Saddle cover advertising is becoming increasingly popular in bike loving European cities such as Amsterdam.

The saddle covers, often made from recycled plastic have ads printed on them. The seat covers are then placed on saddles of bikes that are parked up and manage to keep saddles dry when the weather is wet. Deployment teams can target specific ads at various groups of people eg bikes at universities and colleges will be owned by students or bikes at a local train station are likely to be ridden by office-working commuters.

I guess the promoters presume that as the saddle cover is useful, the bike owner won’t mind one being stuck on their bike and if they continue to use them the ads get eyeballed more.

What do you think? Annoying or a fair trade-off ?

Seen in springwise.

Painted in bike lane somewhere in Australia. Says much.

Seen here

The first cycle superhighways in London have been officially opened this morning reports the BBC.

The blue painted routes (highways) have been created to make it safer by, among other initiatives, widening the lanes and using large Trixi mirrors to give drivers better views of cyclists. Trixi mirrors are typically fixed to traffic sign poles and allow HGV drivers to see down the side of their lorry. See also: fresnel lens for a similar idea.

The pilot cycling superhighway lanes run from Merton, south London, to the City and from Barking in the east to Tower Gateway. The scheme is sponsored by Barclays bank, who are also main sponsors of the London cycle hire scheme that launches next week.

London Mayor, Boris Johnson aims to increase cycling in the capital from 2% of all journeys made up to 5%. Johnson is of course one of the better known London cyclists, along with current Prime Minister David Cameron.

The Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow is offering a reward of £1000 for the safe return of his beloved Condor bicycle. The hand-built, titanium framed bike was stolen from outside the ITN building and Snow is desperate to be reunited with his “old friend”. He had another bike stolen from his home last year.

I do hope the highly regarded newsreader has been securing his precious cycles with either a d lock or a chain lock!

I guess you can contact C4 or the local police if you have any information regarding the stolen bicycle.

If was a graphic designer type in London, I’d work at I Love Dust. And then I’d get to work on projects for Tokyo Fixed Gear. Damn cool.

Custom paint job on Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) saddle for this years Tour de France. Why the scooter and Union Jack influence? Wiggins has a well publicised passion for mod type music. I believe he also likes The Smiths as do I. And they weren’t mod at all.

Photo seen

Olympic rowing legend Sir Steve Redgrave has broken several bones after a heavy crash in the Race Across America.

Sir Steve ended up with two broken ribs, a broken cheek bone and a broken wrist after going over his handlebars when his front tyre punctured. Sir Steve was competing in the 3000mile long cycle race, riding in a team who are raising fund for Sport Relief and the Steve Redgrave Fund.

You can find out more about RAAM – an ultra distance endurance race – by reading their FAQ page.

Slightly bigger than your average bike and probably not the most aerodynamic of bicycles, but striking never-the-less!

Designed and built by Danish art student Wauter. This is what he says about his latest creation:

For the past few years I’ve been into making mechanical mutations – changing the purpose for which devices or parts were designed. Since this is the final year of my arts degree I wanted something big. Six months ago I made some drawings for a bike, a really big bike.

It was fantastic when I took it out for the first time. I’m not sure if it’s legal but I rode it around the block a couple of times to see if it worked and to see people’s faces. Some people look pleased, some annoyed. I can understand it might be annoying for someone travelling to work on a Monday morning to have a monster bike blocking their cycle lane.

Caught a mention of a product called LFLect reflective lace today. Made by an organisation called Lost Values, their reflective lace can be sewn into clothing or simply worn, as an elegant high visibility accessory. Obviously has an appeal for female cyclists, not so sure about chaps. Available in lengths of 120cm at £18.99.

We all know it’s as easy as riding a bike. But actually learning to ride a bike is rather complicated according to research scientists.

Three teams of scientists from universeties in Nottingham, Holland and USA have taken 3 years to come up with a formula that defines the factors required to balance on a bike. It goes something along the lines of:

inertia forces + gyroscopic forces + gravity forces and centrifugal forces = leaning of rider and torque applied to handlebars.

But as we all know, you need a bit of balance and you need to pedal at least enough to stop the bike from falling over. And once you’ve learnt, you apparently never forget …I wonder if any has done a study into that?

Three years seems a little long for me to get the maths right, but as it was for a good cause – National Bike Week – one mustn’t grumble.