Image from the Central Park Conservancy

Ready to take in the New Year on a bike? If you're not looking for a quiet evening, Time's Up! is hosting their 12th Annual New Year's Eve Ride and outdoor after party this Saturday. Their tips: dress festive, bring noise makers/party favors and food & drink to share. The main meeting place is Washington Square Park, under the arch, at 10PM.

Here is a link to help route you to Washington Square Park.

So there are only a couple weeks left before Christmas...agh! Here's a quick pitch to encourage you to consider shopping at Etsy this holiday season. Etsy is basically an online marketplace that brings together artisans to help them sell their crafts. Or in their own words:

Our mission is to empower people to change the way the global economy works. We see a world in which very-very small businesses have much-much more sway in shaping the economy, local living economies are thriving everywhere, and people value authorship and provenance as much as price and convenience. We are bringing heart to commerce and making the world more fair, more sustainable, and more fun.

Here comes REI. The large outdoor equipment and clothing coop with over 3.5 million members, listed as on of FORTUNE Magazine's "100 Best Companies To Work For", is moving into NYC, opening on December 2.

The store will be located inside the beautiful Puck Building on Lafayette St, just south of Houston St (and only two blocks from Bicycle Habitat, one of our favorite bike shops in the world).

ESPAÑOL

Image from La Vida Es Loca

In the United States, there’s an easy way to find out how cities rank on the scale of bicycle friendliness. The League of American Bicyclists ranks cities and publishes a bicycle friendly community list. As far as we can tell, there isn’t a similar community in Latin America, so we don’t really know how each city compares, which is something something that is really needed (anyone?). Nevertheless, we know that some cities in Latin America promote cycling and bicycle culture much better than others. One city that’s recognized by everyone is Bogotá, which has more than 180 miles of bike paths (ciclorutas) that connect most parts of the city and Ciclovía, Bogota’s car-free Sundays that celebrate bicycling, walking and streetlife that inspired NYC’s Summer Streets. (Although Bogotá has a great bicycle network, currently there’s a lack of the political will to support bicycle culture. With mayoral elections approaching at the end of October, we hope the new mayor gives bicycling more importance.)

For these reasons, it gives us great pleasure today to launch Ride the City – Bogotá. Ride the City is a bike routing service created to help bicyclists find an easy way to ride from one part of the city to another. With Ride the City – Bogotá, Colombians now have one more tool to help themselves travel around the city sustainably and healthfully.

This year's Fall Brooklyn Bike Jumble will be held on Saturday, September 24th at the Old Stone House at 4th street and 5th avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Here's the schedule:

9:30AM - 10:30AM - The day will commence with awards ceremony and the start of the New York to Philadelphia stage of the East Coast Messenger Stage Race

Everyone knows Eugene, Oregon is the running capital of the world: Track Town USA, where Prefontaine helped give birth to Nike. As a result the city now has miles and miles of running trails. Well, it turns out that it's also got lots of bike lanes and bike paths. So many, in fact, that the League of American Bicyclists ranks Eugene as the fifth best city in the U.S. for bicycling (behind Boulder, Portland, Davis, and Corvallis).

Well today we're proud to launch one more free resource to help Eugeneans get around by bike: Ride the City - Eugene. Ride the City is like other routing applications except that it prioritizes bike paths, bike lanes, and shared roads to give you safe bike routes: Put in a start address and and end address and Ride the City will tell you how to get from point A to point B on a bike.

Critical Mass - Atlanta. Image from Dustin C

We're in high summer and the streets are steamy. In the south, the streets are even hotter and more humid where it's probably really hard to ride a bike during this time of the year. The hot summers may be partially to blame for the low numbers of bicyclists, but it has a lot more to do with expansive cities that were primarily designed for the car. But things are changing little by little and the south is becoming more friendly to bicycles.

We're doing our part to support this paradigm shift today by launching Ride the City - Atlanta. With Ride the City, bicyclists in Atlanta now have one more tool to find a safe way to bike from one part of town to another using the web or mobile applications (available on iPhone or Android).

FRANÇAIS

Tomorrow is the start of the 2011 Tour de France. How exciting! From now until July 24th, the world's best cyclists will complete in 21 stages covering a total of 2,132 miles. Riders in this, the 98th Tour de France won't need bicycling directions, of course, because they get a huge caravan of vehicles shepherding them around the countryside. For the non-elite Frenchman, however, getting around on a bicycle can sometimes be a bit of a challenge...until now.

Today we are happy to announce the launch of Ride the City - Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, and Nice. Now bicyclists in France's largest cities have one more tool to navigate the streets safely.

Version 1.4 of the Ride the City iPhone app is in the Apple Store!

This new update includes the following:

1. High resolution display
2. A new map legend with a couple new icons (Thanks to Kelly and Glyphish!)

Some screen shots:

High resolution display: Finally! Now you can read the display crisp and clear

image from Average Joe Cyclist

Today we're happy to announce that Ottawa is receiving one more tool to help make bicycling a bit easier in Canada's fourth largest city. Please welcome Ride the City - Ottawa (available in English and French). Ride the City is a bicycle routing web and mobile service (iPhone & Android) that helps bicyclists to navigate city streets; it's based on Open Street Map, the volunteer effort to map the world so anyone can contribute to Open Street Map to make it better for all bicyclists.