 percent bike funding? Shimano sales tank, Bike beats subway in NYC, Rider Down update

Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club will hold a “Bike Business Forum” hosted by Costco, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Starbucks, Group Health, Vulcan and Seattle Children’s Hospital at 11:30 a.m. next Wednesday (June 3rd) at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute downtown. John Mauro, the club’s commute director, will give a brief presentation, followed by discussion centered on shaping a regional bicycling agenda. Should be interesting…

Smartgrowth.org: Survey shows public support for increasing bike transportation funding from 1 percent to 22 percent, along with increases for other transit options. (Thanks to Republican John Bailo on the Cascade bike forum.)

Bicycle Retailer: Shimano sales down 18 percent last year, 19 percent for Q1. Oof!

Lost in the Ozone: Bike beats subway, taxi, in New York City rush-hour race. This reminds me of a similar event I participated in as a reporter for The Seattle Times back in the early 1980s. In a race from the U District to City Hall during the morning commute, the van pool won, but cyclists (including me) beat the Metro bus. Not sure if a single occupancy vehicle was in the mix back then (I don’t recall one), but today I bet a bike would beat a car.

InjuryBoard.com: Watch out for bikes. Apparently police, not having issued a citation at the time, are investigating the death of a cyclist run over by a semi in Minneapolis last week. “A semitrailer driver had began to make a wide left turn at the intersection of Park Avenue and E. 14th Street and hit a long time cyclist with its back tires. A witness said that the bike had been stopped at the light and like the semi began to go forward when the light changed. The semi then turned and unexpectedly drove over the rider.” My wife was involved in a fender bender recently where a car making a right turn hit her as she was going forward in the inside lane. The investigating officer told the driver, who claimed that my wife was not driving in a “real” lane, that any vehicle colliding with another while making a turn is at fault (barring extremely unusual circumstances). Let’s hope justice is done in this case.