News Cycle: Setting record straight, Rider hit while … mountain biking? Thievery & more

A blog correcting mainstream media for irresponsible and misleading reporting? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around? (That’s what we’re told, anyway… by mainstream media… so it must be true.) Kudos to Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org for staying on the case like the journalist he is.

The tagline on this story, “Woman hit by van while mountain biking,” caught my eye because I gave up road riding two decades ago in part to avoid getting hit by cars. And wonder of wonders, it worked. I can honestly say that while mountain biking, I’ve never been in danger of being hit by a car. A deer, maybe. Bears. Hail. Large rocks. A badger. Snags. Mud clots. But never by a car.

How disappointing, then, to read the actual story.

Memo to bike shops: Watch the inventory.

I had one of these once. It was stolen in 1996 in downtown Portland, double-locked (cable & U-lock) to a rack on my van,

during noon hour, on a busy street, by thieves working from a van that blocked street view in the seconds it took them to free my bike. Coincidentally, my bike was multi-color as well (rastafarian theme). I wish I could say that was the last bike I had stolen … but I will say this: I haven’t had a bike stolen since I went to Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit.

To clarify the above remark about road riding, I still ride on the road…and streets. But I ride a mountain bike — and yet never has it occurred to me to consider commuting by mountain bike to be “mountain biking.” Can’t think of why not…