Kinetic Steam Works Roll Out takes place this Saturday, November 14th where KSW will be rolling out their big steam powered toys at their new HQ in in West Oakland.

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Forget about fixies, Grand Rapids, MI design company Jruiter has created a really cool prototype for a minimalistic inner city bike. The design is so simplified to the point that it doesn’t even have a chain, instead the pedals directly drive the back wheel. Of course the next logical step would be to remove the brakes.

Our project, simplicity in inner city bicycling, was at first glance a fun aesthetic opportunity in new trends, color, and materials. Our target lived / worked in an inner city environment with minimal space. Bicycling at this level can be more about fashion and culture than speed and performance.

After the first few brainstorm sessions we knew there where bigger opportunities. The project ended up rethinking what a “frame” meant, getting ride of basic key components, and creating a new type of compact bicycling. Inspired by the first the “hobby horse” from it’s simplicity and secondly the cafe race scene. Each is an exercise in stripping something down to its core.

via Core77

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photo via Form & Reform

The Electrobite Olenoides is a wonderful metal trilobite vehicle that you can ride around on, build from an electric wheelchair . It was created for Burning Man 2009 by our friends Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate of Form & Reform, the same guys who made the SS Alpha Fox and Golden Mean Snail Car.

The Electrobite is featured on latest episode of Boing Boing Video, which was shot in September during Dorkbot SF #47 at TCHO in San Francisco.

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photo by Plomo Media

San Francisco Citizen directs our attention to Plomo Media’s awesome photo of a raccoons queuing up for a bus on the MUNI #18 46 Ave line at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

via Troy Holden

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Chris Carlsson and Hugh D’Andrade recently launched sfcriticalmass.org, a new blog documenting the history of San Francisco’s Critical Mass bike ride that happens on the last Friday of each month. Starting in 1992, San Francisco Critical Mass was the first Critical Mass bike event, spawning hundreds of Critical Mass rides around the world. Check out the SF Critical Mass FAQ for more info on the event.

What is Critical Mass?

Critical Mass is a mass bicycle ride that takes place on the last Friday of each month in cities around the world. Everyone is invited! No one is in charge! Bring your bike!

You can also follow San Francisco Critical Mass on Twitter: sfcriticalmass

photo by Steve Rhodes

Their most recent post documents last Friday’s October Halloween Critical Mass. Here are more photos of the Halloween ride by Steve Rhodes.

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Tony Alfrey of Sci-Experiments gives a detailed analysis of what caused The Famous Bay Bridge Crack, along with some close-up photos of the damage.

See Also: Bay Bridge Eyebar Repair Photos

via Eddie Codel

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Erin Jang created a special poster for her three year old nephew who loves the NYC subway system. She included all of his favorite places. Here’s a larger version.

via Coudal Partners

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A couple of weeks ago Burrito Justice came across a wonderful 1961 General Electric (GE) ad scanned by Eric Fisher showing a future BART system crossing the Golden Gate bridge. Here are more of Eric’s scans of San Francisco transit.

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guest post by RICK!

This month’s Tweed Ride concluded with a match of wits and brawn amongst ladies and Gents, the Chap Olympiad!

Events included:

Umbrella Jousting!

Cucumber Sandwich Toss!

Mustache Tug-’o-War!

3-Legged Pipe Smoking Relay!

Get on the Tweed mailing list to learn about the next one. Special thanks to Joseph Hren for conceiving and organizing the event. It was all quite silly.

photos by RICK!

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The marvelous Cupcake Cars, which make regular appearances at Burning Man and Maker Faire, are now available through Neiman Marcus for a cool $25,000 each.

Put on your matching hat, slip under the muffin top of your Cupcake Car, and let the world figure itself out for awhile. Get (or give) the sheer, joyful chaos of a gift that is mind-blowing, triple-dog-dare, double-infinity forever cool. Make the kids or grandkids literally squeal with joy. Bring it to work and buzz the breakroom. Crash parades! Putter about the ‘hood. Ever had a crowd of kids chasing after you just for the crazy gleeful heck of it? (No worries, the top speed is a comfy-safe 7 mph.) What’s it made of? A 24-volt electric motor, a heavy-duty battery, sheet metal, wire, fabric, wood…and mad genius. Launched at Burning ManSM as a cooperative art car project, the Cupcake Car sprang from the fevered mind of Bay Area artist Lisa Pongrace and her less-rules-more-laughs posse of artists and techno geeks. Yours will be tricked out with your favorite topping, so start thinking flavors.

Thanks to Spacemonkey for the tip!

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Nathaniel Kassel rides his bike around New York City giving high fives to people who are hailing cabs. The people’s reactions are priceless.

via The Presurfer

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photos by Violet Blue

Two Muni F-Line historic Streetcars made an SUV sandwich this evening on Market Street near Noe. Violet Blue was on the scene and shot a few cellphone photos.

UPDATE: SF Appeal, Muni Diaries, SFist and SFGate have more coverage of the accident.

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kvertrees shot some fascinating time-lapse video showing NYC’s Manhattan Bridge flexing as subway trains passes over it.

Thanks to Rob (yes that one) for the tip!

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In the spring of 2008 Canadian pop-folk band Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a two week tour when they witnessed a United Airlines baggage handler throwing around the band’s guitars, severely damaging lead signer Dave Carroll’s Taylor guitar. Frustrated with United’s lack of compensation, the band decided to write 3 songs about the incident. They just released the first song, “United Breaks Guitars”. Dave explains the full story on his website.

Thanks to Lori Dorn for the tip!

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Exit Strategy NYC is a mobile app available for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Android, and Kindle that helps you decide exactly where to stand on the subway so that you’ll be closest to the exit, saving time on your trip.

Taking the 6 train uptown to Grand Central? Ride in the 8th car for the best exit to the Main Concourse. Need to transfer to the L at Union Square from the N downtown? Ride in the 1st car. Detailed diagrams eliminate the guesswork and frustration from your ride, making your subway trip easier and faster. Be prepared, beat the crowds.

Thanks to Jason Laskodi for the tip!

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photo by Walter Koning

Walter Koning has designed a great series of MUNI Shirts that pay tribute popular San Francisco transit lines. Celebrate public transportation with style!

Thanks to Anders Porter for the tip!

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guest post by Jackson West

Boulder, CO artist Chris Yates created an abstract, London Tube-style map of Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system which you can buy as a print for $12 plus shipping.  You know, in case you’re planning to defend the United States from a full scale ground invasion and need to move tanks from Butte to Buffalo as Eisenhower was.  Otherwise, it brings to mind history, geography and transportation into one thought-provoking image.

Via Mark Schoenveld of The Poverty Jet Set, who also included another fascinating and beautifully designed illustration showing estimates of when worldwide mineral resources will be exhausted by industrial production.  According to that graphic, key components in the cars that travel the aforementioned byways, including silver, aluminum, chrome and platinum may run out before even world oil reserves.

I don’t think Ike ever imagined building the world’s largest, national, paved bike trail network, but according to these maps that seems to be where this road trip is headed.

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Virgin America just became the first airline to offer WiFi on all of the flights in its fleet. VA uses the Gogo In-Flight service to provide onboard internet access, the rates are based on the length of the flight.

In April I wrote my first blog post from 37,000 feet on a Virgin America flight from SFO to LAX.

Hopefully more airlines will follow this example in the near future by equipping their entire fleet. A few airlines have already started the process.

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photo by Scott Beale

Honest parking meters are hard to come by, so it’s nice to see one confessing their own failure. Don’t worry little guy, you’ll be back to extorting motorists soon enough.

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Mission Bicycle, co-founded by Zack Rosen, makes beautiful, customized light steel frame fixed gear bikes. They are opening a new store in San Francisco, located at 766 Valencia Street (at 19th) in The Mission of course.

We started Mission Bicycle because we weren’t satisfied with the bicycles sold in bike stores. The best bicycles on the streets of San Francisco are the custom built fixed gear bikes those with the know-how are building up for themselves and friends. It didn’t make sense to us that these bikes were not available to everyone else so we set out to change that.

Mission Bicycle is having their grand opening party this weekend (May 16th & 17th).

Join us anytime on Saturday or Sunday to meet the guys behind the gears, build a bike, eat some tasty vegan grub, and mix with members of the Mission and SF bicycling communities.

Zack has more about how he helped start Mission Bicycle on his blog.

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