Cycling a virtual Tour de France on the bike of the future

There are lots of cities where it's good to be a cyclist, but some are truly two-wheel paradises. The newly released Copenhagenize Index 2013, produced by the Copenhagenize Design Co., ranked 150 cities around the world on 13 parameters, including cycling facilities, culture, sharing program, gender split, politics, and traffic calming.

There is light at hand for those who toil away in a poorly-lit office. Scientists at the CeBIT high-tech fair have developed a system that gives the feeling of working outside under blue skies.The system, called "virtual sky", uses large flat-screen ceiling panels with 288 tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that can each produce red, blue, green and white -- giving a total of 16 million colour combinations.The LEDs can also create moving shapes, such as clouds, and reflect the changing light of the day, including sunrises and sunsets, depending on the time.

A few hours after registration opened on Monday for Citi Bike, New York City's new bike sharing system, 2,500 people had signed up.

Last fall, my wife’s bike was stolen. Don’t be too sympathetic. The bike was a hand-me-down from my dad that wasn’t really the right frame size for her.

Reddening, a rivulet of sweat running across her cheek, Amy McCullough hunched over the stationary bike, pumped her legs like crazy and began producing serious power.

As if professional bicycling didn't have enough image problems with all the doping scandals, now come fears that some riders may be trying to hook up secret motors to their bikes. When the Tour de France starts next weekend, officials will be scanning bikes for the devices. Guest host Audie Cornish speaks to Loren Mooney, editor-in-chief of Bicycling magazine, about the International Cycling Union's new testing of Tour de France riders for motors hidden in their bike frames.

The world's biggest high-tech fair, the CeBIT, welcomed more visitors than last year, organisers said Sunday, despite the crisis wracking the economy and the IT industry.Over the five days of the fair, in the northern German city of Hanover, a total of 334,000 people visited the stands showcasing the latest gadgets and technology.Compared to the first five days of last year's fair, which ran for a total of six days, this represented a 3.7-percent rise, said Hartwig von Sass, a CeBIT spokesman.

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford on Thursday denied he was under pressure to deliver after the rich new British outfit set its sights on an ambitious Tour de France title.Brailsford, a key architect of Britain's eight cycling golds at the 2008 Olympics, said he welcomed the challenge of trying to produce the country's first ever winner at the blue riband event."It's bike racing. Nobody ever died from a lack of bike racing," Brailsford told AFP during the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Sky's debut race.