When you ride a bike, your legs generate power (duh), and no small amount, either. According to Mapawatt, pro cyclists riding the Tour de France generate as much as 430 watt-hours. What if we could capture that energy and use it to power other stuff? That's the question asked -- and answered -- by Fenix, an SF-based tech company focused on creating renewable energy products for emerging......read more
The website Walk Score has announced the extension of its "Bike Score" rankings for neighborhoods and places to 25 cities. The ratings seek to educate riders on how bikeable their city, neighborhood or block is based on a specific set of criteria, using an easily digestible scoring system that ranks bikeability on a scale of 1 to 100. Heat maps show the most bikeable areas in green, and least......read more
Having grown up in the age of the automobile, North American cities aren't generally the most bikeable places in the world. In a recent international ranking of the world’s best cities for biking, only one North American city (Montreal) made it to the top 20. Of course, that doesn't mean there are no good places to bike in the U.S. and Canada. There are, and the scene is getting better all......read more
Argentine artist Mart started painting in the streets of Buenos Aires in the 1990s, at the tender age of 12, becoming one of the first graffiti artists to paint entire trains. Since then his style has moved beyond just graffiti, and while the colour and command of the aerosol can remains, the compositions themselves have evolved: “His contemporary murals are predominantly......read more
Good news on the city transportation front, as three U.S. cities get ready to set the wheels in motion on large-scale public bike share systems. Denver, Minneapolis, and Boston will join Washington D.C. this year as the first U.S. cities to adopt bike rental programs. Generally, bike share works like this: Users pay an annual or monthly subscription fee and receive a membership card, which they......read more
With the Earth Day launch of B-cycle, Denver, Colorado adds itself to the growing list of U.S. cities taking bike sharing for a ride. Touted as the country's first citywide bike share program, B-cycle opens with 500 bikes and 50 stations dotted around the city. A collaboration between Humana Insurance, Trek Bicycle, and ad house Cripsin Porter + Bogusky, B-cycle adds a green alternative to......read more
Six thousand matching bikes are about to become a part of the London streetscape, and the designers and operators hope that they're there for good. The bikes will be located at 400 docking stations around the city, and will be free for the first 30 minutes, or one pound a day and 45 pounds a year. The Mayor of London is hoping the bike sharing program in addition to two new cycle......read more
The good people at GOOD tip us to SoBi, an emerging model of bike-sharing set for test launch in New York City this fall. The "social bicycle system" takes a minimal approach to the idea of public bike share. Instead of custom bikes and an elaborate network of docking stations, SoBi uses a single, mulitfunctional gadget that fastens to the back of any bike and operates as a lock, GPS......read more
Plant Plastic: Drinking soda is bad for you, yes, but petroleum-based plastic bottles bad for everyone. In 2012, Pepsi will drop the world's first fossil fuel-free plastic bottle, made from 100% plant-based materials like switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. Bike Share, Yo: Inhabitat reports that Brooklyn will join Washington D.C., Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis as the first cities in the......read more
If we had to guess what America's top cycling city is, we'd probably say Portland, where the perfect combination of mild climate and smart planning makes the city a veritable biking mecca. But, if the results of a new report from the Alliance for Biking & Walking are to be believed, we'd be wrong. According to the organization's biannual benchmark report, the city with the greatest......read more