It's Father's day, and while Biking In LA has thought to mark the occasion by remembering the man who first got him cycling, other topical blog posts were thin on the ground so Dads everywhere will just have to make do with more artfully placed handlebars than you can shake a stick at on this gallery of pictures from the World Naked Bike Ride. Or perhaps it was in honour of the occasion that last week's Sunday Politics wheeled out the old man when Bristol Traffic would have done it cheaper? Frankly, if they had to have an octegenarian commenting on cycle policy, we would have preferred this one.
Tenuous connections aside, today might as well have been Mothers' Day for the question on everyone's lips was how to get more women cycling? The answer, of course (as they know in Minnesota) is make it feel safer but failing that you could ride the entire Tour de France route, which might actually be easier. Or, teach the one in six Catalan women who have never learned to ride. Still at least Help My Chain Came off has completed a year of commuting by bike - and this hen party suggests we girls aren't all shunning the bike. In fact there's a long history of stroppy women on bikes.
As well as 'fret about not enough women cycling week', it's also bike week, which means the usual events, such as these in Lambeth and Daventry. And for one week only a primary school would like to get more than 300 of its pupils cycling into school. Shame that with our roads, it means they need a police escort. That may be why Edinburgh cyclists are planning to get their councillors out on a breakfast bike ride - at least one councillor is looking forward to his breakfast. It's just a shame nobody told the Weather Gods.
Of course, the real way to get people (not just women) on bikes is to make it feel safer. Which is why the Times's Cycle safe campaign (which seems to have spread as far as Mexico) is so important. Last week they held an event to ask 'what next' for the campaign - and if you missed it you can still join in, finding out what others said - and providing your own answers to their seven questions. Please do go and have your say. The Times is not the only one asking questions though. Kats Dekker asked what's next for Newcastle while rather more rhetorically, the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucester asked what the &*#!$ an Urban SUV is and Cycling info asked what a cyclist should look like. No prizes for answering any of those - but Spokes in Edinburgh are offering a prize for answering where your favourite place to go by bike is (as long as it's in Edinburgh, anyway)
This week also seems to have been the week when the local road safety figures were released with both cycling and injuries rising in Cambridge. Radwagon responds, as does the council chief. Up in Scotland, Magnatom is still looking at the Strathclyde figures while the Road Danger Reduction Forum reminds us it's important to get the figures right. Meanwhile, Vancouver has had some rather cheerier stats - including how improved connectivity improves cycling levels across the network - while Chicago aims to eliminate traffic deaths altogether within 10 years and back in the UK the coastguard - yes, the coastguard - saves one cyclist from becoming another statistic.
Chicago isn't the only US city that's making bold traffic policy. New York has found that the best way to ungridlock its streets is to close them off to traffic. Oh for such boldness in the City of London. Going one step further, Christian Wolmar wonders who needs to drive their car into London at all, never mind during the Olympics. And Belfast too - not currently a great cycling city - is trying to keep cars out of the centre - something the Belfast Telegraph welcomes. In Bristol, Britain's first weekly play street means the lorries have to go somewhere else for 90 minutes a week. (oh, and can we take the opportunity now to apologise about the speeding cyclists...)
What makes a city bike friendly? Well, we could add a few suggestions - like proper planning. Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester takes a closer look at Manchester's ambition to become a cycling city and finds it coming up a little short. Decent design might be the answer: Copenhagenize asks if you can believe that people still design cycle tracks on the wrong side of parked cars? (Err... yes?) while in his own back yard the Copenhagen superhighways are judged not entirely perfect (and we don't think Behooving Moving liked Paris much, do you? In Lambeth at least there's some decent parking while the Invisible Visible Man considers bike design and while all those kids on choppers left their bikes in the garage when they grew up. Now wonder cycling remains stuck in a niche.
The burning design issue remains Bow Roundabout, where Cyclists in the City feels the blame lies as much with the Department for Transport as with TfL while the LCC thinks both cyclists and pedestrians are still at risk. As Easy as Riding a Bike sees how things are done better near Brighton. Fittingly enough, next month's street talks is about Street design as the art of the possible
On to our learned friends, with the Cycling Silk asking if it was the ASL that did it, or whether drivers are just getting away with murder. Age Scotland asks why pavement parking isn't simply illegal - and in London, the police get tough with the rogue parkers. Well, one anyway. Downfader asks if we should be changing how we use speed cameras. And in Cambridge, at least, the cops and the cyclists get on well enough to combine forces to chase a suspect down.
Would that similar harmony would break out between cyclists and drivers ... but it was an irritable week in bike-blog land with One Speed Go frightening drivers (perhaps they'd seen this sign). The magnificently grumpy Chafe City has one nice encounter with a driver (but has a bit of a rant at the rest of them while As Easy as Riding a Bike just wishes they'd read their Highway Code. Cars may be much safer, but the software behind the wheel is after all the same.
Are we bored with the helmet stuff yet? Spokes elaborates on its policy of not supporting events that require helmets while Alberta's cycling law has halved the number of children cycling. Time to ditch the lid, the Calgary Herald asks?
In a welcome return to the blogosphere, Amsterdamize relaunches with a toast to new beginnings ... hopefully in Glasgow (and something for the Glasgow Bike Station to consider?). Bath's bike hire scheme was also due for a relaunch
And finally, could it be that the Dutch are planning on 'Going British?' If this fine piece of cycling infrastructure is anything to go by, they might be. Fortunately, Mark Wagenbuur is here with yet another piece of impressive (temporary) infrastructure to reassure us.