A reader sent in the above photo, noting it was taken "at 6 p.m. on a crowded downtown 6 train during Friday rush hour. She got on the train at Grand Central and stayed on until Bleecker Street." First of all, there's the obvious bicycle issue, but as a second subway etiquette offense, the cyclist is also wearing an overstuffed backpack... more ›

We all know how much thieves love iPhones—but it seems we may have encountered the king of all iPhone thieves on the Upper East Side. Police are searching for a bike-riding thief who they believe has stolen 18 iPhones this year on the UES—and all but one of the victims were women. Below, check out video of him moments before his latest robbery on March 20th. more ›

The Babeland outpost in Park Slope is offering up a new service for Brooklynites who don't want to get out of bed: they'll deliver sex toys to your door, and by bike! According to the Brooklyn Paper (who just happened to find out about it?), the service costs a whopping 30 bucks, but it's free on Valentine's Day. 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 ›

Saddle up for the 2011 Tour del Taco, a bike ride through the finest taco establishments this town has to offer. Organized by three taco-loving friends, the Brooklyn by Bike tour on October 9 will hit five spots in Brooklyn and Queens: Los Hermanos in Bushwick, La Esquina in Williamsburg, El Gobo in Corona, Roosevelt Ave taco trucks in Queens, and one TBD Sunset Park stop. Who will reign supreme? more ›

The video below taken in Union Square this week—the rider has also been spotted around the LES as well as Park Slope—makes us think of the classic Jewish song "Dayenu" (stick with us here...): more ›

BFF was founded in 2001 by cyclist Brendt Barbur, who, after being hit by a bus while riding in New York, was determined to "turn his negative experience into a positive one." The Festival now takes place in over two dozen cities worldwide. 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 ›

Police say that a Brooklyn teen who was fatally hit by a car last night was biking against the light. According to authorities, 16-year-old Aileen Chen allegedly wasn't wearing a helmet, but was wearing headphones, when she was struck by a 26-year-old BMW driver at 62nd Street and 21st Avenue around 6 p.m. "There was blood all over her face," witness Gabriella Castalano told the Post. more ›

Been looking for a way to turn the power of your legs into something beneficial for the artistic community? Neither have we, but isn't it time your lazy dilettante legs realized their creative potential? This could be your leg's big break, with the launch of Pedal Power NYC's "Natural Ass Sessions," a series of bike-powered concert rehearsals. more ›

Hey, remember when New York was littered with drive-in movie theaters? Yeah, neither do we, because it was about 60 years ago, but take heart, nostalgia-loving cinephiles. You, too, can experience the glory of an old-fashioned drive-in, but with a modern-day twist: bikes! 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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

Yesterday the NYC DOT commissioner met with the wife of a man killed last year in a collision with a cyclist riding the wrong way on a Midtown street. Not long after the tragic accident, Nancy Gruskin, widow of Stuart Gruskin, wrote the mayor about safety issues and asked for a meeting with someone at the DOT. Her response was a form letter from Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, addressed to her dead husband. more ›

A young environmental activist from Brooklyn was killed by a tractor trailer in Canada last week. The accident occurred last Thursday afternoon as 23-year-old Andrew Wolf was riding through New Brunswick with a group of other cyclists participating in the Ottawa-based Otesha Project, which promotes environmental responsibility among young people. Wolf was riding with two other cyclists when they were struck by the tractor-trailer; the other two were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. more ›

Local bicycling blog The Guardrail NYC is demanding an apology from the NYC DOT, because—according to the blog—"The NYCDOT Calls Cyclists Jerks in Email!" Why would the DOT do such a thing, especially since they've done so much to make the city more bike-friendly? Did a bike messenger on a fixie beat Janette Sadik-Khan's mother with a U-lock? more ›

Something tells us we may be the only ones excited about this, but on select nights in September, Transportation Alternatives will be offering free valet bicycle parking to anyone attending a theatrical performance in the Theater District. Finding a place to lock up around there is a real headache, so this is certainly welcome news for Broadway theatergoers who ride their bikes to the theater... all two of them? We're curious to see how people actually take advantage of this. more ›

In an exclusive scoop, The Brooklyn Paper reports that an unidentified asshole in Williamsburg is going around squirting Krazy Glue into bike locks, because, as he puts it, "There is a bike crisis. Every pole in the neighborhood is littered with them... These Yuppies are running the whole damn city, and I’m left to my own devices." Due to the "sensitive nature of this story," reporter Andy Campbell does not identify the vandal, so it's up to the Brooklyn DA to compel the paper to turn over its source for prosecution. Is Andy Campbell Gersh Kuntzman's Judith Miller?! more ›

A 73-year-old woman was mowed down by a cyclist in full racing gear yesterday near the Met in Central Park. Ruth Shack, a school teacher, was rushed to St. Luke’s Hospital with broken ribs, two damaged neck vertebrae and facial cuts, but declined to file a report with the police. And just to make sure not all cyclists got a bad name from the incident, another cyclist helped her into the ambulance. The cyclist responsible biked off, presumably to make sure the accident didn't take any seconds off of his obviously record time. more ›