Since bikes are on our brain today, we thought we'd dip into the NYC Municipal Archives again to check out some old school, two-wheelin' New Yorkers. Click through for a look back at cyclists in 1927 through the '40s, a good hundred years after the first bicycles were being introduced to the public (though who knows when that guy in photo #3 was riding around, there's no date given). more ›

Last fall the NYPD decided to do something about pedestrians being struck by cyclists in Prospect Park by going on a ticketing binge. The Brooklyn Paper today got their paws on some stats—and the cops weren't kidding! more ›

[Video Update Below] An 8-year-old was shot in the shoulder last night by a gunman on a bike in the Bronx. The boy, whose name hasn't been released, was standing with a group in front of Papa Yala’s Deli on Randall Ave. near St. Lawrence Ave. in Soundview just before 8 p.m. Police believe the boy was not the intended target of the shooter, who rode past on a bike and shot into the crowd. “Two boys were fighting. The other boy didn’t want to fight so one of them pulled out a gun,” a witness told the Daily News. “The next thing you know a boy was shot outside the store.” more ›

After Capital New York reported that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was injured when, while riding his bicycle, he hit a pothole and fell, his press office couldn't explain where the accident occurred (a woman who answered the phone said, "I assume it was New York City") although the powerful 67-year-old lawmaker sported a "stitches over his left eyebrow and a scab across his nose and the back of one of his hands." Now the mystery is out: Silver was brought down by a Puerto Rican pothole. more ›

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is considered one of the most powerful men in New York State, but even he doesn't have power over the conditions of the streets he bikes on. Capital New York's Azi Paybarah reports, "Half of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's face is bruised and purple, and there are stitches over his left eyebrow and a scab across his nose and the back of one of his hands. Silver sustained the injuries while riding a bicycle when he hit a pothole and fell, according to a spokesman for the lower Manhattan Democrat." more ›

If you suspected that a stranger had just stolen a bicycle from a store, would you confront the perpetrator? One eagle-eyed Manhattan man gathered all the knowledge he had accumulated in his life from Hardy Boys books, and did just that: he spotted, followed, and helped police catch a bicycle thief yesterday, all the while documenting his adventures in amateur sleuthing with pictures and a video on his blog. more ›

As if the threat of terrorists on bicycles wasn't enough to keep you up at night, now there's a new two-wheeled threat: Gropers. At least one man, possibly two, have been biking around Queens, mainly in Astoria, and grabbing women's breasts and buttocks. At least 20 women say they were victims of similar incidents, and all of them were assaulted between 28th Avenue and Broadway and from 31st to 48th Streets. One woman, a 25-year-old who identified herself as Erin K., tells the Daily News a man "exposed himself and began masturbating as he rode by her at 7:30 a.m. last week." 7:30 a.m.! The early perv catches the worm, we guess. more ›

Yesterday, a Dutch tourist alleged that a cop threatened to ticket her for cycling while wearing a skirt in SoHo last spring. Jasmijn Rijcken says the officer told her that her skirt was dangerous because she could distract drivers and potentially cause them to crash—the whole thing sounded like a Jackie Chiles lawsuit in the making. Today, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne commented on the story...rather unsatisfactorily: "Whether this story bears even a modest semblance of what actually occurred is impossible to establish without being provided the purported officer's name and getting his side of the story." more ›

The city's cyclists may be in the midst of a ticketing blitz, but there could be a solution! Maybe if you create a contraption that would allow you to travel around with a pole-dancing stripper on the back of your bike, then you could ride wherever you please, so long as you don't run into the morality police or insist on bringing a tote bag along for the ride. This recent video below was taken outside of City Hall... and here's an older one where the same cyclist drives the pole dancer right into traffic! more ›

Apparently there were even more frustrating delays than usual at the annual Five Boro Bike Tour yesterday; Twitter is littered with complaining cyclists who were stuck standing around in massive bike traffic jams repeatedly throughout the day. (Enjoy the schadenfreude, bike lane-hating drivers.) This comment from @jivecracker seems pretty representative: "Terrible planning, execution and communication by the organizers of the #5boro bike tour." Some participants, who each paid $75, say they had to wait upwards of two hours to get through an insane cyclist bottleneck on the BQE, and one Gothamist reader describes the scene: more ›

A little something to whet your appetite before May's official Bike Month: this weekend we welcome the return of the Dutch-accented New Amsterdam Bicycle Show after a five-year hiatus, and there is quite literally something for everyone, from first-time riders to grizzled bike fetishists. more ›

Let's get this Friday started right, let's get this Friday started quickly: For too long New Yorkers have chafed under the boot of spandex hipster fixie cyclists and their ironic tote bags, and now, finally, the NYPD is riding to the rescue. The NY Post, of all rags, is running buck wild with a story of a woman who was issued a summons for riding her bike on Columbus Avenue with a tote bag hanging on the handlebars. And the Post, which has published countless cartoonish anti-cyclist rants, is suddenly shocked that police would ever do such an absurd thing! more ›

Faster than a cop slamming a cyclist off his bike, Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (D-Queens) has withdrawn legislation that would require every bicycle in New York State to have a license plate. One bill would have required "the annual inspection and registration of personal bicycles and provides for a license plate fee of twenty-five dollars for the first year and five dollars for every year thereafter." A second bill would have required every commercial cyclist in the state to carry identification and have insurance; their initial registration fee would be $50. Reached by phone, DenDekker's spokesman David Longshore explains the reversal: more ›

Last month, when City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens) proposed a law that would require all adult cyclists in NYC get licenses and register their bicycles, some worried that the legislation didn't go far enough. For example, what happens when a law-abiding, licensed NYC cyclist crosses over the border line from Queens into Long Island, where unregulated, Mad Maxian bicycle gangs dominate the roads and run over thousands of puppies every day? Wouldn't the anarchic bicycle lawlessness across the state undermine NYC's quest for law and order? Just in time, here comes Assemblyman Michael DenDekker to the rescue! more ›

It's always a gas when you try to explain the law to an ignorant cop writing you a ticket—it's like trying to explain to Paula Deen that butter is a condiment and not actually food. The NYPD's cyclist fetish has intensified to such a degree that cops are not even bothering to write tickets for things that are even technically illegal (like blowing through a red light in the park). Here is the infuriating story of one David Curtis Lettier, an Air Force veteran who was pulled over on West 127th Street while riding his bike to class today: more ›

After promising to crackdown on scofflaw cyclists citywide in October, the NYPD is promising to intensify enforcement of traffic laws in Brooklyn. Police sources tell the Brooklyn Paper that bicycle riders will be ticketed for often-overlooked "vehicular offenses, such as failing to obey traffic signals and signs, breaking the speed limit, tailgating, and even failure to signal before turning." The crackdown is not expected to affect drivers who speed recklessly or block bike lanes—because that could lead to awkward situations where cops have to ticket themselves. In Brooklyn, outlaw cyclists are outraged. more ›

Adults who ride their bikes on the sidewalk are a menace, and children on two wheels can be hazardous, too. In NYC, cyclists above the age of 12 are required by law to dismount their bikes and walk, not ride. For well over a year, the NYPD has been stepping up enforcement, even issuing summonses to annoying unicycle riders. But now it seems some cops want to rid the sidewalk of bikes completely, regardless of whether any butts are on the seats. more ›

There were at least 19 cyclist fatalities in NYC through October 31, seven more than in all of 2009, according to an analysis of NYPD data conducted by the Wall Street Journal. And during the same period, 3,505 bikers were injured in crashes with motor vehicles, more than last year's total and up 20% compared to the first 10 months of last year. In response, the NYPD has gone on a ticketing blitz targeting cyclists, issuing summonses for such infractions as talking on a cellphone while biking and cycling without lights. more ›

At the C40 conference in Hong Kong over the weekend, Mayor Bloomberg made a few controversial statements. First, he told Americans to stop blaming the Chinese and "take a look at ourselves," and then ranted, “If you look at the U.S., you look at who we’re electing to Congress, to the Senate—they can’t read. I’ll bet you a bunch of these people don’t have passports...nobody knows where China is." Foot, meet mouth. So yesterday, Bloomberg tried to clarify his point: "It isn't that I said they can't read in a sense they don't understand the words. They don't understand the history." Controversy over! more ›

An unidentified 21-year-old woman is clinging to life at Bellevue Hospital today after getting hit by a tractor trailer truck while riding her bike at 9:40 a.m. in Bushwick. The Post reports that the woman was peddling westbound on Johnson Avenue when she was run over by the trucker as he made a right turn onto Varick Avenue. In cyclist lingo, this is called the "right hook," and it's one of the most common types of accidents. As usual, police did not charge the driver, who's simply described as a 35-year-old man. more ›

Some more details on yesterday's incident where an unlicensed driver struck a teenage bicyclist in the Bronx: The Daily News reports that 18-year-old Alprentice (A.J.) Gray Jr. is on life support at St. Barnabas Hospital—relatives say he is in a coma. more ›

Two teenage boys have died in less than a week while riding their bikes in NYC. The Post has the grim details: Yesterday afternoon 14-year-old Ferderich Enbre was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer while trying to pedal his bike across a busy Queens street in Maspeth. According to surveillance video, the boy was crushed under the back wheels of the massive vehicle, went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. The truck driver stayed at the scene and, surprise surprise, cops say the accident doesn't involve any criminality. more ›

Aaaand what did you expect? NY1 reports that Patrick Pogan, the former NYPD officer who was caught on tape in 2008 violently shoving a cyclist off his bike, seemingly without provocation, will not spend any time in jail for filing a false criminal complaint against cyclist Christopher Long. more ›

Magda Sayed and her team of merry knitters—collectively known as Knitta Please—are back in the city. Over the past year they visited to add colorful, knitted adornments to Brooklyn Heights and the Standard Hotel. This time around they're getting even craftier, NYC the Tumblr spotted this knitted bicycle! more ›

If you saw a flock of naked or near-naked bicyclists, it wasn't your eyes, it was simply the Second Annual New York City World Naked Bike Ride. According to its website: "Naked on a bike is about as free as you can be! This ride is majorly fun! This year's WNBR is supported by a generous contribution of outrage from British Petroleum. BP is unleashing incalculable devastation upon the environment..." more ›