Sportsta Mask - Darth Vader's Missing Link?

Whether you're biking, riding, skiing, or climbing, protect your face — and your health — with the Sportsta Mask (£27.99; roughly $40).

Features HEPA-style filtration. Filters Out Exhaust Emissions and sub-micron pollutants all within a lightweight Neotex aerated mask, the Sportsta provides maximum ventilation paired with maximum protection.

I would hope that this would only be required by some commuters and bike messengers, but the way our air is getting, you never know...

Lance Armstrong's Bike Stolen, Then Found...

Lance Armstrong's one-of-a-kind TREK time-trial bike was stolen from the Team Astana bus in Sacramento overnight. Armstrong and the rest of Team Astana are in Sacramento for the Amgen Tour of California.

The bike and three other Astana team road bikes were discovered missing sometime this morning. According to Armstrong, " ... it's the only one like it in the world." Armstrong has a backup TT bike he can use in the Solvang time trial if the stolen bike isn't recovered.

A reward is being offered.

Going to the Amgen Tour of California - Stage1? If so you must check stop by the California Bicycle Museum at UC Davis

Emily Blake, left, a UC Davis alumna who lives in Davis, and Drew Tombleson of Woodland check out the Draisienne bike at the California Bicycle Museum during the Celebrate UC Davis! street fair Oct. 12. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)

Learn a little bicycle history at the California Bike Museum in the basement of the Third and B Street building downtown.

The temporary exhibit includes the Pierce Miller bicycle collection, which features bicycles from as far back as the 1800s, and will be open through the Amgen Tour. The museum, in which the city and UC Davis are partners, opened its inaugural exhibition in October 2008. The show had been scheduled to close in December, but organizers decided to keep it open through the Amgen Tour weekend.

Swiftwalkers to Streamliners, Bicycles 1823–2008, showcases the museum’s Pierce Miller collection, which includes some of the earliest bicycles ever built. One organizer estimated that as many as 4,000 people have visited the museum since its opening around the time of UC Davis’ Centennial Fall Festival last October.

The exhibition in the Third and B Street Building’s basement is open from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday through Feb. 14, 4-7 p.m. Feb. 11 and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 15. Admission is free, with donations accepted.

To inquire about museum tours at other times, contact David Takemoto-Weerts, bicycle program coordinator at UC Davis, (530) 752-2453 or dltakemotoweerts.edu.

More information: http://californiabicyclemuseum.org

Media contact: David Takemoto-Weerts, TAPS bicycle program, (530) 752-2453, dltakemotoweerts@ucdavis.edu.

Caltrain bolstering on-board bike space

For those of you that live in California and use Caltrain, here is some great news!!

Caltrain crews soon will begin ripping out seats from their train cars to make room for more bicycle racks, the first in a series of moves intended to bolster capacity for frustrated bikers.

At a meeting Thursday the Caltrain Board of Directors authorized the "interim" solution to the problem of hundreds of bicyclists who get "bumped" (left at the station) whenever a train's bike racks are full.

The board decided that the number of bike racks in gallery cars should increase 25 percent from 32 to 40, while the number of racks in bombardier cars should soar 50 percent from 16 to 24. To free up space for the racks, the number of seats on the bottom floor of gallery cars should drop from 16 to eight and in bombardier cars from 19 to 11.

In all, the total available bike slots for the entire day should swell 28 percent from 4,000 to 5,152. During peak commute times there should be 27 percent more slots, for a total of 2,930.

A total of 272 seats will have been removed. Read the rest of the article at the Mercury News

The Blue Glow - Sweet Wheels!

The Blue Glow - Long Glow: uv protected automotive clearcoat

This is a 30sec exposure in the dark bathroom, you get the idea.

Mobius Cycle (206.290.20961016 1st ave, fourth floor Monday to Friday) off of 1st Ave in downtown Seattle has partnered with SIK Werks to create a custom rim that glows in the dark for 14 hours on a full charge. The rim pictured here is a white DT Swiss 1.2 that glows with a blue phosphorescent in the dark. The photo below is the wheel in daylight.

Bicycle Design Winner

Bicycle Design blog held a contest and a bent won.

Bike Hugger.com has a great discussion about the design and the practicality of the design. Check it out here.

Bikes Move Tomorrow

In this ad, CSX is telling the story of how you need big trains to move lots of cargo. Well, I was wondering who made all those cargo bikes!