Bike news from here and there

Lots of good stuff has been going on in and around Austin cycling as of late. Thankfully, there are a bunch of other people out there reporting on it so I get to be lazy, throw killer parties, and bask in the glow of another brutal Texas summer.

First up, a couple of the bike polo regulars went to New Orleans over the weekend to play in a 3 state, 4 city mini-tournament. The ATXBPSC Blog has all the goods on that, as well as a plethora of photos. Israel, Jordan and Robert were there representing Austin, and from what Jordan said they did pretty well for themselves, beating the teams from New Orleans and Pensacola. Next week they're headed to Atlanta for more polo goodness, so stay tuned here or there for all the details! Hell yeah y'all, way to take a piece of Austin bike culture across state lines and show those suckers what's up.

The Austin On Two Wheels guys have been keeping an eye on things down South as far as cycling infrastructure is concerned, and just recently they happened to notice a nice bit of improvement on Mary Street, which runs through the Bouldin neighborhood. They've modified the road to allow on-street parking on one side of the street, with a nice, wide bike lane AND a car lane running in each direction. This "lane diet" modification has been in the plans for a while now and has undergone some discussion at the BAC, but it's always exciting to see something leave the planning stages and become actual stripes on the pavement. Muchas gracias to the City of Austin staffers for implementing this cycling-friendly lane change, and to the A2W crew for spotting it and pointing it out to us.

Photoflash: There are more pics of the Full Moon Cruise over on Max's facebook page. Check them out.

In the news that y'all already know, last weekend was the ROT rally and holy shit was it a lot of fun. There were THOUSANDS of motorcycles in attendance, with the requisite tanned, leathery people clad in denim and the skins of animals. They seemed to really like the bicyclists, and were cheering and giving high-fives every time we cruised through the area. Watching Robbie Knievel jump the three two beer trucks was a pretty excellent slice of old-school Americana, complete with fireworks, a stars-and-stripes outfit on the rather haggard looking Knievel, the singing of the star spangled banner right before shit went down, and the playing of "Freebird" as the actual jump occured. I had to get all mean and agro looking with a couple bikers that were fucking with our bikes, first trying to climb on top of them for a better vantage point, then just fucking with them like they were gonna try to jack one. In retrospect a cyclist getting mouthy with and staring down a couple bikers was a rather entertaining experience, but I'll admit I was glad that there were a couple State Troopers standing close by.

The cops downtown have been interesting lately. We rode the 6th Street gauntlet from Red River to Congress over a dozen times without a single incidence of the cops hassling us. In any case, though I've heard about friends and readers getting tickets for running red lights and stop signs, smoking weed, open containers, etc. I haven't heard about a ticket or a hassle for riding past the 6th St. barricades in a good long while now. Has anyone been hassled out there? All in all I had a great time raising hell and enjoying the Biker Rally.

Damn, there was something else I wanted to mention but now that I'm at this point in my spew it's completely slipped my mind. Ah well, I'm sure it'll come to me, at which point all will be revealed. Today is the Midnight Ridazz Jackie-O vs. Marilyn Ride, so break out those diamonds and pearls, because shit's gonna get catty! If I don't see you at the pot-luck before, I'll see y'all there.

Update: Oh that's right, now I remembered. Lately I've been getting A TON of people emailing me their appreciation for this website, for getting the word out on weird events, for the time I put into it, for keeping people active and involved in the Austin bike scene, etc. Seriously, almost every day I get an email (sometimes two or three!) thanking me for this shit, and I've gotta tell y'all, it's been really awesome. First off, YOU'RE WELCOME! It's not like I get paid for this and I never plan to see a single penny from it (money taints everything) but in so many ways I've been paid back a hundred fold for every second I invest into this site. Getting to meet all of y'all and experience some of the most amazing bike rides ever as a crew has been a unique pleasure the likes of nothing else.

Second, THANK YOU! If it weren't for all of y'all I wouldn't bother with any of this. Sure there are sites for roadies, mountain bikers, or recreational safety cyclists, but if I had to run any of those sites instead of ATXBS I'd probably kill myself. It's the PEOPLE involved in the events I mention (and frequent) that make them what they are, and by extension that make this site what it is. It's all the people I see time and time again, riding their bikes and having a BLAST, that give me the motivation to keep this site as active and insane as it always is. You also feed me the best news snippets from all over, and even though I typically only feature the Austin information (because the rest of the world sucks) I always enjoy reading what's going on elsewhere. Thanks again, y'all.

Finally, I love love love seeing all the positive emails, but I want some criticism too! If you see something on the site that you really like, let me know, but if you see something you disagree with, let me know that too. If you DON'T see a feature that should be here, holla! God now that I look over this again it looks like an acceptance speech and it sickens me, so I'm going to shut the hell up. Bottom line: Thanks for the fan mail folks, it really makes me feel good about what I do. I'll keep writing, y'all keep coming. To the events. Heh.