Authorities are looking for, oh dear, "a bicyclist in Santa Cruz who fled after allegedly stabbing a motorist during a confrontation." It seems there was some sort of heated driver-to-cyclist confrontation today, which culminated with the guy on the bike kicking the guy's car door, hitting the driver in the face with a broom handle, and then finishing the job by stabbing the motorist. The victim, we're told, is in good condition at Stanford Medical......

Major - like, major! - alert from the SF Bike Coalition according to one SFist reader. It seems someone or some people are stealing bike steals "all over downtown." Check it: Bike Theft Alerts Watch your seat! We're hearing reports that someone's stealing seats off bikes all over downtown, it's gotten so bad that local shops are having trouble keeping seat posts in stock. Even if you don't have a quick release on your......

In cyberspace, "trolling" is when someone posts a deliberately controversial comment, not because they really wanted to say it but because they wanted to provoke an angry, emotional response from strangers -- kind of the online equivalent of insulting someone's girlfriend in a bar, or heckling a comedian, or snapping your towel at someone in the locker room. So let's see what we have here: a mob of bicyclists, roving unpredictably and ignoring traffic......

Footage by meligrosa/Current Shot near the Ferry Building during a non-critical mass afternoon, we're not sure who we hate more: the cyclist, the (alleged) motorist, the onlookers egging the whole thing on? Let's just call it a draw.......

We were there through the bitter season--the mud, the rain, the cold, the mid-afternoon sunsets. With dripping, grime-streaked rain gear covering our heels and neckties, we rode our rusting, filthy commuter bikes to the Caltrain station all through the winter, a sweaty, soggy bunch, smelling of mildew and Tri-Flow. And now, with the arrival of the easy, sunny days of spring, you’ve joined us. And we’re happy to see you, really. It’s Bike to Work......

For such a hilly town, we sure do have a lot of bicyclists. In case you're of the cyclist persuasion and want to see what kinds of fun new routes our city will be adding, tomorrow at the Grove Street auditorium from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., Muni will be hosting an open house of sorts to discuss improvements of the bicycle routes in San Francisco. The SFMTA Bicycle Program is planning the next generation of......

Ride your bike at the San Francisco Zoo without fear of ejection or arrest on the BikeAbout tour. ...

The fire department cordoned off Valencia between 22nd and 23rd to put out a fire. Bikes could still go through. Gawkers were in luck: they could have some of the best coffee in SF right across the street at Ritual Roasters while watching the SFFD get at it. ...

There are two events of interest to Muni this weekend: Critical Mass tonight at 6, and Supercross Saturday at one of the baseball parks. Both events are dedicated to the elimination of automobiles, but only one will actually accomplish its goal, while the other will just be a noisy, irritating echo chamber. Muni will be running extra trains to accommodate the Supercross crowd. The extra trains will stop running at 10pm, which is a......

Meet the biker of the year....

The SFBC will have its annual fundraiser party this Sunday at 6:00 PM...

Photo of what may or may not be evidence of underground stolen parts bicycle workshops in San Francisco....

Ick. And: heh. Along the lines of the Sex Offenders Registry -- though not nearly as destructive and fascinating -- we came across Rotten Neighbor, a site that lets you, dear readers, tattle on your neighbors' questionable behavior. Whether they party, play, blare the electro tunes, and never sleep; hate your children; hate your cat; hate sobriety; beat their spouses; store their bikes on their balcony; or refuse to cut their lawn, adults now......

-- Chicken John gets slapped for raising campaign money via Pay Pal. Assumes he's "the first candidate who's raised funds this way...this is a situation that no candidate has ever been in before." Which? Not so much, rock star. [The Snitch] -- Richmond mom accused of killing her 8-year-old son. [Chron] -- The fuzz is on the hunt for a double-stabbing suspect. [Examiner] -- Fight! Fight! Fight! The fur flies between the guys at......

Following up on yesterday's blotter, we're sorry to pass along word from today's Chronicle that one of the murder victims over the weekend, David Sterling, was killed on the way home Monday afternoon, after picking up a burrito for his girlfriend. Investigators think it was supposed to be a retaliation shooting from the guy shot in the garage by kids on bikes a day earlier, but because Sterling had no record and no known gang......

...And that's not even the curviest part! A car chase that started in Marin County around 3:00 a.m. Monday morning ended abruptly when the driver, speeding at around 75 mph over the Golden Gate Bridge, overshot the turn from Doyle Drive onto Lombard Street and flipped over. A open fifth of Hennessey was found in the car, and the passengers are in SF General with non-fatal injuries. Your SF Labor Day weekend homicide count: 3.......

And now for another big city's mildly retarded view of San Francisco: Too much ink has been spilled and too much bandwidth used to praise/bury Critical Mass in length. Now the LA Times gets in on the action. We'd love to break it down for you, but it's a long article and we don't bike or drive; more or less, it's stuff you've heard before. So, we present to you some choice quotes from......

A recent photo of mini motorcycles in Golden Gate Park....

Dyke on Bikes -- the women who kickoff the annual Pride Parades and Dyke March by riding on their mechanical clitorises, with mammary glands fluttering to and fro -- have won the right to their name. Kudos! No longer having to go by the KRON 4-safe and vulgarly-clinical “San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent,” the ladies who love ladies took steps at owning their name after discovering another group in Wisconsin already in the process......

Ritual Coffee Roasters' two locations are only about three miles apart. Not so bad on a bike, right? Well, what if you're biking with 130 pounds of coffee? Yeah, a little tougher. This Saturday, popular cafe Ritual Roasters, in conjunction with Bikes to Rwanda, is having a wacky, multi-tiered charity event that involves bike-race betting, film-watching, a raffle, and the consumption of both of our favorite beverages: booze and coffee....

Xavier Hegelsen is one of those guys who make you grin and shake your head in wonder. His primary gig is running Better World Books, which he co-founded after graduating from Notre Dame in 2001. BWB takes books that university bookstores and libraries can’t use and resells, donates, or recycles them. The company then donates overhead profits to worldwide literacy organizations like Books for Africa or Room to Read. The company has grown to......

Ahhh, du Galibier. Switchback after switchback of asphalt hell. Hell if you're on a bike, but heaven if you're watching the world's best cyclists do the work. For 18 kilometers, a ribbon of pain and lactic acid wobbles and weaves its way up the grotesque, treeless slopes of the great French kingmaker.

Yesterday in Stage 9, between Val-d'lsere and Briancon, the boys on the bikes rolled themselves up not only les col du Galibier and du telegraphe, but also the Beyond Category (HC)-rated Col de l'Iseran climb. Three rated climbs, 159.5 kilometers, more than 4 hours. Lots and lots of opportunities for General Classification (GC) contenders to attack and try to put time into their rivals.

Judgement day.

A four-year-old boy drowned to death in the 2-foot deep section of the wave pool at Great America in Santa Clara yesterday. There were six lifeguards on duty at the time, but there are no age limits on who can use the pool. Authorities have not identified the boy, or said whether or not he was supervised at the time of the accident. This is the first drowning at Great America but not the first......

Photo and discussion of the news conference concerning ped and biker safety. ...

The Pride Parade is one of the best photo-ops of the year, isn't it? The yearly celebration gives us an opportunity to step back, examine ourselves, and then breathe with relief, "yup, still gay." SFist photo friend Matt Cohen has some excellent snapshots on his Flickr stream of the festivities. After the jump: underwear, cheerleaders, balloons, and Carole Migden!......

Let's face it, the great American cycling novel has yet to be written (not lately, anyway). And what cycling-related literature there is falls into one of three categories: inspiration, celebration, or perspiration. If you want to read about a one-legged mother of six who bicycled across the country to raise awareness about the papilloma virus, or Lance Armstrong's latest deep philosophical musings, or Chris Carmichael's detailed instructions for sprint repeats and heart rate monitor training, the world is your oyster. But if you're looking for compelling, engaging prose that explores the relationship between literature and cycling, well you're basically stuck watching Breaking Away for the 20th time (yeah, we know it's a movie).

Fear not for cyclerature though, because into the breech have stepped editors Paul Diamond and Erich Schweikher with a little ditty they like to call Cycling's Greatest Misadventures, a new anthology of original nonfiction cycling stories from Casagrande Press.

Last week's winner, as picked by SFist Sarah -- the Bay Guardian! Steven T. Jones takes over the opening editorial from Tim Redmond this week. It does not mention Burning Man! Recalls go too far. Club 6 -- still open. Why can't the Chron make money? Now serving at Cafe Gratitude: "I Am....Sued." San Francisco water may be causing rashes. Thank goodness Ed Jew doesn't have to worry about that! (okay, to be fair, we're......

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is all over the problem of keeping only confident, competent senior drivers on the road. It's unveiled a new video to educate both seniors and those with seniors in their lives on the risks associated with driving while aging. It's introduced by former State Senator Quentin Kopp -- himself a senior -- who, in a bold performance admits that he, too, finds himself driving slower on the freeway. ...

Since yesterday's kickoff, the web's been awash in AIDS Ride coverage. There's a day-by-day photo rundown on the official site (with, unfortunately, lousy navigation) and a slew of unofficial pix on user-friendly Flickr. Bike blogs are all over the event; and UCSF has a sweet story about researcher Nancy Hessol, who rides and fixes bikes. And did we mention the podcast? So even if you're not actually biking down to LA this week, you can......

Photo of an SFPD enforcement action in front of City Hall...