It’s a lazy slow summer here at Bikejuju HQ – both of the family blogs are suffering as we enjoy outdoor activities, travel, concerts, the World Cup, and a slower pace. Still, a month ago on Facebook I promised a prize drawing for Facebook fans, and finally my junior assistant and I have made it happen.

The prize is a Planet Bike Spok blinkie, great for nighttime visibility as you come home from movies, concerts, or other summertime evening activities. As always, we used the Bikejuju Fat Tire Prize Hat for the drawing, a classic piece of Americana hand-crafted by Matt down at Tacoma Bike Ranch (who is currently raffling off a very similar hat!).

And the winner is:

Well actually, I have two blinkies, so we went ahead and drew a couple of names. The winners are Bikejuju Facebook fans Aaron Sharar and Jim Bennett.

Congratulations Aaron and Jim! Send me a message with your mailing address, and the blinkies are yours!

PS: I’ve had good response to the 60-second, four question Bikejuju reader survey, and I’ll be wrapping it up soon, and making a few decisions about tweaking the focus and direction of Bikejuju. If you haven’t taken it yet, please do. It is anonymous and literally four quick multiple-choice questions.

I just noticed that Bikejuju is one year old. One year ago I thought I’d give blogging a try, and after waffling about it for a while, on March 13 I posted a simple post about Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel “readymade.”

Now here’s the funny thing – a year later, and against all odds, that first post is still a page that people find on Bikejuju and come to every single day! Apparently it turns up pretty high in the Google search results for “bicycle wheel Marcel Duchamp.“  Yes, out of more than a hundred posts in the last year, that and the posts about naked cyclists are still two of the the most frequently accessed pages in the whole database.

Not the monkeys or the tall bikes in Indonesia or the fixie in Lagos or the freak bikes or the bicycles of Ethiopia or all the other posts of amazing bike art. No, it’s Duchamp and naked cyclists that people seem to want. Weird, huh?

Anyway, it seems Bikejuju is here to stay, so at long last I’ve set up a Facebook Bikejuju page, and in order to entice you to become a “fan,” I’m giving away a prize: a Planet Bike Blaze one watt headlight left over from the Dark Days winter solstice photo contest.

If you become a fan of the Bikejuju page on Facebook before April 1, you’ll be entered to win it (if you have a US mailing address).

It’s that simple.

Thanks for reading. Stick around for year number two. It’s going to be fun.

I used an extremely high-tech method (“close eyes and draw”) to divine the winner at random from among the twenty entrants, and Kendall was the lucky one tonight! Kendall, you win your choice of t-shirt from the online store Ex-Boyfriend Collection (Utah-based Kendall writes a great blog called Confessions of a Bike Junkie – click on over there!). Thanks to everyone who posted a comment and entered to win. More contests soon!

And thanks again to Baltimore-based designer and screen printer Matt, who runs Ex-Boyfriend and carries this great design he calls, simply, bike love ($24).

In last week’s t-shirt post I neglect to mention a few favorite local designers/printers! How Lame!

Bellingham’s Red Boots Design has this bike parts shirt, along with several other cycle designs, in their Etsy shop. Seattle artist and cyclist Karl Addison’s Partybots line also has several great designs including this brand new print, Vintage Bike Couple. Red Boots Design also caries this great trike shirt called I roll on 12s.

Meanwhile up on Guemas Island, Slow Loris has been screening this lovely bike onto shirts of all shapes and sizes, from their solar-powered slow studio.

Remember, anyone who comments anywhere on Bikejuju though Sunday will be entered into a drawing, with the prize being your choice of any shirt from online shirt emporium Ex-Boyfriend (including this bike love design). Leave some words!

A funny thing happened on Christmas. Without consulting each other, my wife, parents, and sister-in-law all bought me bicycle-themed t-shirts. Bike t-shirts are cool! Part of the reason I got so many is that when I see one I like on the web, I add it to my wish list. A list that made the rounds before Christmas, apparently.

Here are some great bicycle t-shirt designs. If you have other faves, post a link in the comments!

CottonFactory sells this groovy shirt design called All Hail The Wheelie King for just $9.99, and the cog-centric design the machine ($21.99) as well as several other bike designs.

Portland’s awesome Microcosm Publishing offers a plethora of fantastic stuff including the Aaron Renier-designed chainring heart shirt ($12) and the Joe Biel-designed evolution shirt ($12).

If you passion lies more in the direction of Africa, and bicycles as tools of empowerment and economic liberation, consider supporting the Bamboo Bike Project ($25) or Kona’s Afribike project ($15).

But enough of that – we need more headless hipsters! Etsy seller DarkCycleClothing has a variety of cycle designs including these aquatic peddlers ($18.00) in their Etsy shop.

I’ve always loved this bikefish design ($18), which PedalPushersClub calls “By far the most popular shirt in our esteemed history.” And since it was announced today that the Hummer brand will be dissolved, this shirt seems especially appropriate!

Several vendors sell t-shirts of Posada’s print Calaveras en Bicicleta including Zuni Treasures and Sol Imports ($17.99) though I think this simple image of a skeleton from RedMolotov (£14.99) is also neat.

Or maybe you’d rather just keep it simple, with this penny farthing ($12) from Etsy seller TheBoldBanana, or fixie from the imaginatively-named FixedGearShirts.com ($19.99).

And finally, the free stuff!

Baltimore-based designer and screen printer Matt runs an online shirt emporium called Ex-Boyfriend and carries this design he calls, simply, bike love ($24). Matt’s a Bikejuju reader and he was kind enough to offer a free shirt as a contest prize. And not just this bike love t-shirt, either! The winner can choose from any of his designs at ex-boyfriendcollection.com.

Winners will be selected randomly from the comments made on Bikejuju between now and March 7. So leave a comment on any post, anywhere on the blog, with a working e-mail address, and I’ll announce a winner on March 8. Good luck!

We have photo contest winners!

First, thanks to all the amazing photographers who submitted bicycle-themed nighttime images, and thanks again to the great sponsors Planet Bike and Bikeglow who provided prizes. Ryan from GoMeansGo and I finally managed to settle on winners, after looking long and hard at all the entries.

The winner of the Planet Bike winter commuter package, which was selected by the staff at Planet Bike, is Mark Magnussun.  For his photo Düsseldorf Winter Landscape Mark wins a set of Cascadia fenders, a mini pump, a Blaze 2W or Blaze Dynamo headlight, a SuperFlash rear light, and a saddle bag with tire levers and patch kit. (Let that be a lesson to you: next year submit a photo with an umlaut in the title!)

Ryan and I chose Tim Kainu as having submitted the best overall images – we disagreed slightly on which was our favorite, but heartily agreed that he was tops overall. Tim wins a nice prize package worth over $100 – a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light.

For the best Northwest image, the prize goes to Robin, aka Ray Tracing who submitted some great shots from two Seattle nighttime photo shoots done for the contest. Robin wins a full prize package – a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light.

And for most creative image, the prize goes to this awesome long exposure that was submitted by Twin Cities Brightest very early in the contest. Twin Cities Brightest also wins a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light. If anyone will put lights to good use, it’s him!

But that’s not all! Planet Bike was kind enough to throw even more lights in the box they sent me, so Ryan and I chose a few more winners.

There were lots of “in motion on the street” shots submitted, of those we chose this ghostly commuter image from Ken Kraft as the winner of a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie.

Sweendo gets a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth for his creative Northwest submissions that were close runners up in several categories.

DPJ gets a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie for the great images submitted.

If Flickr user Carol Torres in Sao Paolo can come up with a USA address for me to mail it to, she can get a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie for her photo from Amsterdam.

And finally, because we ran out of prizes long before we ran out of great photos, Flickr user Cosmicmotionstudios gets our last Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! Your photos are all amazing.

Winners: I am trying to reach you, but if you see this first, email juju@bikejuju.com with your mailing address (US or Canada only), and if you are Tim, Ray or TCB, state your order of preference for a blue, red or white Bikeglow unit, and for a black or white Planet Bike Blaze. First folks to express a preference will get priority, and I’ll give up on contacting all winners by late January and give any leftover prizes away in future contests.

The Dark Days are ending and the days are getting longer! Happy holidays! Bikejuju will be on hiatus till 2010. (But meanwhile you can also see my photos of a pretty blue Chinese Phoenix bike in Ethiopia).

Thanks to everyone who participate in my Action Wipes giveaway. I’ve been slightly delayed in announcing the results because I got carried away building the special Bicycle Wheel of Juju in order to select the winner at random!

But finally, the paint had dried enough that we could give it a spin, and the winner is: Kendall! Kendall also has a well-named blog: Confessions of a Bike Junkie.

Ok, I confess, I didn’t really make the Bicycle Fortune Wheel. It was made for a bicycle art exhibit shown during Tour of California 2007.

Bicycle Fortune Wheel is a carnival-style fortune-telling machine created by United Catalysts out of old bicycle parts. Cranking the pedal spins the wheel, which comes to rest on one of a series of paintings that can then be interpreted by the viewer. Created for the Long Beach SPIN! Project in 2007, the machine includes fortune symbols especially relevant to visitors and residents of Long Beach, such as an open parking space, the Queen Mary sinking, and a frothy mug of beer.

Thanks again to Martha and Action Wipes for supporting this giveaway.

A quick weekly compendium before we get to the main event (today’s entry written while sporting the stylish Fat Tire beer can hat I won from Tacoma Bike Ranch!):

• These knickers are on sale at REI, and the dude modeling them has some wasting disease afflicting his calves. Or maybe he is a double amputee walking on flesh-colored stilts? I dunno, but it’s freaking me out.
• You probably saw this Sunday New York Times article exploring the evidence that drivers on cell phones are homicidally distracted, but in case you didn’t, it’s worth reading. And terrifying (though not quite as terrifying as whoever is shooting blowgun darts at Seattle cyclists).
• A Minneapolis lawyer was arrested for indecent exposure while cycling “wearing a skirt-like garment or a pair of shorts with the crotch area removed.”  His excuse? He “told officers that he was training for a naked bicycle race.”
• Bikerowave LA found a space! (Here!)
• In other news, there is some kind of cycle event happening in France.

Action Wipes Giveaway Raffle
Now to the main event. It’s been unseasonably warm in Seattle this summer (the locals refer to it as “hot,” apparently not knowing that term is reserved for temperatures above 90 degrees). My daily commute takes me from the High Point neighborhood (literally the highest point in Seattle) to my office on First Hill, so it finishes with a hill no matter which way I am headed. Mornings I inevitably leave the house late and do my best to keep up with carbon fiber roadies on East Marginal Way, and then if I’m feeling masochistic, I make like a messenger up Yesler. Leaving me a sweaty mess when I arrive in my building, where there are no showers or bicycle facilities, other than a sad, overcrowded rack in the parking garage.

Not to sound like an infomercial, but I recently discovered Action Wipes (“natural, full body wet wipes for when you can’t shower”). Action Wipes aren’t quite a substitute for a shower, but they do make the transition from sweaty to meeting-ready much more pleasant, and the outcome less… fragrant (I think my office mate is probably a bigger fan than I am!). They have a mild-but-tingly, tea tree/eucalyptus scent.

Martha at Action Wipes was kind enough to add a freebie to my recent order, sending me a 5-pack to give away on the blog, so here we go. The raffle is open until midnight next Friday, July 31, at which time one lucky random winner will be mailed a packet of 5 Action Wipes. In order to enter, please do one of these two things between now and July 31 (midnight Seattle time):

• Link to any page on Bikejuju.com from your blog or website (Twitter does not count) and email me the URL of the page with the link,
• Subscribe to receive Bikejuju posts by email, or
• Post a comment anywhere on Bikejuju.com (enter a working email, it will not be shown in the comment)

One entry per email address, winner drawn at random on August 1st. Good luck, sweaty cyclists

PS #1: Bikedate was kind enough to write about this post and link to it, saying that he was introduced to Action Wipes by this post on (the awesomely redesigned) Bike Skirt blog. It’s a circle of blog Action Wipes love!

PS#2: In the last 24 hours over 100 of you have seen this post, yet there is a paucity of comments. So I’m guessing either you’re shy, you’re not interested in receiving free stuff, you lack sweat glands (and thus don’t need Action Wipes), or you came here in search of naked cyclists and everything else bores you…