The Great Big April Fool Blog Roundup

Well, top marks to the government for the biggest (if a little premature) April fool of them all: the great-fuel-crisis-that-never-was (and look who they have to send to close down a petrol station). How we cyclists laughed and laughed and laughed (yet people call us smug, for some reason), while Halfords was laughing all the way to the bank.

As the real spoofs rolled in, Spokes Lothian win top marks for the one we'd most like to be true while we applaud Brooks's efforts to break into the French market. Kats Dekker has also discovered a strange new species although being German she may be being entirely serious. At the time of writing we also suspect that the Battersea Cog's Home (motto: 'we never melt a healthy bike down')'s launch date might be significant (if not, and we've done them wrong, I'd happily provide a loving home for Dorothy in recompense). Meanwhile this handy portable zebra crossing sits on the intersection (did you see what we did there?) between art and spoof.

Indeed, so upside down has this world become that it's hard to spot the real stories from the spoofs these days: for instance, could any learner driver really be so blasé about nearly knocking down a cyclist? Have the helmet police in New York really started vandalising posters? Do motorists in Scotland really need signs to tell them it's raining? (Cynics would argue it would make more sense to tell them when it's not). And quite obviously a New York Attorney is never going to try and do himself out of a job, and nor would the police claim a cyclist was salmoning when they were hit when it turns out they were going the right way when they were the victim of a hit and run. And surely by now transport company bosses know better than to write hateful anti-cyclist rants on their own company's blog.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the 'too good to be true' stories turn out to be true after all. Like decentish infrastructure being built in the UK - well, adjusted for being British (now updated with some video footage). Or an actual cyclist being appointed cycling champion for Cambridgeshire. Or a cyclist getting his stolen bike back.Or even Bromptons being made available in Greater Manchester for a modest fee.

One thing that definitely wasn't a spoof was the Scottish Parliament's cycling debate, which was surprisingly unanimous and made Greener Leith happy. Magnatom - despite a name check in Holyrood from his own MSP - was a little more sceptical, while people continue to sign Pedal on Parliament's petition. Meanwhile Edinburgh's been forging ahead with 12% of commutes by bike in some wards. Kim Harding gives his view of cycling in the city while Spokes dissects the tortuous history of the A90 cycle path.

Meanwhile the pedal power meme is spreading with Sydney cyclists to pedal on the city hall in support of their cycling mayor, Londoners crowdsourcing a manifesto (including much on cycling), and Manchester cycling organisations drawing up one too. Sharp Edge Trip would certainly like to see a little more leadership on cycling while I speak Bike will be voting with her bike (on style grounds, if nothing else).

We promised you some updates on the Barnet Great Divide Ride and fortunately Shaun McDonald didn't disapppoint - and neither did Kennington People on Bikes. It looks like a pleasant day out - and that's not something you could say about anything involving the North Circular normally. Meanwhile the various protests continue with Climate Rush planning on spring cleaning (a bit of) London while the Bikes Alive protests continue at King's Cross with more dates for your diaries.

London's more thoughtful bloggers have been busy, too, with Diamond Geezer keeping a close eye on the goings on at Bow Roundabout, while Pedestrianise London has been making good use of the Embassy's CROW Manual. Kennington People on Bikes is aghast to discover Vauxhall Gyratory is considered not big enough while Cycalogical wonders what's missing from the London Travelwatch picture. Further afield, As Easy as Riding a Bike considers two approaches to making streets more lively and Bicycle Friends looks at complete streets.

Over in Bicycle Paradise (sorry, the Netherlands), a group of Norwegian teenagers find their bike legs and 'lose' their helmets. Bicycle Dutch looks at how big lorries are kept out of city centres altogether - perhaps that's why Amsterdam has started to suffer from bicycle gridlock (we'll chalk that one up as a 'nice problem to have').

Do we suffer from the A&*$%& cyclist problem? Matt Seaton puts it a little more politely while the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire also risks a donation to the swear box: 'It's called a flagship because f***ing lethal in places doesn't look so good in brochures'.

Over on one of his many blogs, Joe Dunckley has been delving into what he thinks is the distant past, although surely it was just a couple of years ago - there's more posts there than we can reasonably link to so just browse them all. Chester Cycling has also unpicked all those vehicular cycling myths in one handy post for you to cut out and keep.

Apart from April Fools, the start of April brings the return of thirty days of biking - Mark Tearle explains what it's all about. And April has also brought the chance to wear the best safety gear of all - the summer frock.

Let's play Anti-bike Bingo! Downfader and Bristol Traffic prove that great minds think alike.

Can you help? Naturally Cycling battles her growing cargo bike obsession. Perhaps a bike kitchen might help?

Need some inspriration? The 'Bike Guy' on building a better block. Or this - two parking spaces transformed into a popup park. Or even this: 'Parking is a bogus issue' - give people great places and they will come. Somewhat less inspirational, is Manchester's example of how to manage a road closure so that nobody's encouraged to take up cycling ...

Over in the 'blame the victim' department, TfL can't even get the acronym right while the latest proposed safety device for lorries is a ...warning sticker.

There's bike porn ... and then there's bike snuff porn.

And finally - it turns out even Lance Armstrong doesn't want to have to 'be like Lance Armstrong' to survive on the roads on his bike. 'Portland, Oregon won’t build a mile of road without a mile of bike path'.