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511 wants to know what bicyclists think. Take the survey and have a chance at winning an iPod Touch.
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22ABHHETW6A

Bike camping is this simple: What do you need to spend a night outside? Food, clothes, shelter, flashlight, harmonica, book, pen and paper - everyone's list is different. Just put it on your bicycle and ride somewhere nearby to sleep out. On my first trip, I brought all the gear I owned - a sleeping bag. My pal and a group of his friends rolled me over the Golden Gate Bridge, down through Sausalito and up into the Headlands. As dusk settled, I was on a dirt path in a meadow, following road bikes and cruisers as the people riding them debated if skunks were stalking or avoiding us. Soon we arrived at a dark campground, where we had the place to ourselves, and we ate and drank and talked and laughed. I had no idea where I was. Read more...

Instead of making the hour-long commute in his car from San Francisco to the Google campus in Mountain View every day, Scott Crosby found a better way to travel: his bike. The Google employee said he first began riding the 42-mile journey down U.S. Highway 101 in 2005 to lose weight and get back into shape. “After getting oriented [at Google] the first few months, I realized I needed to get on the bike again,” he said. “And commuting on the 101 is really demoralizing.” Read more...

When Dr. Bill Bradford lived in Cow Hollow, he'd bicycle to work in Brisbane. It took an hour, which wasn't long enough, so he moved his family over to Marin County. This way he gets a two-hour ride covering 30 miles and three mountains while touring through the towns and cities of Ross, Kentfield, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Mill Valley, Sausalito, San Francisco, Daly City and on to Brisbane, where he is at his desk by 8 or 8:30 a.m. "I wasn't sure how the commute was going to work out until I started doing it," he says of adding a bay to cross. "Then I thought, 'This is even better.' " Read more...

RIDING a bicycle with headphones occupying both ears is not just dangerous, but also illegal in New York and many other states. And while it’s O.K. to ride with just one ear plugged in, that’s not always very pleasant. Gadget makers have devised a solution: compact speakers for MP3 players that are meant to be attached to a bicycle, either on the handlebars or elsewhere. The rider selects the songs, attaches the music player to the speakers, then listens and rides with ears wide open. Read more...

Maybe it was the eve of a new year. Maybe it was the Champagne. Maybe it was simply the right time. Whatever it was, Adam Greenfield of San Francisco made a resolution at a party on Dec. 31, 2008: He would not drive, or ride, in an automobile for all of 2009. This futuristic experiment fit in with Greenfield's lifestyle. A 29-year-old single guy who makes community films for City Hall, he was already commuting from the Inner Sunset mainly by bicycle. And he already believed that we're approaching a time in which oil will be so scarce, or expensive, that few of us will be able to power our cars or have access to foods grown from afar. Read more...

A pilot bicycle-sharing program in Silicon Valley will start in March, which feels like it's just around the corner for cycling advocate Joe Walton. "I've been working on getting folks to pedal bikes for a long time," the Cupertino resident said. "I think we're on the right track." He meant that literally. Commuters and even weekend shoppers would be able to check out bikes at Caltrain stations in San Jose, Palo Alto and Mountain View. They could use them for shopping, getting to work or simply riding around for fun, then return them at the end of the day. Read more...

Blake Sessions didn't really even ride bikes much until he moved to Boston for college. The 20-year-old Los Altos resident is a budding entrepreneur and inventor, though, and saw an opportunity. Now, he's launching a business catering to a niche market of bicycle riders, selling customized sprockets for fixed-gear bikes. Sessions is a Gunn High School graduate and a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying mechanical engineering and physics. Last spring, he wanted to make his bike look more interesting so he carved a design — symbols of seasons, like a leaf and a snowflake — into the metal sprocket, or chainring. He noticed other people seemed to like it. Read more...

Bike culture in the Bay Area may have found its Algonquin. At the Actual Cafe in Oakland, which opened last week on San Pablo Avenue, people can ride their bikes into the cafe and hook them to the wall, the way they might have hitched their horses a century ago. The rail enclosing the bikes even looks like a hitching post. Bicycle protection, without locks or chains. A whole new way of doing business and attracting business, all at one. And it isn’t just about the bike. The rider is treated like royalty here — which is just the way it should be, its patrons believe. Read more...

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted unanimously today to spend $80 million on an ambitious climate initiatives program that aims to reduce driving in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Marin County Supervisor Stephen Kinsey said the idea is to make short-term investments that reduce transportation-related emissions and vehicle miles traveled, and to encourage the use of cleaner fuels. Read more...

The test of Santa Rosa's first bike boulevard originally expected to take six months will now stretch to 10 as the city scrambles to find middle ground between warring factions. The City Council has asked the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board to study two controversial traffic-reducing measures, which will postpone until May council consideration of the project's fate, said Transportation Planner Nancy Adams. Read more...

The number of people getting around Marin by pedal power or their own two feet has jumped in the past decade, according to a county survey of pathways. Weekday bicycling rates have increased 118 percent since 1999 and the number of pedestrians has risen 51 percent in that same period, based on counts taken for a federally funded pilot program designed to encourage bicycle and pedestrian transportation. Read more...

The public will have future access to nearly 2 miles of shoreline along Point Molate in Richmond that have been off-limits to pedestrians for decades, thanks to a recent deal between Chevron and the East Bay Regional Park District. The 20-foot-wide easement runs in two pieces, from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to Point San Pablo, bordered by rolling grasslands, beaches and rocky embankments, with views of San Pablo Bay, the Brothers islands and Mount Tamalpais. Read more...

San Jose city and transit officials are dreaming of a more bike-friendly city that could become reality for residents as soon as next spring. City Council members adopted a comprehensive bicycle plan this week that within the decade aims to reduce car lanes and expand bike lanes from 300 to 500 miles, increase the percentage of commute trips from 1 to 5 percent, reduce bike collisions by 50 percent and add 5,000 bike parking spaces. Councilman Sam Liccardo said the city is working to create a streetscape that would be more comfortable for cyclists. Read more..