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Judging from other bike sharing programs in big U.S. cities, most will end up in LA's concrete river. No need for any tracking.

https://www.bicycling.com/cult...

While a low income is associated with obesity, it doesn't mean that all poor people are fat. And being obese doesn't mean you can't ride a bike, - even if you weigh 500 pounds. Check out this story about a guy that lost over 300 pounds by changing his diet and riding a bike: http://www.bicycling.com/food/.... Clearly this guy had some money in order to be able to afford a customized bike, but a 300 pound person has plenty of options in stock bikes. An older steel bike might even be better.

Again, I'm not sure how promoting a less expensive form of transportation hurts the poor, especially since other forms of transportation aren't being eliminated.

I ride my bike to work most days. It's 30 years old and I paid $75 for it at a garage sale. It's a simple fixed gear and probably costs less per year to maintain on average than a single tank of gas, - and that's in the US. I'm sure that operating a vehicle in London is a lot more expensive than it is here.

This seems like the kind of policy that has long term benefits for the poor and really just about everyone if you care about the environment.

When there's money in it, people will cheat.

I have news for you. People cheat even when there isn't money in it. Money makes the problem worse but it isn't the root of the problem. Some people just want to win, no matter what. Money alone really isn't enough to explain the cheating in high level athletics. It's a factor but not as big as you might assume.

I've competed at the Division 1 college level of athletics for a top tier program in my sport of choice (not cycling). Nobody gets into sport at that level because of money though it might help keep them in it. People compete because they want to win. They want to be the best. That is most of what drives them. Money is just added incentive for those at the very top in select sports. You'll see people get popped for PEDs in sports where there is no money almost as often as in sports where there is money. Few people appreciate just how hard and how much work it is to compete at that level. There are very few people for whom money alone is sufficient motivation to compete at that level. You basically have to torture yourself for years on a daily basis and most people cannot do it.

Drugs can make a difference but only a few percent improvement at best. You could throw a whole pharmacy at me or 99.9999% of people on Earth and we still don't have the physiology to win the Tour de France. You have to be able to get near the top without drugs for the drugs to be able to push you to the top. I've competed and coached my sport for well over 30 years. There is close to no money in the sport but you'll see at least 1 or 2 athletes get popped for PEDs at world level competitions each year. I have good reason to believe most athletes in my sport are clean (PEDs provide a relatively modest performance benefit) but I'm quite certain a few aren't and like I said, money is not really a factor.

Carbon fibre can be recycled. Like paper, recycled CF is not as strong as virgin, but there are uses for it.

If you were stopped to let a bicyclist pass on the right, it suggests you were about to turn right, and that you hadn't properly merged into the bike lane as you are legally required in the USA outside of Oregon. A safe bicyclist knows that it's unsafe to pass on the right.

http://www.bicycling.com/senseless/index.html

Pretty sure it is.

#11 best city for biking in 2012.

http://www.bicycling.com/ride-maps/featured-rides/11-fort-collins-co
  " It has a 310-mile cycling network and a pioneering bike-share program that has served more than 11,000 riders since opening in 2008"

That is not, however, the case for most fat people in the US, and there are some cases of quite-fat people who decided to lose weight and did so. See http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/i-lost-320-pounds-riding-bike?page=0,0

On the other side of the argument, I find that my weight (220lbs) is surprisingly resistant to change. I like to eat, and the more I exercise, the hungrier I get. Doubling the exercise moves the set point down about 5 pounds, and it was 15-20lbs higher with no exercise (and that was 7 years ago).

And the professional sports guys have ruined things for the rest of us. Pushing your hematocrit up like they did is nuts (there were guys in Europe dying in the sleep from too-thick blood clotting), but a 10% nudge in my CV capacity would be right nice (though I am nowhere near anemic).

He exceeded the posted speed limit by 10 mph then braked to avoid an oncoming car when he lost control. So yes, he both "broke the laws of the road" and was "killed in traffic."

http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2012/08/13/suing-strava/

No, that’s what marker lights and taillights are for. Headlights are most definitely meant to illuminate the road, with the exception of the tiny ones that run on a couple of AAAs or coin batteries. My bike light uses a rechargeable Li-Ion pack and puts out 200 lumens on high, which will adequately light up the road surface for 30 feet ahead, and illuminate reflective objects like street signs and parked cars for a city block or more. And that’s on the lower end of the product line — if you want to spend $600 they make a 1700 lumen model, which is up there with standard halogen car headlamps.

Bicycling Magazine ranked Minneapolis the #1 US city for biking. I've never been there, but I've heard they get the occasional bit of snow.

  http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis

Google for some articles and videos and you'll see how they do it.

As several other posters have pointed out, you are wrong about the lack of improvement in mass transit in the U.S. I live in the Twin Cities. Here,

1) We've had an adequate bus system for decades.
2) We recently built a light rail system between downtown Minneapolis and the airport which exceeded per day ridership estimates for the end of 12 months service in the first month.
3) The rail route is so successful that we've added a commuter train from the northwest suburbs, and
4) The next planned light rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul was moved up by 18 months.
5) We also have one of the most extensive bike trail systems in the country according to Bicycling Magazine, are considered the #1 Bike City in the U.S. Mind you, this in a state where 5 months a year you're riding your bike in snow.
5) We also have extensive covered walkways called Skyways in both downtown areas so you don't even have to go outside all that much to get around if you don't want to. The some of the Skyways have been in place since at least the mid 1960s.

I'm sorry you have lived in cities where there's such crappy planning. I suggest that if you're that passionate about public transportation, maybe you should consider moving to a city that understands it.

Now Lance Armstrong is working for them.

Actually, that's one of the reasons the cycling authorities are not too happy about riders who use Camelbacks - they suspect they do act as spoilers!

The current king of sprinters is Petacci. He'll wipe Mario's ass any time. He won stages in all 3 tours (italy, france, spain) :

looook here

Bicycling magazine did this article on riding to work. After reading the article, I was able to adjust my habits to accomidate biking to work in the morning.

I'm still working on pushing towards showers at work, but baby wipes seem to work just fine.

Hmmm. Sounds interesting but, there are some fundamental flaws in the physiology of the model.

Electrolytes are important. Without proper numbers of K and Na and P, your nerves wouldn't work to well at all, hence you would have a hard time running, shooting, etc. (also, shouldn't they be working on developing world peace by 2025, not super-soldiers?)

The other most important performance indicator is the amount of glycogen stored in the muscles. Glycogen is ready-to-go fuel. I forget how much of this a typical person has at any given moment, but after several hours of hard work without refreshment, your blood sugar levels get low, as do glycogen levels, and you (as cyclists say) "bonk", ie. extreme glycogen depletion. You are pretty much useless after that point; severe performance degredation is a phrase that comes to mind.

Their patch is all well and good if it adresses these most basic issues (the article was rather brief and non-technical) or only one of them, ie. vitamins sorta implies electrolytes. However, the most severly performance limiting factor (as proven by trials in publications like Bicycling Magazine (they don't actually have it available online) is water. Performance has been shown to be affected in as little as an hour of physical activity without hydration. As the body's water content drops, blood gets thicker, resulting in poorer flow and consequently poorer delivery of oxygen and other needed chemicals to the muscles and brain.

So, in closing, yes, the patch is a good idea (but 25 years?!), but maybe a transdermal hydration system would be a bit of a better considering hydration is quicker to act and hampers performance certainly more than "vitamin" loss and probably more than electrolyte loss. Moreover, electrolytes could be intergrated into any hydration system, ie. gatorade.