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Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Bad bands and broken bones
- First the Governor’s Mansion burns down and now this. …
Rick Perry breaks his collarbone Tuesday evening in a mountain biking accident near his home. He also sustained a minor abrasion on his right elbow.
- Bad name for a band
There’s a Florida band named “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb.” Do not attach their bumper stickers to your bicycle.
Last month in Memphis an airport terminal was shut down when such a bicycle was spotted near a passenger ramp.
A pilot saw the bike with the sticker and notified police, who evacuated the terminal. Bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, but did not detect any explosives.
Airport police took the bike owner into custody, but later released him because they didn’t have grounds to make an arrest.
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Tidbits from Yellow Bike
From the Austin Yellow Bike Project:
Austin cyclists made an excellent showing at last month’s City Council hearing on the 2009 Bicycle Master Plan Update. Some excellent speeches were made, council-members were serenaded (select public hearing item 61 and scroll to about 9:33 PM), but unfortunately there was no vote. The Update’s next hearing is scheduled for this Thursday, June 11, no earlier than 6:00 PM. If you’ve got something to say - even if you don’t - go there and speak, sit, or stand. Council’s likely to vote this time, so be ready to celebrate. If you can’t make the meeting, swing by City Hall and sign up in favor of the Update at one of the computer kiosks in the Lobby. The item number is 75 PH. If you’re attending the meeting, but not speaking, the computer lets you donate 3 minutes of time to someone who is. Do that. For more on the plan, click here.
Mamma Jamma Ride
The first ever annual Texas Mamma Jamma Ride aims to raise $400,000 for 10 local agencies, including the Sustainable Food Center, that are out to change the odds for thousands of Central Texans in the fight against breast cancer. According to the recent policy paper published by The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, the 8 million lives lost annually to cancer could be reduced by about one quarter to one third by dietary changes including reduction in overweight and obesity together with physical activity. To learn more and register for the ride, click here.
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Want to ride the Tour? Try breaking the law
I look at cycling as a right, an inherent, irrevocable entitlement that we all share. There is one caveat to that statement, and it involves incarceration. If you screw up and get sent to the “fun house” then cycling should not be part of the equation. Unless, of course, you live in France.
From a Reuters story. …
Almost 200 prisoners will cycle around France next month, watched by scores of guards on bicycles, in the first penal version of the Tour de France.
Officials say the 196 prisoners will cycle in a pack and breakaway sprints will not be allowed.
They will be accompanied by 124 guards and prison sports instructors. There will be no ranking, the idea being to foster values like teamwork and effort.
The prisoners’ Tour de France will take them 2,300 kilometers around the country, starting in the northern city of Lille on June 4 and stopping in 17 towns, each of which has a prison.
So my next question is this, how can you possibly train for this steep course behind the walls of a French prison?
What kind of bikes will they ride and who paid for all the equipment?
Will all the bikes be chained together somehow?
Are the teams grouped by gang affiliation?
I bet you could make a mean shank out of metal bicycle parts.
I hope we get some coverage of this race, it sounds really exciting. Or it could be really unsafe and stupid. I get the whole resocialization concept of prison. But these guys are basically getting to make a once-in-a-lifetime ride that many of us without a rap sheet will never get to do. And it’s being funded and organized by the French government. It seems a little unfair.
Well, I guess if you really want to see France by bicycle and don’t have much disposable income, try knocking over a bank in Marseille.
They’ll have a spot in the peleton waiting for you.
