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Citylab has given some good suggestions for safer winter cycling. These include:

• Lower your saddle: This is always a good idea when you need some extra control and stability, as every mountain biker knows. A lower saddle gives stability by lowering your center of gravity, it gives control by giving you more space to shift your weight around and if all else fails it makes it easier to put your feet on the ground.
• Let some air out of your tires: Softer tires tend to give more grip. But be careful not to go too far and end up getting pinch flats. This can happen when a bump squashes the tire flat pinching the inner tube between the road and the rim and causing a tear in the inner tube. For really icy conditions winter tires are available.
• Watch the snow: Curbs, drains and other hazards can be hidden under snow. It is, therefore, a good idea to cycle away from the edge of the road and to avoid deep snow. Also, watch out for the glistening of slippery ice.
• Get out your ski gloves: This isn’t just for comfort. Hands numbed by the icy wind won’t work so well when you need to brake hard or hold onto the bar when you accidentally hit a hidden obstacle.

Another idea I would add is that wearing some grips over your shoes can help a lot when the ice gets really slippery. These are perfect:

   

Dalas Texas is not know as a bastion of liberal values. The city has seen public opinion turning against the public schemes operating there. People are complaining about bikes being left in random places cluttering up walkways.

The instagram account dallasBikeMess which documents the issue has seen its follows increase to 6,000.

Major Chinese ride-hailing company DiDi Chuxing has announced that it will be moving into the bike-sharing business.  DiDi, founded by Cheng Wei, has over 450 million users in more than 400 Chinese cities. So this appears to be a very big deal for public-bike services and bike-share startups in China.

DiDi has stated that their service will not require a deposit from users and that this will include the use of bluegogo bikes booked using DiDi’s app.

This new helmet from wearables innovator Coros incorporates some useful electronics. Most noticeably there are lights at the rear. I’m a big fan of lights on helmets. In fact, the more lights spread around both your bike and your body the better. A bike spotlight on your helmet has its uses but most cyclists are actually hit from the side and are often invisible despite ultra-bright front lights.

The Omni also has bone-conducting audio speakers. Bone-conducting audio is said to be less distracting allowing your ears to detect important road noises. The helmet connects to your phone via bluetooth for the usual music playback.

Perhaps the most sophisticated feature it is that the helmet can detect a head impact. It will then use your connected mobile phone to send a pre-defined message to selected contacts. This is, of course, assuming that both the helmet and the phone have survived the accident. I can’t comment on how reliable this is likely to be.

Coros are taking pre-orders on Indiegogo now.

Aerovelo has created some incredible human-powered vehicles. Since 2010 this Canadian company has flown the first every flapping wind aircraft “Snowbird”, won the Sikorsky-Prize for the first human-powered helicopter “Atlas” and built the fastest human-powered vehicle “Eta”. On September 17th, 2016, Aerovelo broke their existing record by reaching the unbelievable speed of 89.59 mph (144.17 km/hr).

The Eta bike cradles the rider, Reichert, within a carbon fiber chassis. Wrapped around that is an almost perfectly aerodynamic shell. Lyng almost horizontally on his back for the most streamlined position he views the road through a camera. This means there is no need for any windows giving the ETA a bizarrely futuristic look. It also means that information such as speed can be displayed directly in the view.

The name Eta is taken from the Greek letter often used for efficiency in engineering equations. Efficient it certainly is, if the rider was replaced by a petrol engine the equivilent efficiency would be 9544 mpg! The total weight of the bike is 25kg and it uses 650c tires.

The record was set at Battle Mountain, Nevada. This is the regular location of the World Human Powered Speed Challenge. It provides a 5 mile straight and flat course at over 1,000 m elevation. The after 1.5 miles to build up speed the bikes are timed over a 200 m stretch.