Mission Mission

Mission Bicycle Company is hosting the first ever Mission Bicycle Festival on the weekend of 9/25. The event will feature a ride out to the Tour De Fat in Golden Gate Park, bike demos, and contests.

This may be particularly interesting to you Mission readers: at 1pm on Saturday 9/25 there will be a “10 Mission Secrets Bike Tour”! What kind of secrets, I wonder? The location of that sketchy flea market where you can buy back your stolen bike? That hidden warp zone that takes you to the top of Potrero hill? Guess you’ll just have to sign up for one of the limited spots to find out.

There will also be a track stand competition at 3pm on Sunday 9/26. The prize is a brand new Valencia frame set. So if watching a bunch of riders sit almost perfectly still is your idea of sport, be sure to check that out.

The flyer is here and you can get more info at Mission Bicycle Company. Oh by the way, they are having a sale wrapping up today where you can get up to $180 off a customized and likely effeminately-colored ride. Check out their facebook page for more info.

Or you’ll end up with a giant gaping butthole like this.

Never forget!

Hanging on by belt loops

Three friends are riding three bikes but then one of the bikes gets a flat and no one thought to bring along a pump.  What do they do next?

Anyone have a better idea?

I just got back from a couple weeks in Berlin. Berlin is fuuun! And one of the best parts is biking. They’ve got super-cute bikes (above), super-cute biking infrastructure (below), lots of epic stuff to bike to, and a citywide laid-back attitude that just makes everything more enjoyable.

Tons more nice pictures I took after the jump:

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Is Santa Rosa’s latest piece of public art a stunning monument to cycling, or a waste of a shit-ton of perfectly good bike parts?

Inhabitat has lots more pictures right about here.

UPDATE: It is a stunning monument to cycling built with unusable bike parts.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, so not many riders showed up. But a handful of die-hards did, and the sun started peeking through the gloom, so we had a pleasant ride around town. SLC has a ton of new bike lanes, some good vegetarian food, is close to a lot of natural wonder, and has a neat-looking temple.

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Seen on 20th Street.

Remember how stoked we all were for the Pabst cycling caps last year?

Well, as of today, Pushbike has an even cooler Pabst design, as well as this awesome Tecate model. And, as Pushbike’s blog post notes, you can’t count out the drunk Hamm’s bear (or the handsome Hamm’s typeface):

Doctor Popular reminds us how bicyclists often get shafted on BART:

Yesterday a rider cut in front of me as I was boarding the train and she took up this whole seat. There were at least 40 other seats open for her, so I asked if she would mind letting me use that space. “I was here first” she replied. Then I asked if she would at least move her bags so I could sit in the seat next to her while I propped my bike against the wall and she said “I need the whole seat”.

All this seems to come from a general sense of passenger animosity towards people who have the nerve to bring their bikes on board. I’ve had some seriously unsafe rides due to folks not offering up those spots. In a way, it forces you to take up more space and disturb even more passengers.

Doc Pop commenter Colin brings up a great point about how the whole process is flawed:

Note that even in that space the bike wheel sticks into the doorway. Bikes on BART is a kludge.

Newer cars have improved designated bike areas, but they are few and far between. The SF Bicycle Coalition confirms that they are working to address the issue:

We are asking BART to allocate space on board their trains for bikes so that they won’t interfere with other passengers and can be stowed safely for the duration of your trip. BART plans to remove seats on 80 of its 500 train cars for a first phase and is expected to modify the rest as funding becomes available.

For many, the commute hours rules (bikes only allowed 8:50am-4:25pm) eliminate the practicality of biking for many daily work commuters. A 2009 SFBC survey of BART riding cyclists confirmed that the commute blackout period is one of the biggest headaches about commuting. No word on if or when lifting this restriction will ever be considered.

A hot tip from reader Eric E.:

Not exactly Mission but I heard from some various sources (i.e. friends at work & this guy on twitter) that SFPD is orchestrating a “no bikes on the sidewalk” ticketing sting in front of the Ferry Building this morning. Guess Spare the Air days would be the most profitable time to do it, no? =P Lame.

Careful out there, everybody!