The Minneapolis Police Department has been taking heat for its license plate tracking records, but cars aren't the only way to get monitored around town.

About two weeks ago, Nice Ride published usage data for the 2012 season. Quickly, writers on the Minneapolis Bike Love forum and a local blogger realized that they could de-anonymize the information (read: link it to a specific person). After they voiced concerns, Nice Ride removed the database, and now is reassessing what it shares.

See Also:
- MPD's license plate data allows stalkers to track their victims using public data
- Nice Ride hits 500,000 trips
- Melissa Hill's new blog allows you to "Track the Police" using public data


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Thirteen Of Clubs via Flickr Creative Commons

Any city with a pants-less ride has to make the top of the bike lists. Here, Freedom From Pants riders line up outside the Soap Factory in 2011.

Minneapolis has garnered top bike marks from Walk Score, League of American Bicyclists, Shermans Travel, and most prestigious (and controversial), Bicycling magazine.

See Also:
- Portland douses some Haterade on Mpls after regaining Bicycling.com's Best Bike City honor
- Freedom From Pants: Patriotic nudity at its best
- Minneapolis named most bikeable city... in part because it's so damn flat here

Now, we have another to add to the list: National adventure magazine Outside has named us one of the top ten best places to hop on a bike not just around the country, but across the continent.
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Kelsey Reid

Four Toronto visitors, in town for two days on a business trip, went sightseeing on Nice Rides.

SEE ALSO:
- NiceRide's biggest-in-the-nation bike sharing starts tomorrow [Map]
- North Minneapolis may see some Nice Ride action
- Blue Cross drops $1.5 million money bomb on Nice Ride
- Nice Ride Minnesota secures major funding for expansion

Earlier this week, not long after noon, an anonymous cyclist checked out a Nice Ride bike and brought the two-and-a-half year old bike sharing program up to its 500,000th trip.

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Twin Cities TV anchors have had a tough time with their bikes this summer.

SEE ALSO: WCCO anchor Mike Binkley's bike stolen during Bike Walk to Work Day

Randy Shaver is off the air indefinitely after breaking his arm and bruising his handsome face in a Tuesday morning bike accident.

Shaver, a KARE 11 TV personality since 1983, usually goes for a three-mile run each morning. But yesterday he decided to change his routine and go for his first bike ride of the season. It turned out to be a regrettable choice.

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WCCO

This ended up being the last time Binkley saw him shiny new Trek, unfortunately.

WCCO's Mike Binkley experienced one of the potential downsides to bike commuting last Friday during Bike Walk to Work Day.

Shortly after filming a segment trumpeting the fact the morning news anchor biked to WCCO's downtown Minneapolis newsroom before sunrise -- complete with footage of him locking his bike along Marquette Avenue with a cable lock -- Binkley returned outside and realized his silver and blue Trek 2.1C had been heisted.

"I guess the cable lock didn't work," Binkley said. "Those are pretty easy to cut, I now know."

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Portlandians are no doubt miffed their city wasn't chosen for the unveiling.

Eat it, Portland!

The U.S. Postal Service chose Minneapolis as the place to unveil its new series of four bicycle-themed stamps during a ceremony yesterday. Each stamp depicts a different type of biker -- a child just learning to ride with training wheels, a commuter pedaling to work, a road racer intent on the finish line, and an airborne BMX rider.

Said Mayor RT Rybak: "It's fitting that the Postal Service has chosen Minneapolis for the national release of new bicycle stamps during Twin Cities Bike Walk Week."

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Bicycling.com thinks Portlandians love bikes just a little bit more than us, apparently.

Two years ago, Portland, after reigning as Bicycling.com's Best Bike City for 15 years, ceded the title to Minneapolis.

Though Bicycling.com's methodology is pretty fuzzy, the news prompted wailing and gnashing of teeth in PDX, including this column from Bike Portland that attempts to come to terms with why Minneapolis usurped the Best Bike City throne.

This morning, Bicycling.com released a new version of its biannual list, and suffice it to say Portlandians can breathe easy once again -- their city again rates as the Best Bike City.

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Wired

BMX bikers might like some more hills, but commuters surely appreciate Mpls' flatness.

Sure, Minneapolis has great bike trails, a dedicated cadre of cycling commuters and all that jazz... but it may be our city's Midwestern flatness that puts us over the top as the nation's top biking destination.

You see, Walk Score rated Minneapolis as the most bikeable city in America using an algorithm that includes "Hills" as one of its five factors. And, of course, Minneapolis is about as flat as Miley Cyrus' stomach.

With an overall bikeability score of 79, Minneapolis emerged as by far and away the most bikeable city. The nine-point gap between Minneapolis and second-place Portland is larger than the eight-point gap between Portland and 10th-place Chicago.

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The only thing Minneapolitans like more than bikes is... actually, we can't think of anything City of Lakers are more fond of.

​By now, you've probably heard that Minneapolitans have a serious crush on bikes.

The love affair hasn't gone unnoticed by travel and bicycle writers. Two years after Minneapolis was named the best bike city by Bicycling magazine, it was recently honored as the fifth-best cycling city in a new study by Shermans Travel.

Why does Minneapolis' biking culture get less love from Shermans than from Bicycling, especially when residents of the City of Lakes have only fallen deeper in love with bikes during the past two years? The answer isn't totally clear, but still, fifth is nothing to sneeze at.

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Bikes are the hottest thing in Minneapolis since Josh Hartnett.

​Have you heard that Minneapolitans have a crush on bikes?

The rumored love affair was confirmed yesterday by new Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Shaun Murphy during his presentation of the city's first-ever Bicycle Account, a summary of bicycle activity Murphy plans to make a biannual tradition.

If Murphy is to believed, it appears the city might be ready to go steady with its favorite two-wheeled mode of transportation.

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