According to a local fixed gear aficionado/friend, “There’s talk of a ‘bike Olympics’ competition that would potentially include bike polo, Goldsprints (racing on rollers) and a bike toss (as in, how far you can throw an already wrecked frame). No confirmation on this yet.”

Participants are encouraged to bring bike parts for Cycles of Change, an East Bay program that provides cycling and nutrition education to urban youth. The organization offers a summer touring program that takes young students on bike trips around California after teaching them about safe urban riding. Sounds like something we could all use.

Maybe I went to Sunday’s Good Magazine party at 111 Minna with expectations that were too high. But last year’s subscriber event seemed to draw a bigger and more excitable crowd, not to mention a larger number of sustainable and creative companies. Nau was notably missing this year, but that could be part of their near-miss closing and upcoming restart.

Still, to be fair, the sidewalk party and its solar-powered stage are a fun excuse to spend an afternoon sipping Dark and Stormys (or chai if that’s more to your liking). I like the work the magazine is doing to make young people more aware of international affairs, even if it takes boxed wine vendors to get us to put our money where our mouths are.

Yesterday’s piece on Valencia Street, “Hipster Hunting Ground,” wasn’t quite as offensive, but it still seemed to view the Corridor through a Brooklyn lens. The Curiosity Shoppe, Paxton Gate, Spork, and Ritual Roasters were all featured, and fairly. I was surprised, however, that Dosa was featured while Range didn’t get a mention; the same for Little Star (maybe I’m just a sucker for the jukebox and heirloom tomatoes). The piece, while limited in length, doesn’t capture the neighborhood’s character and even gets lazy toward the end: “Like the street itself, [Amnesia's] lineup is full of surprises.”

I’m a big fan of Clara Seasholtz, the founder of the organization that raises money for a low-cost bicycles that farmers use to transport supplies and 130-pound bags of beans. Seasholtz helped the group provide more than 250 bikes to farmers last year and is currently focusing on opening bike shops in Rwanda to teach communities how to care for and build bikes. She’s on a Northern California trip this week, and I admire her unique approach to using what she knows (the American coffee industry) to impact what she saw as problematic (Rwandan farmers lacking transportation to increase their marketability). Now that deserves some table tennis.