Raleigh is now a Dutch brand
The iconic British bike-maker, Raleigh Cycle has been sold to Dutch rival Accell for $100 million. Founded 125 years ago, Raleigh was once the largest bike manufacturer in the world, employing 8,000 people. Make no mistake, Raleigh is still a going concern. It sold 850,000 bikes last year; its current brands include Avenir and Diamondback....
Saturday mash-up: April 28, 2012
As noted earlier, ski areas are getting spooked about climate change. The latest manifestation: the Aspen Chamber Resort Association has voted to withdraw from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to differences with the national group’s position on climate change. “Aspen’s economy is inextricably tied to the future of the global climate,” the local chapter...
Saturday mash-up: March 31, 2012
Whenever there’s a pile of items that accumulate over the week and we can’t get around to individual pieces on each one, we throw them into a bin like this, which we previously called a stew and then a hash. This time we’re call it a mash-up, which seems like another food metaphor but less...
Nice racks in Amsterdam
Of all the videos you’ve seen of the Netherlands, this one is the least likely to make you dig into your IRA and call KLM. It shows a group of municipal bureaucrats from America touring the Netherlands to learn how that country has promoted bicycling. So, no windmills. Not much focus on the architecture of...
Century-old Frenchman (with the body of a 75-year-old) sets biking record
There are many, many things to say about this, and there is nothing that is necessary beyond the following: at the age of 100, Robert Marchand—citizen of France, former inhabitant of Venezuela and former Canadian lumberjack—has just ridden a bike 15.1 miles. In an hour. That sets a new record because it...
The Sweetest Valentine (for your bike)
Typical: We’re a tad late for Valentine’s Day. We thought about trying to let it slip by, without saying anything, but then we came across this touching video from British Cycling. Sure, it’s corny. Love’s like that. The organization asked readers to confess whether they spent more on their bikes or...
Bicycling Magazine plays us for a fool
We aren’t dumb…but we are susceptible. Which is why we were drawn in by the press release touting Bicycling Magazine’s latest readers’ poll, which leads with the finding that 58 percent of the publication’s female readers would give up sex for a month rather than spend a similar time off...
Mahjong can wait (till I finish my intervals)
A retirement community in South Carolina is forming a triathlon team. And by triathlon, they don’t mean some hokum bocce-croquet-cribbage contest (which could be fun, OK, but it’s not a triathlon). This event comprises a respectable 350-yard swim, 13-mile bike and 3.1-mile run/walk. Retirement communities used to...
Saturday hash comes early: January 26, 2012
The idea behind these assemblages of random snippets is that they are supposed to accumulate over the week and then we chuck them out on the weekend, when we’re rather be doing something else. But sometimes the bucket gets filled early, and great news doesn’t necessary keep. So… These are...
Rabbit hole for cyclists
The internet is a rabbit hole, which is its blessing and its curse. You stumble across a link, and fall headlong into a world you never knew existed. A new reality opens up; hours disappear. It can begin with a simple Google Alert that points to an article in...
Senate victory for pedestrians, cyclists
Yesterday, for the third time in less than two months, Republican senators failed to eliminate federal money for bike paths, bike lanes, walking paths and other transportation “enhancement” projects. In this instance, the “enhancements” also include pedestrian safety projects. So we’ll chalk this...
Car-bike battle continues, this time in print ads. Advantage: bikes.
Cars and bikes need to share the road. It’s the law, and it matters for our health and well-being. And we need both. Sorry, until we figure out something better (sun-powered hover-cars!), we need four wheels and a chassis to plow through the drifts on those frigid dark...
