There are just eight days before America’s largest bicycling celebration kicks off — it’s almost Bike to Work Day, and your bicycle is certainly worth celebrating.

Your bicycle takes you from A to B. It’s efficient and affordable. It shows you corners of New York City you’d never spot from the subway. And at the end of a bad day, your bicycle can improve your mood with a turn of the pedals.

Celebrate Bike to Work Day by becoming a Transportation Alternatives member; if you join before 11:59 pm on Friday, you’ll be entered to win a Pure Fix Cycles bike, donated by Spinlister.

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Gothamist takes a swing at the NY Post’s floridly hyper-active coverage of last week’s CitiBike/Greenwich Village kerfuffle, in which an EMS crew was forced to negotiate a 39-space bike kiosk when called to the rescue of a 92-year-old resident of E. 13th Street, with this juicy bit: “Though the Post is congratulating itself for its victory over Satan CitiBike…”

Hahaha, Satan. So, there’s that. Even closer to home is BlackHatGate in South Williamsburg.

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From ABC News: “New York City’s long-awaited and much-hyped bicycle-sharing program is finally set to begin.”

“Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will christen the beginning of bike-sharing at a docking station near the Brooklyn Bridge Monday morning. The privately funded Citi Bike bike-share program will launch with 6,000 bikes at 330 docking stations in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. Officials hope to expand to 10,000 bikes and 600 docking stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.”

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The Accident Investigation Squad

Last month, Council Member Stephen Levin put forward legislation, paired with an open letter to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, that would require the NYPD to follow the state law requiring cops to investigate collisions involving bicycles that result in serious physical injury. Currently, the NYPD is only mandated to investigate collisions where the police believe “death is likely.” In addition, the Accident Investigation Squad (AIS) employs only 23 officers who are responsible for investigating fatal accidents citywide. Levin’s proposed legislation would increase that number to 380.

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. . . from an Older Belgian Woman, By John D. Eustice

I went to Belgium in the mid 1970s as part of a wave of American riders who wished to infiltrate the mysterious and distant European racing scene. The Belgians condescended to us who were fool enough to attempt to endure their cobblestones, side winds, cold rain, and high-speed racing. To them we were the “English,” lumped together with the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Yanks, the Brits, and the English Canadians. We were one and the same. (The Quebecois were smarter than we were, and went to the Parisian racing clubs.) The rest of us would arrive, put up with decrepit 19th-century factory housing (which was illegal for anyone except the Turks and the “English” racers) and most of the English would last only two to three months before going home with broken bikes, broken hearts, and broken dreams. Many even quit racing forever after their first Belgian campaign.

I, on the other hand, loved it. But then I had had the advantage of being schooled in New York City by the descendants of the Madison Square Garden Six-Day racers. I could ride a bicycle and I fit right in with the hurly burly of the Belgian “Kermesse” races. Good results were coming and I thought that I was pretty hot stuff. That is, until the old Belgian lady.

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