A chemically unbalance firefighter in Ashville, NC shot out his window at a biker who was riding down a busy road with his 3-year old on a bike seat behind him.

“He decided he needed to tell them he thought it was unsafe that they would do that and have their child out there in an area where they had a lot of traffic,” Splain said.

Diez stopped his car and confronted Simons near 1360 Tunnel Road. When Simons began to walk away, Diez shot at him, Splain said.

Well that makes sense. And here I was wondering why someone would shoot a biker. He was just trying to keep him safe. Who knows? Maybe it was meant as a warning shot over his head. The bullet went through the biker’s helmet and tore out some of the lining, but he was miraculously untouched. The firefighter has been charged with first degree attempted murder. The Ashville Citizen-Times has the full story.

Matt Gilman walks around the site with a cane for a few minutes before riding, and then he relies on a couple friends to prompt him. He hops on his bike and rolls around on some big drops and pulls off some pretty rad trials moves. Give trackstanding with your eyes closed a try and you’ll find out how much you rely on sight for your balance. It’s a long video, but at about 4:00 he starts linking together some moves that almost make this thing look like a hoax. That’s meant as a compliment.

Nature sensitivity is not generally something that’s thrown around in helmet sales. It’s more like, “Will this keep my head from getting crushed by a truck wheel? No? Then how about if I slam my head into a window? Does it match my bike?” One company is working on developing a bike helmet that’s all tweed, cork, bio-plastic, and soy. It’s a great idea, but tossing your old helmet into the trash just to run out and buy one of these kind of defeats the purpose. Oddest of all, this helmet is made for Lacoste, purveyors of those Alligator polo shirts that sell for about $85.

It’s an interesting idea and I can’t wait to see what the next designers do with it. Might want to consider adding a couple more vents–those four on top won’t exactly cut it in Minnesota humidity.

Some wack job cyclist in NYC on a track bike came unhinged and started pounding on a guy with his U-lock. Maybe the guy deserved it, but seeing this kind of video all over the internet doesn’t exactly build goodwill among the cycling and driving communities. It leads to crap like this North Carolina firefighter who shot a handgun out the window of his car at a cyclist barely missing the guy’s head. The biker’s helmet was shot clean through, but it just tore through the lining instead of his brain.

A Berlin brothel is offering patrons who arrive on their bikes a 5 Euro discount. It’s a genius way to go green for Maison d’Envie and they say about two or three customers per day have been taking advantage of the special. About 12% of all street traffic in Berlin is bikes, so this seems like a natural marriage. I wish someone in the Twin Cities would offer happy hour prices all day to people who arrived on bikes.

After being in Dinkytown for 13 years, Varsity Bike has moved down the street three doors.   As with all change there has been the expected changes, as well as the unintended ones.  During our time in business we have always had bikes on the sidewalk, a public tool block (which is 12 basic bike tools like allen wrenches, tire levers,  axel wrenches, chain tool, etc.) and an airhose for  anybody’s use.  This April, after an anonymous complaint, we were forced to remove the bikes and the public tool block (which was attached to an Metro Transit bus bike rack for people to learn how to take their bike on the bus) from the sidewalk.  We also had cargo bikes, like the Bakfiet, on the side of our retail space in the private common space in our building’s common entryway.  We were required to remove them as well. 

We have been working with the city of Minneapolis Planning, Zoning and Development Review to allow us to put out bike racks on the sidewalk for more parking and trying to find a new way to put out the public tool block.  We have been allowed to put out the bike racks for customer and employee bike parking as well as an air hose for public use.  We have not been able to come up with an appropriate way to have our tool block outside.  We need to have the tools retract when they are not in use so they do not block the sidewalk.  Unfortunately, our first experiment with retracting key fobs did not work because they were constantly being broken as they were not strong enough for rigorous use.  We are looking for a new long-term solution.

We at Varsity Bike are applying for an Outdoor Display and Sales variance to use the private space in our buildings entryway.  This variance is for the use of displaying our large cargo bikes like the Bakfiet, the Yuba Mundo or other traditional for sale bikes.  This space is dead space in an alcove and is not useful for anything else. The current zoning rules allow for hardware stores to display lawn and garden items such as lawn mowers in spaces similar to this.  The display of bikes would seem to fit into this same exception to allow a seasonal business to display large items outside during the peak selling season.  Without specific mention in the zoning laws, bikes are not allowed currently.

There will be a public hearing in late July to determine if this variance will be approved by the city. We have received support from the Marcy Holmes Neighborhood Association, the Dinkytown Business Association and our Minneapolis Council Member Diane Hofstede.  We believe this variance will not be an issue for anybody and hope that all our neighbors support it or at least do not contest it.

A Minneapolis bike commuter riding home from the St. Paul campus last week pulled over in the bike lane when she saw a pair of shoes tidily placed and pointing towards the edge. Over a day had passed while cars flew by, but the odd placement of shoes gave her pause. She peeked over the edge and saw the body, then called police and snapped this photo. Rough find on a bike commute. The same thing actually happened to Stevil over at How to Avoid the Bummer Life. This is a troubling trend. Bike commuters aren’t supposed to be like police working the Jersey Shore.

Tonight, July 8th, kicks off the Bike Film Festival, 4 days packed with fun events! Tonight, Wednesday, will be Bike Trivia starting at 7PM at the 501 Club followed by 9PM musical performances by Knife World, Gay Witch Abortion, and No Age, all of which is FREE. Tomorrow, the 9th will be located at the awesome Riverview Theater, starting at 7PM with a screening of the Triplets of Belleville, followed by a 9PM screening of Where are you go, tickets are $8, then an After party at Grumpy’s Downtown with Drink Specials, DJ’s and Karaoke. July 10th a whole bundle of short films will be showing at the Cedar Cultural Center starting at 7PM, followed by an after party with cold sprints.  Saturday the 11th, events will be going on at the Cedar all day starting at noon ending with a party at one on one bike shop downtown. Sunday, it will all end bike polo tournament at McRae Park on 46th St and Chicago Av. Hope to see a lot of excited faces this week, cause this is going to be fun!