What do Lance Armstrong and bicycle commuting, two topics you would not have thought to combine together, have in common?  Looks like Lance wants to open up a bike shop in Austin, Texas that will be called Mellow Johnny's in May of 2008 (this year).  Mellow Johnny's is a take off of what's called the "yellow jersey" leader from the Tour de France which is "maillot jaune" in French.

"This city is exploding downtown. Are all these people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting," Armstrong said.

Last weekend we had the 4th Annual North American Hand Made Bicycle (site) show here in Portland.  And Lance showed up.  Here's what he had to say when he got back to Austin.

Armstrong said he'd like to see Austin evolve into a place like Portland, Ore., where biking is part of the culture and people pedal to work, to restaurants and to run errands. "Walk outside, and the streets are lined with bikes — because they have a safe place to ride," Armstrong said of the city long known for its bicycle-friendly amenities and policies.

Here's the link to the full article.

Since moving out here my focus has switched more to commuting than to bike racing.  While there's many factors that attribute to that and I'm hoping to balance that out this year with a few more races than last year, commuting has by bike has been a great point of conversation for meeting new people.

It would be great to have a household name like Lance Armstrong to get behind a great alternative to cars.  He could bring lots of money and focus into cycling which could bring better technologies, getting more women to cycle, and more businesses and politicians to take cycling as a serious option to getting back and forth to work and running minor errands.

Later