For the second year the Fort Collins Bike Co-op is looking for volunteers to work on the Fort Collins Urban Assault Ride! The event takes place on Sunday, July 18.

Here’s your chance to get a ring-side seat at a wacky event, log some volunteer hours and help the Bike Co-op at the same time. The Co-op will get a substantial cash donation for providing the volunteers. All volunteers will receive a t-shirt, food, drinks and beer (21 and older).

If you are interested, willing and able to commit to work this event, please register on line at www.urbanassaultride.com/ftcollins/volunteer/npo.  When filling out the online form please be sure to put Fort Collins Bike Co-op in the “Non-profit Name” field so we get credit for your participation.

This vintage soft t-shirt is available in royal blue and kelly green in both men’s and women’s fits, and has a sweet bike illustration on front. The shirts will also be available for sale at The Wright Life.

If you’re diggin’ the Akinz style, you should know that ordering $50 worth of gear will earn you a FREE Bike To Work Day shirt! And, if you order online between now and 6/23, you’ll have the option to select “deliver by bike” as your shipping option!

*Note: Bike delivery area is limited between Vine and Harmony, and Taft Hill and Timberline. See below for clarification.

via www.ebaumsworld.com

(Treehugger.com) Work Bikes, Freight Bicycles, Cargo Trikes, Utility Bicycles, Industrial Bikes — or whatever you want to call them — have been been with us for almost as long as the original safety bicycle itself. Though not conceived for recreation or racing, they have often been conscripted into those rolls too. But primarily their role has been utilitarian. Moving materials, goods, animals and people from place to place. Human propelled mules. Pedal powered trucks.

Check out this visual showcase highlighting the capabilities of these uber-efficient beasts of burden.

(Note! The brand-new Madsen Cargo bike picture above is FOR SALE! Contact Beth Click For Email for more info)

In 2006, Anne Feely was diagnosed with brain cancer and told that she didn’t have long to live.

Instead of resigning herself to this fate, she got educated and fought back. In less than a week’s time, she will cycle across America from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. with her friend Gundy and her dog Walter to raise awareness and funds to fight brain cancer.

Learn more about the Brains On Bikes campaign, and learn how to get involved with local support events at BrainsOnBikes.org.

Image: Brain cancer survivor Anne Feeley and her friend Gundala Hennig train for Brains on Bikes, a ride across the USA to raise money and awareness for brain cancer research. (Photo by Animal Monday – All Rights Reserved)

During his time with us Dan was a shop head mechanic and the Co-op’s liaison to the city of Fort Collins  He helped create, and in some instances lead, many of the Co-op’s programs including, the lost and abandoned bikes program, BARS, VAC, and our PR group.

Thank you Dan for all of your hard work.  We look forward to your return in two years when you decide to move back.

Our friends at the The Growing Project are having a trailer design contest.  Their Glean team needs a way to transport the vegetables they harvest, and they would like to to transport them by bicycle.  That means they need some tough purpose-built trailers to get the job done.  This is where you come in!

There are three major goals for the trailers:

1)    Haul vegetables, fruit and other food from farms surrounding Ft. Collins to the Food Bank for Larimer County and other organizations serving the underserved

2)    Haul compost and materials yet-to-be composted

3)    Haul tools such as shovels, rakes, buckets, etc

So get those old mind gears churning, and lets crank out some trailer designs!

Trailer designs are due April 8th.  Designs will be displayed throughout April at The Bean Cycle before the design winners will be selected.  Winning designs will be built May 15th and 16th.

Learn all about the design challenge here.

If you happen to be a geographer, a map junkie, a traveler, cyclist and a Google fan, get ready to celebrate.  Google has finally unveiled a long awaited bike route finder on Google maps.  Type in two addresses and ask Google to draw you a route for you and your bike and, voila’ – there you have it.  This was worth waiting for!

Google will announce the innovation at the National Bike Summit today in Washington, D.C.  Read the press release about the announcement and follow news and updates about Google Maps’ bike features on the League of American Bicyclists’ blog by clicking here.

This is great, not just for the directionally challenged, but for bicycling in general.  Give it a test ride yourself right now by clicking here to go to Google maps.

Or, check out the YouTube video that introduces the new mapping feature here.

Or, give the map a try right now with the gadget at Fort Collins’ Platinum Bike Plan (left side).

Poet. Rapper. Quaker. Cyclist.

These are words that are rarely used in the same sentence, never mind being used to define the same person. Yet they are specifically the words that one would use to describe John Watts, an off-beat singer/songwriter that explores themes of faith and faithfulness, growing up Quaker, the environmental crisis, war, personal accountability, and inward peace, through performances of the spoken word.

The eclectic artist recently announced that he will embark on his 2010 Two Wheel Tour Tour, and instead of a tour bus or even a friend’s conversion van, he’ll make the trip- from Richmond to Boston- completely by bike.

I’ve known for a long time that the centeredness required to be faithful to the music I’ve written is contradicted by the superficiality and hurriedness in the typical career of a professional musician. – John Watts

The bike Watts chose for this significant tour? An Xtracycle Radish.

Stay in touch with Watts and hear clips from the tour on Facebook and Twitter!