What the hey?

My friend Marty posted this picture today on Facebook; the Bixi rack at the Musuem of Civilization.

Melbourne?

And then, not twenty minutes after I saw this, came the answer, from CitizenCycle. Apparently there's a bit of a foreign-exchange program going on at Bixi. To demonstrate that there are Bixis all over the world, these bike ambassadors are hanging out in the Bixi networks of various cities. Mystery solved! (And, I might add, it's a kind of endearing answer.)

Project Aura

Okay, I admit it: this is pretty cool. It's funny how some ways of lighting up your bike at night come off as dorky and others don't: I think what really appeals to me about this is the way it also indicates when you're slowing down, and does that intuitively, using a visual language that would be (one hopes) totally instinctive.

Project Aura: Bicycle Safety Lighting System from Project AURA on Vimeo.

I would buy this! Even with my blinking tail light and Mike's googly white eyes in front I still worry that I'm invisible at night. Even when I've also got my panniers with their (I know, because I've seen it) blindingly reflective orange patches on the back.

No, I swear, it's *not* the same as getting spinners. Or those purple undercarriage lights people put on their cars. It's not! It's cool!

R.I.P. Jack Layton

Adding my voice ... I can't really focus today because I'm suddenly, and totally by surprise, gutted by the loss of Jack Layton. Among many, many other things, he was a proud cyclist: and I just (thanks to Spacing Ottawa) found this absolutely moving tribute on Flickr - his name written in chalk on bike lanes in Toronto.

The Citizen's cycling blog just posted a series of pictures of Jack and bikes, too: one of my favorites:

It sucks that I'm coming back to this blog after a long hiatus for such a sad reason. . . I've been extremely busy this summer - general life-related chaos, which I hope is beginning to settle into shape and will give me more time for blogging.

But right now, I'm just mourning the loss of a man who stuck to his guns, fought hard with a smile on his face, and will leave a gaping Jack-shaped hole in Canadian politics.