Rich Conroy is the Bicycle Education Program Director at Bike New York, a cycling safety and education group in New York City and the organizer of the 5 Boro Bike Tour (which occurred this past weekend). Rich and the people he works with are not bike advocates--they leave political action to others and focus on the practical safety of being a cyclist in the city. The group conducts clinics to teach kids to ride bikes,......

Continuing their misguided and terribly executed orange bike campaign, DKNY has infiltrated YouTube with a 1 minute 53 second clip of a model speaking out in support of the company's great..."humanitarian cause"? The video starts off showing two models mowing each other down with fake miniature cars as an orange bike lies on the ground...probably not the best way to negate the whole ghost bike thing. Hear that children: you could take a cab and......

Photo: Claire Houston Curious about the fate of all those orange bikes with the DKNY website that were locked up around town? The ones the police didn’t cart away (some were illegally chained to trees) are being picked clean for spare parts. The tone deaf Fashion Week publicity stunt was presented by DKNY as an effort to promote cycling in New York, and the company did help raise awareness by, uh, distributing bicycle maps in......

A 65-year-old man was killed during his bicycle ride to work when he was struck by an open car door in the bike lane at 6th Avenue and 36th Street. David Smith was then pushed off his bike and into the path of a box truck, which hit him. Smith lived on West 9th Street and worked as an engineer at Town Hall in midtown. His partner of 36 years John Moody said that he......

Yesterday morning, two men riding bicycles were killed in separate accidents. Both occurred in Brooklyn. Around 4AM, the a 26-year-old at Union Avenue and Ten Eyck Street in East Williamsburg was hit by an oil truck. WABC reported that he was cycling in the wrong direction. The cyclist, identified as Craig Murphy [sic] who is a member of RightRides, died at the scene. The truck driver was not charged. Then, in Bedford Stuyvesant, around 6AM,......

Performance artist and activist Bill Talen, AKA Reverend Billy, has been raising hell in New York City for so long now it’s hard to imagine this town without him. Since first seizing his sidewalk pulpit in the late 90s to combat the Disneyfication of Times Square, the reverend has been consistently down with a host of local and international progressive causes. With the help of his raucous Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, he also puts on......

City Council members Jessica Lappin and Alan Gerson have introduced a bill that would pass tickets received by food deliverycyclists and bike messengers on to their employers. The fines, which range from $100 to $300, are supposed to encourage restaurants and delivery firms to firmly encourage employees to cycle safely in the city, aside from being killed themselves. Council member Lappin says that reckless riders received 1,800 citations in her Upper East Side district alone......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building in Murray Hill; a "serious trauma" not far from Shea Stadium in Queens; a bank robbery at Avenue A and 4th Street; and at 777 6th Ave there was a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person). Remember those chemicals found at the United Nations? It turns out that they were probably just cleaning supplies. Hopefully these aren't the same tests the organization uses for biological weapons. If......

Tod Seelie’s stunning photographs chronicle the wild lives and raw vistas of the international DIY counterculture. On his must-read weblog Sucka Pants, he adds cryptic comments about his travels and other observations about life as a starving-artist Brooklyn cycling photog. Seelie has been spending the first part of his summer with the Miss Rockaway Armada, a collective of artists, dreamers and misfits who, for the second year running, build and sail a group of......

Who knew that some streets were off-limits to vehicles? The NY Sun takes us on a trip to East 91st Street between Second and Third Avenues, which was "zoned" as a "play" street and has been off-limits to vehicles since 1978. But now there's a fight brewing between residents and the city over the tranquility. The city wants to install a bike path on the street, to further expand biking options for New Yorkers. (The......

At La Maison du Couscous, we never get away with ordering the first menu item we choose. Everything on the menu is available, of course, and in the back Fatima is ready to throw together whatever sweet, meltingly rich food we want. Still, the manager/waiter, in a burst of excited conversation, always insists that he knows best. We try to argue, but his passion about his food overwhelms us every time, and we let......

Thanks to a donation from Target, the city will be distributing free cycling helmets throughout all five boroughs in coming weeks, as part of a program called "GET FIT-TED." That's not an admonition for some guy named Ted to get in shape; it has to do with a dual emphasis on properly fitting cyclists with their helmets and encouraging physical fitness among New Yorkers through cycling and other outdoor activities. Dept. of Transportation commissioner Jannete......

The NYPD was a little bike happy last Wednesday, May 30th. According to witnesses, they showed up without warning and used circular saws to cut the locks off of about 50 bicycles on 6th street between 1st and 2nd Avenue. The NYPD allowed people to take the loose bikes without showing any proof of ownership. They seized 15 bikes (including bikes locked to D.O.T. bike racks) and arrested two bystanders. According to Time’s Up!,......

On Saturday I found myself cycling through the drizzling rain to The World Financial Center, an office building on the western edge of the former World Trade Center site. The occasion was Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl’s astonishing site-specific performance piece, Bird Eye Blue Print, presented in several rooms in an abandoned office for small audiences of 22 at a time. Upon receiving my ticket in the building’s lobby, I was asked to jot down......

Today was Transportation Alternatives' Battle for the Fastest Commute! where a bike rider, subway rider, and cab rider are pitted against each other to see who can get to a destination fastest. This year, the race started at 8:25AM at Fix Cafe on North 11th Street and Bedford in Williamsburg and ended at Bellevue Hospital at East 26th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. And results? Lucie Olewinski, the bicyclist, was the fastest, making......

This week's weather looks to be a speeded-up version of last week's weather. The high pressure system that has dominated the weather yesterday and today isn't nearly as big as last week's system so we're in for a much quicker cycling of weather conditions. A cool and dry day today will be replaced by a warmer tomorrow. The humidity increase on Wednesday may result in a shower or two that afternoon. After a Wednesday......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor spending a lot......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a commercial hi-rise fire on Park Avenue South, a baby abducted from hospital in the Bronx, and something about "odor of gas" in Midtown! Interesting: cities with more bikers on the street actually have a lower rate of per capita biking injuries and fatalities-- apparently drivers learn to be more careful. The Archdiocese of New York: "We're looking for the lord. We're finding him. We're embracing him, and we've......

Tomorrow, Visual Resistance and Time's Up have organized memorial events to honor Eric Ng, the bicyclist who was killed by a drunk driver while biking on the Hudson River bike path last Friday evening. Here are the details from Visual Resistance:1PM: Memorial bike ride. Meet up in Washington Square Park at 1pm. We will ride together to the site of Eric’s death at 1:30 SHARP. Non-bikers can go directly to the West Side Greenway, near......

Yesterday, bicyclists and politicians protested the NYPD's attempt to change parade permits. The NY Times explains the police proposal: The proposal, up for debate at a public hearing yesterday, would define a parade, which requires a permit, as a procession or race of 30 or more “vehicles, bicycles or other devices moved by human power, or ridden or herded animals proceeding together upon any public street or roadway.” Under the proposal, if the procession......

Another warm day is underway today. How warm? This morning's low temperature in Central Park was 57 degrees, one degree less than the normal high temperature for November 1st. The warm weather of the past couple of days wasn't enough to bring October's average temperature above normal. The month finished 0.4 degrees cooler than normal and had 50% more rain than an average October. Tomorrow's high temperature is forecast to be in the mid-50s. That's......

Both the Mets and the Yankees were resting Monday night after a busy day for both teams. Their New York-Penn League teams did play though. - Yankees 11, Renegades 7: The Baby Bombers defeated Hudson Valley in a shootout as the teams combined for 27 hits in the game. Fun note - there are some Staten Island Little League players in Japan as part of Hideki Matsui's "International Friendship Program". They've even got a sparse......

- There's lots of stuff going on at Governors Island, like the golf tournament later this year, but this Saturday, 100 plus swimmers will be participating in the Governors Island Swim, a two-mile swim around Governors Island. The race starts at 8 a.m. in front Castle Williams, with competitors swimming south (counterclockwise) around the island. Organizers expect the race to be finished at about 8:30! While this is something that could be fun to......

After three biker deaths in three weeks, New York City cyclists are mad as hell-- and they're not going to take it anymore. At least, that's what they said to Mayor Bloomberg at their protest on the city hall steps this morning. Streetsblog has a good report from the scene: This morning, in what is almost becoming a sad early summer ritual, one hundred cyclists, gathered on the steps of City Hall after the......

We never thought it would happen, but shows what we know. The 2,200-acre Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island really is going to be turned into New York City's largest park. The Parks Department has already put 14 feet of soil over the dump since 2001 and is now ready to start giving tours! Fresh Kills Park will be nearly triple the size of Central Park and is expected to take more than 30......

And another bicycle story! Downtown Express this week has a really good piece on the dramatic rise in cyclists over the past few years. Currently about 120,000 New Yorkers ride their bikes for "everything from commuting to exercise to grocery shopping" and as more riders hit the streets the number of fatalities has declined. "There are about 3,000 bicycle fatalities injuries a year" a spokesman from Transportation Alternatives told the Express.Morning bike riding is......

Animal New York takes issue with Matthew Long, the firefighter hospitalized for almost six months after being injured during the transit strike and finally went home with much fanfare last week. Long was injured while biking to his stationhouse and a private bus (chartered by Bear Stearns for its employees) hit him; he is now suing the Transport Workers Union as well as Bear Stearns, and the van company. Animal New York says Long should......

The awesome The Five Boro Bike Tour is going on today. Riders started in Manhattan this morning, they'll briefly head into the Bronx (and then back into Manhattan), ride through Queens and Brooklyn, and end in Staten Island, for a ride back to Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. Cheer the riders on when you see them! Here's the map of the route. And if you're inspired to go for a bike ride today, here's......

We hope you've got your padded spandex and your cushy bike seat, because May is bike month here in New York City. Organized by the good people at Transportation Alternatives, there are over 150 great events going on all about the city. While some of the events have already happened, there are tons of events left (the month is so jam packed that there were events in April and there are some in June) including......

In about 198 days, Lance Armstrong is planning on running in the NYC Marathon on November 5. We bet he didn't have to wait for a lottery ticket! Armstrong told the AP, "I've been training some, but I wouldn't call it serious. It's just something to fill a void in my life after I quit competing as a professional cyclist." Not serious for Armstrong would probably mean a 2 hour 30 minute marathon! But really,......