With spring in full force and more local residents commuting daily, a reporter at METRO Magazine came to Varsity Bike & Transit to see what all the buzz of electric bikes was all about. As the provider of the largest variety of electric bikes in the Twin Cities and more than 7 different options available, it’s no wonder why he came to Varsity Bike & Transit. The writer reviewed the very cool Ohm XU700, which allows the user to set their “assist” level, meaning the amount of push the electric motor will add, and includes a throttle you can use to boost the bike to top speed (20 mph) instantly. It’s a pretty wild feeling when you’re riding it.

Kim Carlson, Star Tribune eco-blogger, gave her top tips on how to go green for Earth Day this year. One of the tips – “get out of your car and ride a bike.” Is there better advice? The best part of the Twin Cities Live segment was that it featured an electric bike from Varsity Bike & Transit, and the very awesome Detour bag made entirely from used juice boxes available at Varsity.
View the article here

Forget about Tony Stark being Ironman. Rob DeHoff is Ironman. In a recent FOX morning show segment, M.A. Rosko stated, “it’s almost like Ironman peddling on a bike” while referring to Varsity Bike Owner Rob DeHoff as he accelerated on an electric bike. Although, the FOX morning show segment explained how electric bikes are becoming less of a novelty and more common in everyday usage, you can’t help but laugh at (and feel bad for) the cameraman who Rob “Ironman” DeHoff was riding circles around. It looks like he’s done this before.

At the kick-off of this year’s Living Green Expo, WCCO’s Holly Wagner interviewed Varsity Bike Owner Rob DeHoff to learn about the benefits of electric bikes. No, electric bikes are not scooters. They do, however, eliminate sweat, get you from point A to point B in a decent time frame and ride just like any other bike.

In preparation of President Obama’s visit to New York a couple weeks ago, the police with no friends in the scheduling department on the force pulled the duty of driving up and down Houston Street, cutting locks, and carting the bikes away. Why? It seems that some genius military strategist believes that bikes could be used as improvised ‘pipe bombs.’ Fast forward one week, and look to Times Square on a busy theater night. Some jackass parks a car loaded with non-explosive fertilizer and fireworks on the sidewalk and evades police for nearly three days.

It sounds like one of terror suspects being interrogated in one of our secret camps offered some valuable intelligence, but the translator (who likely has never been to New York) confused ‘Houston St.” with “Time Square” and “bike” with “car.” Poor guy. I know the military is stretched thin for translators, but what happened to all those bikes?

This guy got off light.

If you’re into blood and gore, take look at Mediamatic’s Sur Place exhibition on Bike Crash Portraits. People with crushed faces after they get hit by cars or fly over the handlebars. A lot of them look like self-portraits taken in hospital bathroom mirrors. Each portrait has the brief story behind the crash. Brutal stuff.

A man in Jeep Grand Cherokee began yelling at a cyclist for ‘riding his bike on the road’ in Colorado Springs. Things escalated when the duo stopped at an intersection to exchange words, and the driver eventually pulled a gun on the biker. At least the cyclist in Colorado didn’t get shot like this poor guy in North Carolina.

This is where the story gets crazy – in spite of the driver waving a gun in his face, the biker gets out his phone and snaps a photo of the enraged motorist’s license plate. Both take off, but the driver is later arrested hiding in the backyard of his house. Would have been a better ending to the story if the driver was shot down in a halo of gunfire from a squad of bike police.

Today Google unveiled their ‘Bike There’ option on Maps. I dropped my commute in and it sent me over the Brooklyn Bridge footpath at rush hour and through some Prospect Park walkways. While the idea of having a Bike There option is great for people who don’t know how to find their way around, I think the Maps option might cause problems for cyclists in New York. Specifically, we’ll find a lot more bikers throwing themselves off the Brooklyn Bridge after making an attempt to navigate the masses of walkers utilizing the shared footpath over the bridge’s roadway. Ultimately, of course, this might be a good thing as it will not only help relieve bike congestion on the bridge, and it also serves to underscore the need for a road-level bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Twitter bike.

This never happens. An NYC messenger was reunited with his stolen bike after Tweeting that his ride had been stolen. Security footage proved useless and a campus of the neighborhood turned up nothing, but a contemporary and Twitter follower of the messenger saw the stolen bike outside a downtown deli. He called his buddy and ran over and “put a hand on the bike,” which as we all know, is akin to putting your jacket on a chair in a movie theater–it implies ownership. The messenger returned to be reunited with his one-of-a-kind orange bike, but the pair declined to enter the deli to look for the thief.

NYC Critical Mass

A New York judge has ruled that it’s lawful for NY Police to arrest Critical Mass participants who don’t apply for a parade permit. Cyclists will be allowed to ride in groups smaller than 50 riders without a permit, but if they want to ride through town in a group larger than that, they’ll need to wade through the bureaucracy of city hall. It’s a huge loss for cyclists. No more massive group rides in the city and one more hurdle for alley cat races.

The BikeSnobNYC argues that Critical Mass is moving New York backwards in terms of cyclists’ rights. He argues that we started with no regulations, and that thanks to Critical Mass, we’re losing those rights. The New York order essentially takes away your right to freely assemble (on a bike and then ride around).

Either way you look at it, one thing we have to look forward to are groups of 49 riders staged a few minutes apart rolling around town.