Individual Time Trial Series
Team McAllen Cycling’s individual time trials are back!  Join us this February 5th to test your speed!
Place: Milo Ponce Park, located 2 miles east of US 281 (Love’s Truck Stop exit North of Edinburg)
Time: 7:00 AM to register, first rider out at 8:00 AM
Cost: Free to TMC members, $10.00 to non-members

Bicycle Dreams – The Movie
www.austincycling.org/
Feb. 7th, 2012 Alamo Drafthouse 1120 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX to benefit the Austin Cycling Association. Take your seat early at 6:15 pm to order from the menu and chat with fellow cyclists. Movie starts at 7 pm Get inspired and support the ACA and this award winning independent film about Race Across America. Folowing the movie, there will be a raffle and ACA’s own RAAM finisher, Susan Farago, will be on…

MAPS FOR SUPERBOWL RIDE
Carrollton Cycling Club
02/05/12
–Mad Duck to Dicks Last Resort
–Dicks Last Resort to Mad Duck

Cyclopaths of Georgetown, Texas
RIDE SCHEDULE – February 2012

Fort Worth Mountain Bikers’ Association
February Club Meeting
The February club meeting of the Fort Worth Mountain Bikers’ Association will take place at Backwoods (2727 W7th Street, Fort Worth, Texas 817-332-2423) on February 7, 2012 at 7:00pm. Meet upstairs at 7:00pm.
Topics of discussion will be. . . .
– TPWD Recreational Trails Grant briefing
– FWMBA Local Bicycle Shop kiosk unveiling
– FWMBA LBS Representatives appointments
– Release of FWMBA 2012 Calendar of Events
– 2012 FWMBA Fat Tire Festival date announcement and discussion
– Gateway Park Workfest briefing
– What’s happening at Marion Sansom Park
– FWMBA at the Trinity Bicycles Swap Meet

Cycling notebook: Texas’ next star ready for next step
By Dale Robertson            Houston Chronicle
How’s this for a new twist on a familiar story? Lawson Craddock gave his father, Tom, a bike for Christmas. Nice bike, too. It was the Trek Madone 6.9 that Lawson rode last season in his U-23 debut with the Trek-Livestrong team.

Don’t think for a moment, however, that Lawson is giving up cycling. He just wanted to say thank you for all the support his dad, a respected road racer in his own right, has given him. Fact is, as of Wednesday, when Trek-Livestrong’s first training camp opened in… (look for Texbiker.net on this website.)

Did you help your local bike shop with a sales surge?

Retailers ended year with sales surge
Bicycle Retailer & Industry News
BOULDER, CO (BRAIN) Feb 1, 18:17 MT —Buoyed by mild winter weather that extended their selling seasons, independent bike dealers rang out 2011 with a bang as December sales surged 13 percent compared with the same month a year earlier, according to Leisure Trends Group’s RetailTRAK data and Cycling Specialty Topline Report.

The result was powered by strong performance across nearly all major bike categories and price levels. Sales remained robust at lower price points, but as the recovery…

3 Tips to Avoid a Crash
by Darryl            lovingthebike.com
Nobody likes to talk about crashing on a bike, but unfortunately it can happen.  It’s one of those voodoo type subjects where you feel like you need to sacrifice one of your bikes to the bike Gods after talking about it.  We recently did a podcast all about crashing over at Cycling 360, and I invite you to listen to it for a full report on…

Austin Bike Culture Calendar Events: 2/2- 2/8/12
by elliott            Austin on Two Wheels
Thursday, February 2
Thursday Night Bike Polo
5:00 PM, Metz Park, 2407 Canterbury St
The Austin Bike Polo Club’s holds 3 hardcourt matches a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, at Metz Park. All bikes and skill levels are welcome and spare mallets and balls are available if you don’t have any. Check out our article on bike polo for more info.

Thursday Night Social Ride
7:30 PM, Plaza Saltillo, East 5th & Comal
“Hey boys and girls put on your boogie shoes because this week we are headed to Barbarella (as if half of you weren’t gonna end up there anyway) for dancing and free tallboys. This week we have a super secret code word to keep vultures off our free booze. So when you get a tallboy the free ones are only at the middle bar and the…

Paying-it-forward: My own personal bikeshare
by katiejo                Austin on Two Wheels
Hear ye, hear ye! I have successfully proclaimed my Bike Geek status far and wide among my friends. Now when they think bike, they think me.

Thus, I have inadvertently become a small scale bike rental. When a friend needs a bike or a friend’s friend comes into town to visit for ACL, or when an acquaintance is making a road trip to New Mexico to mountain bike on the dusty hills of the southwest…there is minimal hesitation in them to request a bike to…

Ellis pedals toward fitness diversity
Editorial Board            Austin Statesman
It’s been a goal of state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, to get more African Americans and Latinos on bicycles. His purpose is simple: Riding bicycles on a regular basis can improve their health and well-being through a fairly inexpensive and available activity they can do throughout their lives.

Ellis also is taking his message of diversity to the bicycling community, which has failed to make significant inroads in communities of color. Today, in San Antonio, he plans to make a case about why the cycling community should be aggressive about…

El Paso, Texas: Destination of the week
It’s easy to take in this college town’s desert surroundings by bike, canoe or foot.
Mother Nature Network        by Josh Lew

El Paso, Texas, can be defined in many ways. It is a busy border crossing, the smaller of two cities that make up a cross-border metropolis (the Mexican city of Juarez is El Paso’s big sister), a college town, a multicultural melting pot with a long and colorful history, and even a base for desert eco-tourism. Yes, El Paso’s location amid the Franklin Mountains and the Chihuahuan Desert makes it an ideal spot for nature lovers who want to move their eco-tourism excursions beyond the usual…

Cross-country ‘book tour’ on bike teaches couple value of ‘diving in’
by Patti Vannoy            www.siliconprairienews.com
Lincoln couple Khara and Emir Plicanic’s cross-country bicycle trip started very low-tech, in a way, with four books.

The first three were all books Khara read (and Emir read “by proxy” based on their discussions): “My Life on the Run” by Bart Yasso, “A Million Miles and a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller and “The Art of Nonconformity” by Chris Guillebeau. Each included some mention of riding bicycles across the United States. …

…Dubbing their ride The UNtour, the Plicanics dove right in. They bought bikes, matching jerseys, a tent, sleeping bags, iPhones, a solar charger and a pre-planned “Southern Tier” route map from Adventure Cycling. They booked venues for Khara to teach photography classes in eight cities: San Diego; Phoenix; Las Cruces, N.M.; Austin, Texas; New Orleans; Mobile, Ala.; and Tallahassee and Gainesville, Fla. Then they took their new bikes to a local bike shop for disassembly and shipping to California. …

Lake Bridgeport trail building course teaches participants to blaze new paths
by Julie Thibodeaux of Green Source DFW
If you want to learn how to stake your own path, literally, sign up for a trail building workshop. The Lone Star Trail Building School will be held Feb 17-19 at the Sid Richardson Scout Ranch at Lake Bridgeport.

The North Texas Mountain Bike Patrol, a volunteer group that provides medical assistance on local bike trails, has partnered with Groundwork Dallas to host the annual program. Rick Buckley, director of the North Texas Mountain Bike Patrol, said the course is designed for city parks department staff, state…

Quick Tip – Don’t Ride Muddy Trails
by Shawn        Texas Mountain Bike Trails
weather is gorgeous. The trails are wet. What do you do?

As much as you want to head out for a ride and soak up the sunshine, you are going to have to show a little restraint.

The trails are the most vulnerable to damage when they are wet and muddy. For that reason, the International Mountain Bike Association has put out a set of guidelines to help preserve our trails. Here is a listing as outlined by IMBA. …