—Say you’re tooling around campus on your bike on a given fall evening, and you get a flat. What do you do? Well, thanks to the enterprising minds at ChampaignCountyBikes.org, The Bike Project and That’s Rentertainment, you can stop by Rentertainment and take advantage of “The Itty-Bitty Bike Shop,” a recent addition near the entrance of the movie-rental joint at Sixth and John. In addition to lights, reflective leg bands, tubes, patch kits and chain lube, they also have a pump available for loan behind the counter. Consider yourself redeemed.
(Photo by Gary Cziko)
—If you’re the unilluminated type, you may soon have the opportunity to change that. At random times and in random places over the next couple of months, local organizations will be distributing free bike blinky lights to riders about town. Stay safe after dark, and avoid shelling out some cash to do so.
—Check out Momentum magazine, a Canadian rag that has a more practical-transportation bent than most bicycling magazines. It’s distributed in Chicago, and I first picked up a copy at Working Bikes, a very cool co-op in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood. If you can’t locate a paper copy, they post most of their content on their site. They publish bimonthly from Vancouver, B.C., and they’ll help you stay on top of the biking situation.
—I’ll be back in two weeks with a new installment of “Get to Know ‘Em,” the ongoing series profiling local bike community members. If you know someone who should be profiled, shoot me an email at [email protected].