Free Republic

You hit the fast food drive-through a couple times a week, and your grocery cart is regularly filled with cookies, packaged doughnuts, ice cream, chips (and dip). But you’re thin. You run—a lot—and you’re not gaining any weight, so all’s good, right? Well, not exactly. Put down the chocolate cupcake and hear us out. While runners do tend to be much healthier than the general population, with lower rates of diabetes and heart disease, that’s largely due to a healthy diet rather than running regularly, says Sara Mahoney, Ph.D., chair of the department of exercise science at Bellarmine University. In...

As an innovator and early adopter of freeways, California became the symbolic capital of car culture. But the ease of movement conferred by the massive postwar freeway building boom was short-lived, turning the dream of car travel into a nightmare of congestion and long commutes. The story of how Californians went from getting around to getting stuck behind the wheel is deeply entwined with the history of the urban freeway, an enterprise that advanced earlier and on a larger scale here than anywhere else in the country. Half a century ago, there was reason for optimism about cars. Los Angeles...

When JoJo McKibben was the victim of a hit-and-run on April 3 as she biked to work, she wasn't all that surprised. She was hit while biking by a drunk driver last summer and has come to expect that cars won't realize she's riding on two wheels. McKibben's boyfriend Brendan Sharpe said he has also been seriously injured by cars while he's biked in Austin, once in 2009 and again in 2015... Katie Delleoz, the executive director of Bike Austin, said she personally has nearly been struck at the same intersection McKibben was hit at last week

Sir Bradley Wiggins took drugs to boost his performance before winning the 2012 Tour de France, a devastating report said last night. In a bombshell conclusion, MPs rejected claims that the five-time Olympic gold medallist took triamcinolone before the Tour to treat his asthma. They concluded it was, in fact, being used – within anti- doping regulations – to ‘prepare’ Team Sky rider Wiggins for the gruelling event. ‘The purpose of this was not to treat medical need, but to improve his power-to-weight ratio ahead of the race,’ they said.

Local planning politics on Los Angeles’s Westside is in a sad state of affairs. There, a municipally-led push to complete city streets by adding bicycle infrastructure and other pedestrian improvements has been met with fierce opposition from local drivers. Recent efforts in L.A’s Mar Vista neighborhood, for example, grew so toxic that community members launched a now-stalled recall bid to remove Mike Bonin—the local council person who champions the so-called “road diets” as well as the city’s Vision Zero plan those diets support—from office. The embarrassing spectacle has thrown into question the commitment L.A. residents have not only toward prioritizing...

CLEARWATER — The city’s violation letter used bold letters in all caps to describe The Path Bicycle and Ride Shop’s alleged offense. "INSTALLED SPIRAL BICYCLE RACK ON SIDEWALK WITHOUT PROPER PERMITS AND INSPECTIONS," it declared. The Path owner Gary Keener was dumbfounded when his landlord forwarded him the notice last week. Because he didn’t install the brand new bicycle rack on the sidewalk — The city did. "I just thought it was pretty pathetic," said Keener, who has owned the Cleveland Street shop for six years. "We’re kind of an anchor retail business that actually brings people to the downtown...

--SNIP-- Today the bicycle is a mixed bag, usually with more negatives than positives. In many cities, bike lanes now consume more road space than they free up, they add to pollution as well as reducing it, they hurt neighbourhoods and business districts alike, and they have become a drain on the public purse. The bicycle today — or rather the infrastructure that now supports it — exemplifies “inappropriate technology,” a good idea gone wrong through unsustainable, willy-nilly top-down planning. London, where former mayor Boris Johnston began a “cycling revolution,” shows where the road to ruin can lead. Although criticism...

Most of the time, Chris Coon is a mild-mannered, low-key pastor at Urban Village Church in Chicago.But when the collar comes off and the running shorts—and especially a race bib—go on, the 49-year-old turns into a different person. An angry one. The things that stoke his ire? Poor race organization. Course volunteers who don’t direct runners at turns. And cars, especially those that don’t yield the right of way or even acknowledge his presence in an intersection. Not only does anger bubble up more frequently when he’s running, he says, he’s also more likely to act on it. “I’ve flipped...

Apparently, an active shooter and perhaps a truck attack going on NOW in lower Manhattan....

The widening of Interstate 66 outside the Capital Beltway is bringing HOT lanes to one of the region’s most congested corridors. It also will make room for bicyclists and pedestrians — putting them on a trail next to one of the region’s busiest and most congested highways. The bike path, part of the $2.3 billion interstate expansion project, has drawn cheers and criticism from biking aficionados who welcome the addition of the trail but say, if built as proposed, users will be too close to cars whizzing by on the interstate and exposed to toxic exhaust fumes. For about five...

On Saturday, 198 of the world's best cyclists will start the Tour de France. Only four have a realistic shot at winning. That's according to the highest-ranked American bike racer at the Tour, Andrew Talansky, in a recent interview with Business Insider.

Paris-Roubaix 2017 Live Stream Race Info, Preview, Live Video, Results, Photos and Highlights Paris-Roubaix is the third monument of the cycling season and considered by many the best, most exciting race in cycling ===== 2017 Paris-Roubaix Live Video Streaming and TV Coverage A work in progress for 2017 Paris-Roubaix live and delayed coverage. ==== Start time: Sun Apr 9 10:55 CET (10:55:00 AM GMT+0200) Earliest live video: 10:55 CET (10:55:00 AM GMT+0200) Approximate finish: 17:12 CET (5:12:00 PM GMT+0200)

Poor, poor Pronto.Seattle’s beleaguered bike-share system is not long for this world. Its last day of operation will be Friday. After a weekend in purgatory, work crews will begin taking down and packing up the program’s 54 stations and 500 bikes on Monday. That process will last about two weeks, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) said.

It's not just about doping anymore. 60 Minutes reports on hidden motors in bikes -- and how magnets are being used to reinvent the wheel

There’s a big new addition coming to Ikea stores next month. It’s not a piece of furniture, and it’s definitely not edible. It’s a city bike called Sladda.

Mike Pence has great resolve on one thing once he becomes Veep ... exercise. We got Pence on Captiol Hill Tuesday and it seems he's not putting the bike he regularly rides into storage. It creates an interesting problem for the Secret Service if Pence ventures out into the open. President Clinton famously jogged around the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac ... a big security challenge. We're guessing the subject of stationary bikes will come up soon.

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES (FRANCE) (AFP) - Robert Marchand is chasing another world record when he jumps on his bike to compete in the senior hour endurance on Wednesday. Make that uber-senior -- for, while still sprightly, the Frenchman is 105 years old and racing in a category all of his own. Three years ago he managed to ride 26.927 kilometres (nearly 17 miles) at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome outside Paris, a record for someone aged over 100.

Determined was a good word to describe Jillian Bearden, who won the women’s 106-mile race in 4:36.07. Bearden, who is transgender, rode for the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance — SAGA — to promote gender inclusion within cycling. Saturday marked the 36-year-old’s first El Tour, which is Southern Arizona’s largest participatory sporting event.

NICE (FRANCE) (AFP) – The European road cycling championships, which were due to be held in Nice from September 14 to 18, have been cancelled for security reasons, the French city’s mayor confirmed on Friday. The announcement came just three weeks after the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice which claimed 85 lives and injured more than 300. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who drove a truck into revellers watching a fireworks display on the city’s Promenade des Anglais, was shot dead by police. “Given that it was an event that would have required a large police presence, and...

Day one of the 2016 tour finished right at Omaha Beach in Normandy France. With the 70th anniversary of "D" Day coming this week the message of remembrance is a stark contrast to the condition of our world today.