Two has always been the magic number for us over here at WineandWheels. A recent article might have us a bit persuaded, though, considering … well, ok, it’s just pretty darn neat: a bicycle built for four. Over at Sci Fi Tech they write:

Biking is all well and good, but unless you only eat baguettes it’s tough to ride one to the grocery store, not to mention toting the kids to soccer practice on one. However, nothing really beats moving at a quick clip with the wind blowing through your hair, pedaling your heart out. Enter the HumanCar Quadcycle.

Now, we don’t have anything against baguettes, and we do ride our tandem #2 to get groceries once and a while, but we have to admit that this quadcycle brings the Flintstone cartoon pitter-pat sound of feet to our ears, and reminds us that much of the sport of bicycling isn’t concerned with time trials, artificial hormones, or the shape of your helmet. The sport of bicycling is, after all, a social activity wherein one connoisseur meets with another and they “expert” with each other for a while about their expertise. Sound like wineries? Hmmm… maybe we’re on to something here.

You probably know that we’re really into corks here at WineandWheels. Well then, we won’t waste your time reminiscing, here’s a new prototype we’re working on — the wine cork door knob. Why? Let’s just say there’s a certain Je ne sais pas to using wine corks for everyday function.

And speaking of French, or in French for that matter, if you decide to make a cork-knob, try the corks from previously-reviewed Red Bicyclette (they say Bonjour! on them!).

–Eric Mills

Well the weekend is here and we will all, hopefully, have our fun, our sun, and our projects. What’s that? You need something to do? Bring out the power tools, here’s your first project:

Over at the Blue Collar Mountain Biking site, they have a great post from a little over a year ago on how to build your very own ‘blue collar bicycle stand.’ I modified the support structure a bit, and added a few more bolts here an there, and that’s it. It should be enough to hold a light-weight tandem for some simple tuning of brakes and spokes. And, most of all, it was fun. You may download the plans for this project here, or view them as a full resolution image. What’s that you say? You need a wine to accompany your build-a-tandem-bicycle-stand project?

Might I recommend the politically-savvy and well-branded 2004 Red Bicyclette Chardonnay? Chill it deeply, that is, deeper than you normally would because you’ll be in the sunshine, out doors, working on this bike stand. Fitting and apt for your project is the wine label, although this time we here at wineandwheels.com did not purchase the bottle because we have a bad habit of prejudging a wine by its label. Nope. This time we bought it because, well, we’re American and it has the word “bicyclette!”

Gerry Glasgow, the vice president of marketing for E & J Gallo Winery, upon traveling to France with other Gallo executives comments on the almost 5,000 photos they returned with:

Red bicycles seemed to recur in the pictures [...] but red bikes sounded American, so it became Red Bicyclette. French, but easily translatable (emphasis added).

Baguettes in a handlebar basket, a bicyclist in a beret, and a little dog (with a baguette in its mouth, how bone-afied!) were added and a brand image was born. Finally, as Frank Prial, no stranger to the catch phrase wrote last year for the New York Times:

Studies have shown that 90 percent of all wine drunk in this country is consumed within 30 days after it is purchased, indicating that aging and cellaring are irrelevant for most consumers. Like Yellow Tail, the new Gallo line of French wines, Red Bicyclette, counts on a catchy name and clever packaging – not wine snobbery – to make sales.

So fear not if this isn’t in your cellar; get ye to a nunnery winery and pick up a bottle for the weekend.

I don’t know if anyone out there hates staying in motels that smell like cigarette smoke as much as we do, but the folks over at FreshStay.com have that one figured out.

They’ve designed a simple page in which you click around to search your region for accommodation with fresh air. That’s it. While you’re letting your fingers do the walking to find a nice, smoke-free hotel, you might also want to stop on by Farecast.com and have them tell you either, “buy now fares will rise” or “wait, fares will drop.” Neat. Take a look at FreshStay and Farecast.

After being completely enthralled with snacksby.com, the website wherein you type (in our case) the few contents of your pantry and they generate custom recipes, I’ve discovered another social site out there. Bikely seems really promising. They write: “put very simply, Bikely helps cyclists share knowledge of good bicycle routes. It can be quite tricky traversing a car dominated city by bicycle, particularly when you need to travel an unknown route to a new destination. But the chances are, someone has cycled that way before you. Bikely makes it easy for him or her to show you the best way.” Like Snacksby, though, Bikely relies on user input in order to grow, so head on over and start loading up your favorite bicycle routes!

While you’re at it, take a look at Paul Dorn’s bicycle commuting tips. Among his tips, he advises, “When considering your route, don’t think like a motorist. Think like a cyclist. Pick the most pleasant route. Look for streets with attractive scenery. Find the friendliest espresso stop. Part of the charm of bike commuting is that the pace allows you an opportunity to stop and smell the roses.” Happy commuting.

For as long as I have been dating/a part of the family, my father-in-law has wanted a Corvette. We here at WineandWheels have always joked about “when we win the lottery” a Corvette will be the first thing we purchase.

Until our 1 in 60 million chance comes up, though, here’s a neat “Corvette” that is a little more affordable. It even has a spoiler of sorts!

Now, is purchasing a bicycle because of its name the same as purchasing a bottle of wine because it has an interesting name/label? Are these one and the same?

Either way, take a look at the craigslist post for this bike here, and see what awards it has won here.

The father-in-law of disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has committed suicide. San Diego police say David Witt, the stepfather of Landis’ wife, Amber, has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Read more, and all related articles here.

Over where the folks are busy mocking up corporate logos to reflect the “web 2.0” styling, there’s an interesting thread on bicycles,

the love and loveliness of bicycles. Drawings! Stories! Photographs! Poetry! Let this thread be a homage to the wonder and joy of human-powered two-wheeled devicicles!

As the Internet becomes more and more social, sites are popping up all the time that are community based and highly useful. Here’s one, it’s a social site for wine enthusiasts called WineLog.

I’m happy to report that Vitiano, our longest-standing favorite wine, is rated 5 out of 5.

Wine bow writes of Vitiano:

A blend of equal parts Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese grapes grown in the region of Umbria. Vitiano is vinified in stainless steel tanks and aged in Nevers barrels for 3 months before being bottled. This is a young red wine with explosive, luscious aromas. The wine has a wonderful deep, ruby red color with a wide range of organoleptic qualities. It is rich in polyphenols and balanced acidity. This versatile red is at it’s best in its youth when the fresh fruit character is most evident. Vitiano is a perennial value

We’ve always been big fans of advertising, slogans, catch phrases, and just about anything with words. Here’s a neat bicycle-related advertisement from the very talented and very laid-back group in Boulder, Colorado “Crispin Porter + Bogusky.” We really dig the foot peace sign. Nice work!

I have a problem. I have a habit. It is a bicycle habit. I’m working on it, but nothing seems to help except riding bicycles. And, I do mean bicycles, plural. I believe the fleet count is up to around 9. This is the newest member of the clan, my Japanese folding bicycle.

Interestingly, the Japanese word for ‘folding bike’ uses the same ‘ori’ as in origami. Traveler Rob Ainsley writes:

It’s ‘oritatamijitensha’, which means rather prosaically ‘folding bike’. But then the Japanese language (spoken, easy; written, impossible) is rarely abstract. It’s largely concrete. Like the country.

Interested in the history of the folding bicycle? They say the first one was developed in France in the 1930s.

I’ve mentioned before my often less-than-desirable habit of purchasing
wine based only on the label, but this bottle was a no-brainer. Especially in light of my mother’s recent horse riding mishap, where she fractured her… um … you-know-what.

While picking up a fresh loaf of bread for our favorite honeymoon lunch in Sonoma County (wine, cheese, bread), I noticed this bottle in the country store. And the wine, you ask? I’m not much of a Cab person, myself, but it was a quite enjoyable, if not entirely sophisticated, wine to sip around the campfire on the Californian coast.

Cheers, Mom!

Ever since reading John Pollack’s Cork Boat I have experimented with extra-curricular uses for wine corks. One of my favorites has to be the pen holder I fashioned at our old apartment. This parking brake pictured on the left, though, while neat and probably useful, doesn’t seem all that functional.

Years ago on Lonelyplanet’s Thorntree, still one of the most comprehensive travel bulletin boards, someone suggested using a keyring as a theft deterrent. They said to slip a keyring up on the handlebar, and over one of the brake levers, to stop anyone from jumping on your ride and quickly leaving town. (Why locking the bike didn’t come up, I’ll never know). Debates still abound in the On Your Bike forum about brakes, and they most likely always will. I wonder, though, if giving the rear disc-brake a good twist wouldn’t be the best bet to keep your wheels from rolling away?

Wine corks are greatly useful, and aside from the bicycle brake, and the omnipresent wine cork bulletin board, I hope to have some more ideas soon. The above corkery was brought to you by Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools.

Anyone have any useful cork ideas? Leave them in the comments section by clicking the link below. Or email them to: tips@wineandwheels.com