Road News and Results – April Fools Contest Edition

Okay, here’s the deal. Some of this news is true and some is not. Anyone who can correctly separate the wheat from the chaff and send me the numbers of the true news items to aprilfools@bikeworldnews.com will be entered into a drawing for some cool cycling prizes.

The contest will run through April 7th. I’ll do a drawing from all of the correct entries on the 8th and contact the winner about getting their prizes to them.

Here’s the news (sort of):

1. With the growing popularity of bicycle commuting, bike thefts are on the upswing. Bike friendly communities such as Austin, Portland and Madison have a dramatic increase in thefts in their downtown areas. Police advise bicycle users to lock their bikes on to a bike rack, use a good lock, and carve their driver’s license or another unique identification number on to the bike so if it’s ever stolen, it can be traced back to the owner.
2. Rapha is introducing a £2,000 bike suit. Rapha says that the suit has been designed “specifically for the gentleman city cyclist” and is at home “both on the bike and in the boardroom”. It’s only available to Rapha’s “best British and European customers.”
3. Lance Armstrong wrote on his Twitter account, “Nice get well card from Filippo Simeoni today. Hope to see him at the Giro.”
4. The economic downturn is opening up new urban riding venues for downhill mountain bikers. The halls and stairways of abandoned buildings are the latest terrain to be conquered by Rob van den Wildenberg and his cohorts.
5. Even burglars can go green: Police in St. Petersburg, Fla., say they have caught the a “bicycle bandit” that was using his bicycle for a getaway vehicle.
6. The UCI formally rolled out their biological passport program today. Over 150 riders were cited as having incorrect blood values and have been placed on suspension by their teams. Team management has been left to deal find new riders to staff their teams while also determining if they can run their teams without a budget.
7. Only 12 riders were left to race at today’s Three Days of De Panne. UCI management says that the fallout was “unfortunate” but that it was a necessary move to take the sport forward.
8. There are indications that Tyler Hamilton and most of the Rock Racing team are being called up to the big leagues, and Floyd Landis twittered that he is in negotiations with Pro Tour teams as well.
9. In tears, David Millar of Garmin Slipstream says that he is “dejected” by the extent of doping exposed by the biological passport program, but added that he’s looking forward to returning from his collarbone injury as the “only clean rider out there.”
10. In a move of solidarity with cycling that can best be described “sporting”, league management for soccer, baseball, basketball, football and Texas Hold’Em Poker all came clean about the extent of doping in their athletes and announced that 2009 seasons would either be severely curtailed or shut down all together. ESPN announced that they would begin covering cricket, lawn bowling, water polo and solitaire in the interim.
11. Owners of sports bars across the country are waiting to see if their customers will show up and drink beer while trying to figure out what a “sticky wicket” is.
12. Desparate to find clean riders, some manager’s are turning to their women’s squads for help. Columbia Highroad’s Ina-Yoko Teutenberg told a reporter, “No, women have not been doping. Even if we win, we don’t get paid enough to make a decent living, so we see no need to destroy our bodies.”
13. President Obama has rolled out a new phase of his economic stimulus package. A rebate program for bicycle purchases is expected to spur an already healthy market for commuter and townie bikes.
14. Hidden in the reorganization plan for GM is an expansion in the production of their GMC and Cadillac bicycle brands.
15. A bill submitted today in Oregon will allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs. This is similar to legislation already in place in Idaho.
16. Drivers in Cincinnati, Ohio are calling for an immediate ban of bicycles on the road after a driver was killed in a fatal crash after swerving to avoid striking a cyclist. City council is seriously considering the matter saying that “bicycles are toys, and should stay on bike paths and driveways where they belong.”

Tags: bi collarbone, columbia, contests, cycling, doping, European, garmin, Lance, Look, Madison, Ohio, Oregon, Portland, rapha, Reorganization, Slipstream, soccer, Texas, UCI