The “Get Directions” feature in Google Maps now has a bicycling option for choosing routes along paths that avoid hills and traffic. Sadly, it doesn’t really know much about bike paths in SLO just yet, but Google promises to continue working on this and extend this new feature to many more cities.

Aquablonde says:

Post-bike night last thursday, my bombshell of a bike was taken from the outside of the AGR frat house off foothill and california. It was locked up to their barbeque with TWO bike locks, yet somehow the little criminal managed to break through the kryptonite. I’m on a mission to recover my baby. If you happen to come across it, lock it up and contact me at this email address: aquablonde21 AT aol DOT com. Heres a description of the bicycle…

• Off-white 54 cm men’s specialized sirrus frame with pink decals (potentially spray painted by now)
• Blue DURA nylon tires
• Black Wolber rims
• Shimano Biopace cranks
• Black WTB saddle
• Full shimano 105 groupset
• Blue pedals
• custom stem
• zebra griptape wrapped dropbars

Its pretty unique, so keep your eyes peeled my fellow bike lovers.

The theme for September is:

Have you been hanging on to a sexy gender bender outfit? Now is the time to wear it!

This is Josh from one of our rides a couple of years ago!

If cross dressing isn’t your speed, try our sub-theme: White Trash!

I can’t wait to see what you crazy people come up with! See you on Thursday!

Please Please Please Read Two Important Things above.

The theme for July is: Skin Paint, Magic Markers, and Stickers

Come on out, get painted green and get your bananas!

Wait, what?

Let’s see if we can be as cool as these people:

And of course our Sub-Theme: Pimp your Bike

We ride Thursday July 3rd at 9:30pm in the Mission!

In celebration of eight years of the Bike Happening,

The theme for this month’s ride is: Tutu, Feathers, A Summer Formal

The sub-theme is: Fashion Faux Pas & EIGHT

Much like this fellow — he combines two themes in one go:

See you beautiful people on Thursday!

Due to a hardware failure, we’ve lost all posts since April 11. Stupid heat wave cooked our hard disks. We’re sorry for sucking, we’ll do our best to stop ASAP.

Julie had her bike stolen over the weekend:

my bike got taken on Saturday night/ Sun am from my porch. it was
probably just a drunk person. two other bikes weren’t taken. one
beater that wasn’t locked and another really nice one of my roomies
that was poorly locked.

You can see the missing bike in this picture — its the middle bike:

If you know anything about the whereabouts of this bike, please post a comment!

Warthog Phil seyz:

Bike swap meet on sunday march 16 from 9am to 12noon at Utopia bakery, 2900 Broad st. Free to all sellers, buyers or just browsers. Got an old bicycle you want to sell? Maybe a box of old parts that need a new home? Dust it off, bring it out and make some cash. Looking for a new ride or parts to finish a bike project? Come shopping. Any and all things bicycle related welcome. Road, mountain, BMX, cruisers, track/fixie, tandem, recumbent, if it’s got wheels and pedals you can find it here. For info or to be put on the notification list e-mail bikeswapmeet [at] yahoo {dot} com.

The theme for Thursday’s ride is: Anything goes but clothes!

You can wear anything you want — as long as they are not “clothes”. You can make clothing/outfits for the ride from anything you want — just be creative. Bubblewrap tube top? Easy! Duct tape dress? Its been done:

Cuesta equipment, home depot and farm supply have been named as places to go shopping for this weeks happening!

Also, remember the sub-theme: “Noisy Spokes, Bells, and Whistles” If you’re not into making alternative clothing, the sub theme is your way to go!

Portland was recently voted one of the most bike friendly cities in the world and now they are taking bike safety one step further. Portland is creating “bike boxes” at intersections that are specifically designed for cyclists and the cars have to wait behind them so that cyclists are easily visible for cars who wish to turn right at the intersection.

Way to go Portland! Keep up the good work!

January is almost here and that means its time for a bike ride! The theme for this month is Alien Invasion!

Come ride your bike as an alien this coming thursday at 9:30pm in the mission!

Counter-theme:: Funky socks! Don’t like the main theme? Come and wear the funkiest socks you can find!

This concept was recently discussed as a possible Burning Man art project:

But if the Canadian cops hauled this thing off the road, imagine what cops in the US would do. I can see the headlines now: “Cops taser 4 bicyclists in car”.

Since the November happening is on the day after Halloween, we’re going to make it easy on everyone and have people simply recycle their Halloween costumes from the evening before. Dress up as anything you want — as long as you come dressed up! Or, take the theme very literally and show up with a nice fat Halloween Hangover, like this fellow here:

Feel free to read and make comments below. Your names and email addresses will not be turned into the Department of Homeland Security.

This month’s theme is Stripes.

Stripes seem to be popular at the moment — Old Navy has stripe sweaters, the Sock Drawer has killer striped socks and I’m sure lots of other stores in town will carry stripey goodness.

Remember! We are still in the naked-boom-box season of 2007. Bring your boom boxes set to 90.7FM and cranked up. And come as bare as you dare while the weather’s hot — lets hope this hot weather holds another week.

I think Yardsale’s Whirlygig Bike needs one of these cool bike bells:

I bet you could make a royal racket with this bell for the happening!

Thursday is already the first of March and that means its Bike Happening time!

Like last month, we’re asking people to bring boomboxes (with working FM radio) tuned to 90.7FM to the happening. We’ll use the boomboxes for our newfangled PA system and for tunes during the ride. We’ll also be passing the hat for donations to cover the costs for our new PA system. We still need to gather about $150 in order to pay off those who bankrolled this operation.

Also, remember that the theme for this month is Hair! Think hairspray! Think colors! I’m hoping to see some crazy hair scuptures and some killer braids. This evening Ariel and I whipped up my hair for the happening and I’m posting in-progress sneak-preview pictures here to get you thinking about your hair creation:

To see the full and complete hair cut, you’ll have to come to the happening to check it out!

The central coast always needs rain and I really do enjoy a nice rainy day. But, it does crimp my bike riding style quite a bit when it gets wet, nasty and generally less safe out there. A good tool to work around the rain to see if you can squeeze in a bike ride is the Weather Channel’s Radar in Motion map that shows current rainfall over central California:

For you Mac OS X fans out there, you can also install this Dashboard Widget and always have Radar in Motion on your Dashboard.

For this weeks bike ride, we are going to try a new Public Announcement (PA) system for the announcements before we start the ride. But, we can’t make this happen without your participation (as always the happening is all about the participants!):

Please bring a portable, battery powered FM radio to the ride!

Think boom-boxes. Think transistor radios. If it plays the radio and you can manage to drag it along on your bike, BRING IT! Before you arrive at the mission, tune your radio to 90.7 FM. Ninety point seven. Repeat that: Ninety point seven!.

We’re going to use the FM radios to make announcements while we’re in the mission and we’re going to continue playing tunes for the rest of the bike happening! Don’t forget your radios and your tinfoil hats on thursday!

Sorry for the late notice, but it seems that Murph is a bit overwhelmed with life right now, so I’ll step in and announce the theme for this coming thursday. Since there isn’t much time to prepare for this week, let’s keep the theme simple:

Tinfoil hats!

Everybody has some tin (aluminum) foil laying around the house, right? Grab the tin foil and start cooking up some crazy ideas. Here are some thoughts to get you thinking:

• Paper hats: Adapt paper hat ideas and use tinfoil instead.
• Take an existing hat and wrap it in tinfoil — how about that now underused santa hat? Wrap it in tinfoil, slap in on your head and grab your bike.
• Take a baseball cap and use an old coathanger to build an interesting shape on top of the hat. Then wrap the shape with tinfoil to create arbitrarily crazy hats!

I’m looking forward to seeing all of your creations on Thursday evening!

[ Better late then never, right? ]

Please excuse the grainy video — but at least you can get a feel for our presence at the parade: