There's a new entry in the world of velomobiles—the Greenspeed Glyde. If you're already familiar with Greenspeed, you don't need me to tell you that they're an innovative Australian company who designs and builds three-wheeled loveliness of all kinds. They've been leaders in the tadpole trike world since 1990, but, haven't been content to rest on their laurels. First, they branched out with a nice delta-style trike entry, the Anura. 

Now comes the next adventure, the Glyde. The Greenspeed guys don't do half-measures, so while the Glyde contains some recognizable elements, it's also qualifies as being entirely new.

It promises to be a practical, refined human-powered vehicle, fully enclosed & suspended, and with the ability to be adjusted to a wide range of rider size. They're working all-out on production right now and plan to ship later this summer. I'm hoping someone (relatively) local will decide that they have to have one. Stay tuned...

The BBC covers the prisoners' Tour de France. No "solo escape" jokes, please.

James @ Bicycle Design shows us an intriguing concept commuter bike from a UK design student. I like the integrated 360-degree-visible lighting.

Other than the fact that she is a "human person"—thanks for filling us in there, Chuck—NY's senior senator tells us something else of interest about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Via DC Bike Examiner.

The venerable Tour Easy has gotten a makeover. The new Tour Easy LE has a sub-$2000 price tag, thanks to Taiwanese production and other economies derived from Easy Racers' partnership with Sun Bicycles. BROL has a thorough writeup of the bike here.

We aren't Easy Racers dealers, but this is such an iconic product I thought it was worth noting. Whenever an old school recumbent fan is contemplating a newer LWB bike, their first question for us is always "How does it compare with a Tour Easy?"

The new Tour Easy LE will be available through Sun's distributor, so it's available to us at TTR. 

I caught this on Urban Velo this morning:

  

 This will show at the 2009 Bicycle Film Festival June 17-21 in NYC.

Speaking of bikes and movies, The City of Greenville is honoring National Bike Month by screening "Breaking Away " as part of its Moonlight Movies series. Get your Dennis Quaid fix this Wednesday, May 27 at the Peace Center Amphitheater. The show starts at dusk.

Whoops. Today's heavy rains have caused the Moonlight Movie to be cancelled. Visit Bikeville for details.

. . . at least one of these might get ridden this week. 

It seems like 7 days of vacation and two generations worth of extra child care is about what it takes for me to plan a bike ride of more than 5 miles.

 Per the website, we're closed until Saturday the 23rd. 

We've got new bags in stock. Lots.

We just got big new shipments from Ortlieb and Detours. We've got a good selection of Ortlieb's touring panniers in stock, and we are now carrying some of their city/lifestyle bags. New to us are the Bike-Shopper, Velocity, and the Zip-City messenger bag. All of these bags have the same attributes as the touring panniers—they are 100% waterproof, feature smart thoughtful design, super-tough construction, and the industry's best mounting system. Made in Germany, OK?

I'm really high on these, too:

This is a close-up look at one of Detours' new line of bags. They already make great, cost-effective touring panniers and stylish urban bags that look good enough to carry while off the bike. Now they have a series of bags that use a front panel of woven bamboo and grasses, and side panels made from post-consumer plastic. Check it:

Also new this year are the Juicy bags, which are one-of-a-kind works of art woven from recycled fruit juice containers. They're made in the Phillipines by a woman-owned co-operative that provides a living wage for local workers while recycling tons of garbage yearly. Read about it.

So, come celebrate National Bike Month with a new bag. 

There are a lot of interesting events planned for Bike Month in Greenville. There's one coming up on Friday that's exciting for two reasons:

First, leaving work at lunchtime on a Friday for a bike ride? Exciting.

Second, it's going to become a regular ride—the third Friday of every month. As Greenville's planned trails and greenways come online, I can see this becoming a really great local event.

It's at 12:00 pm on May 15 at Linky Stone park! 

A Bikevillian—I always want to say Bikevillain—brought this to my attention while we were on bike valet duty at Artisphere this afternoon. This is our Conference Bike being spun around town by Leadership Greenville: