The Monday Roundup: Pre-stolen bikes for sale (and more)

Was it pre-ordered?

Here’s the bike news from around the web that grabbed us this week:

— In Japan, a brazen bike thief has been spotted listing bikes for sale online before he or she even steals them. After all, why take the risk until you’ve gauged consumer demand?

— The New York Times is just the latest respected news organization to document the decline in driving in America. We love that their Sunday headline, The End of Car Culture, came on the same day as regional papers reported on the demise of the Columbia River Crossing project.

— In London, one in four rush-hour vehicles is now a bicycle. That’s the stat Portland is trying to hit by 2030.

— Here’s Streetsblog DC on incoming Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and bikes: “vaguely promising, but mostly vague.”

— Respected environmental activist and thinker David Suzuki thinks bicycling is great. Unfortunately he thinks that many people who do it, “seem to have a sense of entitlement compelling them to ignore laws.” While that might be true, Suzuki’s analysis fails to highlight that bad behavior is common for all road users and the idea that cities shouldn’t move forward to make bicycling better until all people on bikes are angels reeks of bias and ignorance of the topic.

— For $290, you can order a reportedly durable, waterproof, 20-pound cardboard bike as part of a $2 million Indiegogo campaign to jumpstart production.

— Randonneuring doesn’t get much attention in the U.S., but everyone’s talking about the big NPR story over the weekend. The piece featured Oregon a lot and interviewed none other than Portland resident Michael Wolfe, whose long distance exploits have been documented here on BikePortland several times.

— In Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives has “unequivocally declared his support” for better bikeways. That’s a far cry from federal action to help, of course, and outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the prospects for reaching compromise on a new federal transportation bill are “not good.”

— Mountain Bike Oregon, which takes place each summer in Oakridge, has made Outside Magazine’s list of “Best Bike Fests”.

— Median-separated bikeways even seem to be appearing in Lincoln, Neb., where the city wants to remove auto parking to put one in.

— Seattle’s downtown bike lanes got a bad review by noted research John Pucher.

— Suburban D.C. developers are trying to bikeify a place that looks, well, unlikely.

— Speaking of bike infrastructure, The Atlantic rounded up “10 brilliant pieces” of it from around the world. (We’re smiling here in the office because you can find photos of six of those 10 projects in our archives.)

— Texas Senator Wendy Davis became an overnight sensation by filibustering a sweeping anti-abortion bill last week. If this post from BikeTexas is any indication, she also feels strongly about bicycling.

— A few weeks after a Travel Oregon study found that 15 percent of tourism in the Gorge and Mount Hood areas is bike-related (the highest rate in the state), KATU-TV takes a nice long look at the potential for making the most of that natural appeal.

— Further east, Path Less Pedaled looks at improvements and an influx of tourists on Oregon’s Old West Scenic Bikeway.

— If you, like me, have been missing Sarah Mirk’s bike journalism at the Mercury, you can get a dose of it in her new gig when she interviews Elly Blue about bikes and feminism on Bitch Media’s latest “Popaganda” podcast.

— The initial headlines of headaches about New York’s Citibike system seem years old. Check out these very impressive and exciting statistics the bikes have stacked up in less than one month.

— While Alta Bicycle Share has garnered loads of negative headlines in recent months, they’re not the only bike share vendor that’s had bumpy roads. Bike sharing in Los Angeles is now delayed because that city’s vendor, Bike Nation, has been forced to change its business model.

— A rookie pro bike racer from Portland, Brianna Walle, has joined the United States National Women’s Cycling Team in Italy’s Giro Rosa race, “the most challenging stage race for women,” en route (she hopes) to the 2016 Olympics in Rio. (And she does it all while holding down a day job at Yakima Products out in Beaverton.)

— Dallas is looking to require two bike parking spaces at every new business.

— Our Video of the Week is a new promo piece that introduces Portland’s Breadwinner Cycles. It’s very well put together and it shares a beautiful look at the craft and personality of Breadwinner founders Tony Pereira and Ira Ryan:

If you come across a noteworthy bicycle story, send it in via email, Tweet @bikeportland, or whatever else and we’ll consider adding it to next Monday’s roundup.