From Bike Bits, I found this little nugget of cool:
There were twelve riders in the group; one of them, Bret Taylor, mounted a camera on his handlebars and set it to take a picture about every five miles. He strung all the photos of the trail together and added lively music.
The video is here and it’s just great. Watch until the very end so you can see the finish!
By popular demand, you no longer have to be logged in to post comments. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
I finally got a good chance to put my Pearl Izumi Barrier Lobster Gloves through their paces today and I’m very happy camper.
At first glance, the gloves seem well constructed and very warm. The palm has a soft yet grippy finish and the back of the thumb section is covered with soft fleece for easy nose wiping. The gloves don’t have any cycling-specific padding, so they can be used for other purposes without the possible inconvenience of a bulky palm. Even though it’s a lobster glove, each finger has its own interior pocket.
On my test ride, the temperature was about 32 degrees with overcast skies. At first, I thought the gloves might be too warm. They’re on the bulky side and soft; they feel like my Burton ski mittens. I didn’t notice any issues that were the result of the gloves not having any cycling-specific padding. I rode for almost an hour and for most of the time, my hands felt warm. At the end of the ride, the tips of my fingers and thumbs felt a little cold, but I think I could have ridden another hour without any problem.
The one problem I had with the gloves was their bulk made it more difficult to shift my Shimano STI levers, specifically the smaller levers (for up-shifting on the rear or down-shifting on the front). I’m comfortable accepting that drawback to get the warmth they provide.
There’s a new online ride calendar for the Reno area: RenoRidez Calendar
A quick glance shows a few rides already posted, although I’m a little baffled about the days and times…10:30am and 1:30pm on weekdays? Am I the only person left with a job in this town? 
Aside from snow and ice (which I don’t ride in), I really like riding in the winter. The cold air feels great on my body as it heats up from the ride and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment to start the day.
The one problem I’ve had with winter riding is keeping my hands warm. I’ve tried a variety of gloves and mittens, but my fingers either get cold to the point of being painful, or too hot. So, I decided to try the Novara Rainy Pass Bike Gloves from REI. They looked bulky enough to provide adequate warmth without being so huge that they restricted control of the bike. They are a gauntlet style glove with an elastic cinch cord and a full leather palm. There’s plenty of padding in the palm in the places where you expect padding in bike gloves.
My first impression after putting them on was they didn’t feel very waterproof. The top of the hand and finger felt like regular old nylon on top of a polyester warmth insert. But, what do I know? So I took them out on my five mile commute last week during the little cold snap where the morning temperature was in the mid 30s.
A third of the way through the ride, I knew these gloves weren’t cutting it. My fingers were already going numb and would soon be in pain from the cold. By the end of the ride, I didn’t feel like these gloves were much better than my barely-insulated Canari wind stopper gloves.
So back to REI they went. I picked up a pair of Pearl Izumi Barrier Lobster gloves which I’ll review when I get a chance.
I’m sure many of you have read the article on Reno Gazette-Journal’s Web site questioning whether cyclist’s rights have gone too far. I’m disappointed…not in the content of the article, or even the fact that someone thought to write it, but in the RGJ for publishing it. There will always be lousy articles; this is just one of many. It’s anecdotal, inflammatory, and does nothing to further what should be the main goal of a newspaper, which is to investigate and inform. There will always be douchebag journalists who have a deadline and decide to write some trash that will get people’s ire up and give their article lots of page views. That’s how the paper makes money. But just because these articles are written doesn’t mean the RGJ needs to publish them. The article wasn’t even written by an RGJ writer. It was written by a USA Today writer and pulled off their news feed by the RGJ and dropped into their “Breaking News” section which is misleading because there’s nothing breaking or even news-like in the piece. It’s more of an opinion piece that lacks the obligatory “do this” paragraph at the end. By publishing it, the RGJ is trying to pour gasoline on a fire that doesn’t burn very bright in Reno. We don’t have huge problems with motorists and cyclists here. I know everyone has their stories of close calls and such, but overall, things run pretty smoothly here despite the lack of cycling infrastructure. I’ve ridden in many worse places. We don’t need anyone trying to stir things up between motorists and cyclists. The RGJ should be ashamed for trying to create an artificial divide between people just to drive page views. We are one community here in northern Nevada, and the RGJ should stick to its role as a source of truth and information, and not participate in crass, divisive rhetoric.
Real quick: if anyone tried to log in recently and it didn’t work, it should now be working fine. Blame the Russian hackers.
The RTC has been working on a new version of their bike map for a while now, and a basic online version (using Google Maps) is available:
It only shows on-street bike lanes and a couple of the major bike paths right now. Hopefully in the future they will add the multi-use paths in areas like the northwest and Caughlin Ranch along with some of the good connector streets.
In case you haven’t heard, there will be a fundraiser/bike race/sand castle contest/BBQ at Galena Park on Sept 27. Detail are at www.renogalenafest.com.
In case you haven’t heard, the Hot August Bike ride is tomorrow, August 7th at 6:00pm at the West Street Market. Now, I’m normally all for this sort of thing, but I have a little problem with the counter-demonstration nature of this event. It’s obviously intended to be a response to Hot August Nights which is a celebration of the big evil cars. I’m certainly no lover of car culture, but really, is this necessary? How about we let the gray hairs cruise into town in their Hawaiian shirts and poodle skirts, crank the Beach Boys, drop a bunch of money in our pockets and not give them a hassle? Do we really have to crash their party and leave a sour taste in their mouths? I say let them have their week of fun; they’ll be gone in four days and then we can go back to our normal lives.
