Bike Hugger 

Critical mass attendance usually drops as we head deeper into fall, but October is usually well attended and seen as one of the better rides of the year because of the Halloween spirit. A few more photos of bikers in costumes below, the whole set is here. Happy Halloween Huggers!

After months of planning, discussions and set backs, the Bike Master Plan comes before the City Council for a vote. Show up and support at the upcoming meeting:

City Hall, City Council Chambers, 2nd Floor
600 4th Avenue
Monday, November 5, 2 p.m.

The Bike Master Plan (BMP) was initiated by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) with the help of consulting firm Toole Design. The plan includes improvements to on-road cycling and public policy changes to complete Seattle’s current disjointed bicycling network.

Happy Halloween from Pum’kin head Pug and all of us at Bike Hugger

Late-breaking news from Cascade yesterday, regarding a budget amendment that was introduced on Monday. The amendment would provide $6.8 Million to complete the Burke-Gilman trail within the City of Seattle.

From Cascade’s Breaking News:

Attend the City Council Budget Hearing on Tuesday, October 30 and offer your support for funding for the Burke-Gilman Trail. Each citizen is allowed 3 minutes maximum to address the Council. Arrive at 5 p.m. to secure your place in line. Address:

City of Seattle Budget Hearing TODAY!! Tuesday, October 30, 5:30 p.m. City Hall, City Council Chambers, 2nd Floor 600 4th Avenue

If you can’t attend the hearing, call or email the Council on Tuesday Oct. 30 between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. The phone number is 206-684-8821 and the email address is budget@seattle.gov.

Those of us “regulars” on the Burke are all-too-familiar with the missing link in the Ballard neighborhood, sending cyclists and other users through rough industrial roads and over parallel and rather precarious train tracks. The completion of this section is a huge win for the thousands of multi-purpose users through Ballard each year.

Submitted by a reader and from the Telegraph UK, we have a story about a man who was caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. There’s also a follow-up story on how exactly one would do that and if it would hurt.

Sure we love our bikes, we’re Bike Huggers afterall, but we don’t go that far (that I know of and I don’t want to know otherwise).

Under 4 pounds isn’t racer light, but for a travel/touring bike with S & S couplings and Paragon dropouts, that’s really good.

Update

Total bike weight in Single Speed Mode is under 18 pounds. I’ll post the details of the built bike in another ready-to-ride post.

from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

I’ll ride in San Antonio later this week. We’re there on a related business trip and I’ll have the Modal with me for the first ride. Are any of our readers from San Antonio or have ridden there?

It looks like the terrain and region is similar to Austin where I have ridden. Speaking of Austin, during a ride to Creedmoor and back, is when the Bike Hugger concept was first thought about.

Update

A reader responded with a tip to ride in The King William district south of downtown, stop by Bluestar Brewing, and possibly the trail to the Missions. I found the SA Wheelmen.

As seen on a bike shop wall … the Bike Calendar Girls poster

The 2nd annual Lovely Ladies on Beautiful Bikes calendar is out and the release party is on November 1st at Conor Byrne Pub.

The media loves the Paris Vélib story. It was covered on NBC news on Friday night and featured in the NYTimes Travel section as a great success and great vacation.

“Twelve weeks after the introduction of the Vélib, 15,000 bikes have been put into service at more than 1,000 stations. In that time Vélibiens (or Vélibeurs or perhaps Vélibistes) have checked out bicycles almost six million times and ridden them an estimated 7.5 million miles.”

The author of the article notes how, “As I peddled around the glass pyramid at the Louvre, I was struck by the strobelike reflections from the royal buildings around it.”

If you’re anything like me you look forward to Fridays with eager anticipation. Not just because it’s the end of the week, it’s also Donut Day! And if you’re anything like me, you feel obligated to do the long ride to work on Donut Day to make up for such indulgences. Which raises an interesting question… How do you fit a dozen donuts on a stripped down, clean, urban bike? Sure the donut store will give you a cardboard box to strap on your rack, but I’m not riding my longtail in just to haul donuts. No, no, these donuts have to go in the messenger bag with everything else. Here’s what I came up with earlier this morning: two yogurt containers and a cardboard oatmeal tube. It fit a dozen Mighty-O’s perfectly. No crushing despite a full bag and hard contents, all the donuts with sprinkles had the majority of their sprinkles intact, and those with icing didn’t even suffer from being stacked under their icing free siblings.