Clearly I've been drinking the special kool-aid for too long.

Instead of biking to work for Bike to Work Week I've spent the last few days at a university transportation conference. I've been surprised to see how other schools in the country deal with transportation issues, and how very much it is different from the way that things are done at the University of Wisconsin and the City of Madison.

For about the last 10 years I've been straddling the line between government staff and community advocate. It can be a tricky line to walk. On the government side, things often are done according to the status quo, and change seems to move at a glacier place sometimes. On the advocacy side, it is all about change. Change now (or as quickly as we can get it). Don't get me wrong, in Madison there's a fair mix of community-minded folks in government, but they often have to work within the constraints of the systems that they inhabit.

There are a great deal of things happening in this community related to bicycling, which is one of the reasons that I started this column. When you love bicycling, and think it can save the world, you want as many people to bicycle as possible. And part of getting more people to bicycle is making them aware of all of the varied opportunities to get on a bike or do something bike-related in our fair city.

Another effort to get the word out which I am peripherially involved in is www.madvelocity.com.

I've seen how Dane101 has grown over the last year that I've been reading it and writing for it, and I'd love to see the same kind of success with a bicycling-specific site. I know it can be done, it just will take the will of the people. Right now there are only a handful of us providing content, and we'd like to see that increase.

I try not to repeat myself too much in this column. It isn’t necessary, I find, because there is so much to talk about in the world of bicycling, even in my small slice of it. But I’m going to revisit some subject matter from my “Heroes” column.

I’m going to talk about Jess Bullen again.

I was teaching a class last Saturday and the topic turned, as it often does in bike safety classes, to bicyclists who are killed by careless motorists...and what happens to those motorists.

The answer to that question, of course, by and large, is that nothing happens to them. They get off the hook because people feel sorry for them. Unless alcohol is involved these cases are rarely prosecuted. And prosecuted successfully even less often.

Recently, during discussion of the adoption of the Madison Platinum Bicycle Committee’s Report recommendations (full disclosure, I wrote this report), Alder Thuy Pham-Remmele (District 20) asked, amongst other skeptical comments regarding adoption of the report, "How is a 300-pound person going to ride a bike?" Story on the meeting here.

Thankfully, Thuy Pham-Remmele was the only member of the Council to vote “no” on the adopting the report, and the measure easily passed, clearing the way for many improvements to bicycling in Madison in the coming years.

This morning there was a story on the Today show about a mother who is allowing her 10-year-old son to ride the bus and subway in New York City all by himself. I guess this is shocking news. The mother in the story was defending her decision by saying that the bus and subway are perfectly safe, and that her son is capable of navigating the system on his own. She contends that allowing independence in children helps them to become more self-sufficient adults. She mentioned, amongst the things that people believe are unsafe, but which are perfectly fine, riding a bicycle in the street.

I hate to jinx us all by saying this, but I think that the weather has broken towards spring. Hopefully this means that the number of bicyclists on the roads is going to steadily increase from now until it hits a peak right before the UW lets out for summer.

More bicyclists on the roads means more on-road interactions between bikes, peds, and cars. Unfortunately, I’d guess that a majority of folks in each of those categories has very little idea what the law says with regards being on the road. Even MORE unfortunately, they all THINK that they DO know.

Public service announcement…rules of the road 101:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Margret Mead said that. The quote always makes me think of my friend Robbie, who has used the quote in the past in her email signature, and who I’m pretty sure lives by its meaning.

I had an article all prepared to post this morning about Lance Armstrong, Brett Favre, and how I have trouble connecting with superstar heroes. But then something happened to trump that article.

I got back on my bike.

I’ve long prided myself as a year round bike commuter, but this “worst winter in history” conspired with the free UW bus pass in my pocket to put my butt on the bus far more days over the last three months than in the saddle. On Sunday, I got back on the bike for the first time in as long as I can remember in order to run errands. And this morning, I took my first commute to work.

In my former life, I was a paid lobbyist for bicycling interests. Once you get into the business of trying to affect policy, legislation, and funding in a political system that is hopelessly two sided, the inevitable question arises: whose side are you on?

I've always felt that bicycling was a nonpartisan issue, and it's both frustrating and humorous that I catch hell from both sides of the aisle on a regular basis. I'm always being accused of being too liberal or not liberal enough.

According to the National Bicycle Retailers Association, somewhere around 20 million bicycles are sold in America each year, resulting in about $6 billion passing hands. The current US population is just about 300 million. So even if everyone in the country only owned one bicycle at a time, the entire stock would turn over every 15 years.

This is great news for folks who sell bicycles, at least for SOME folks who sell bicycles. About 75% of bicycles are sold through mass market merchants like Walmart. The rest of the sales are split up amongst sporting goods stores and specialty bicycle retailers (i.e. your friendly neighborhood bike shop). The bikes sold in bike shops tend to be of better quality, and thus, sell for more money. However, any “mom-and-pop” bike shop owner will tell you that the markup on a bicycle is low, and thus, even though they sell bikes for more money than the super-stores, they aren’t necessarily making more money.

Here are some videos from recent events to watch while you are holed up in your cozy apartment and praising the fact that the internet can keep you entertained for hours on end.

Click here to read more.

Word came today that Sheldon Brown died on Sunday of a heart attack. I wasn’t a devoted follower of Brown’s, but many of my friends were, and I certainly was aware of his contribution to bicycling.

Brown’s death is a reminder of so many bicycle heroes who have gone before him and died too young. The first name that came to mind this morning was Ken Kifer. Kifer’s webpage, like Brown’s, was (and is) an invaluable resource for the bicycling world. Kifer was killed by a drunk driver in 2003.

I’ve lived in Madison off and on since August of 1993 and, with the exception of that first winter (I moved here from Texas via New Mexico); I have biked through the winters here. When I arrived, I was completely ignorant of all things winter and of all things bicycle commuting. I started from scratch and made my way completely on my own. It wasn’t until many years later that I ever took a class on bicycle commuting or talked to another bicyclist about winter tips and tricks. As such, I feel like I’m something of a self-taught expert on winter biking.

Here’s a quick course on making it through winter on your bike:

Tonight the Madison City Council will have the Mayor’s Platinum Bicycling Committee Report introduced.

Full disclosure, I wrote the report…but I was just the scribe. I think this committee was unique in that there was a great deal of interaction between the bicycle enthusiast citizen committee members, city staff, and the public. As a result, the ideas initiated from a broad group of individuals and a fair amount of discussion happened about the challenges of implementation.

Welcome back to Madison Mentions, the best place in town to find out what the rest of the nation and occasionally the world is reading about Madison, Wisconsin. This week marks the two year anniversary of our Madison mentions feature and what an anniversary it is. Flipping through the various papers reveals a fairly busy week for Madison in the press beyond our state borders.

We start our trip at the San Francisco Zoo where the San Jose Mercury News takes a look at the life and times of Tatiana, the Siberian tiger that was shot to death after it killed a San Jose teen. Why is this important to Madison? Tatiana was born at the Denver Zoo in 2003 where she was part of a litter that included her bother, Waldemere, and sister, Mariette. If you've been to the Henry Vilas Zoo here in Madison then you have likely met Mariette.