Bike Hugger 

Later that night at Hopworks … beer, bikes, pub food.

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A reader wrote to say

I was riding to work today heading south on Beacon near the VA hospital when I think I saw a police officer pull over a rider for not wearing a helmet. As I rode by, I asked the rider if he was okay (thinking maybe he had gotten hit), and he just looked mad. Has anyone else heard reports of this today?

And I just heard from another cyclist that they got a 103 ticket for no helmet.

Just like the periodic stop-sign crackdowns on Mercer Island, sounds like the po po are looking for helmet scofflaws.

Anyone else seen cyclist getting tickets or got one themselves?

The first day was a mixed success–our winners seemed genuinely excited, but Twitter made the process very difficult by inexplicably swallowing any messages that contained an @ symbol. Our first batch of winners came out like this:

Tomorrow, all the stuff we’re giving away can be mailed to you, so you don’t have to be at Webvisions to get it. We’ve got a SXSW Interactive pass, a bunch more Ibex stuff, some Bike Hugger shirts, and more. Stayed tuned–follow us on Twitter because you WILL need to meet certain deadlines if you’re a winner.

good times all … good times.

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The riders in tonight’s Ride of Silence in Seattle were like velocipede monks, rolling silently from Gasworks, down Eastlake through downtown and Belltown, then finally out Denny back to the park. I didn’t see an official count, but I’d guess there were 200 riders, a sizable crowd but not quite the volume I saw last year. The ride was well organized, with cue sheets, guides at every turn, and incredibly good control over the pacing and grouping of the whole group.

The ride is international with rides in almost every state in the U.S. The point of the ride is to memorialize riders who have been killed or injured on the road, like my friend Matthew Sperry. I try to make the ride every year because Matt was killed doing what I do ever day – riding to work.