Every now and again we all have to face the ugly reality of bike problems like flat tires and gears that don't work. It's easy when you can go to a good bike shop nearby but at some point it's great to know how to do it yourself.

Well, here's your chance to get on the ball. 3rd Ward, a Brooklyn organization that's committed to spreading bike love, is a member-based design center that holds over 100 different classes every season, including circuitry, crafts, web design, photography and woodworking, all are open to the public.

Got a nice tip today. Etsy's got tons of bicycle-related goods. My tipster brought me to a crafts person who makes bike art and goods from recycled bicycle materials: Rebicyclist. Here's a belt made from an old tire that you can pick up for $30 on Etsy.

In addition to belts, Rebicyclist makes key chains, buckles, and art, all made in the sweet city of Portland, OR.

I searched a bit more on Etsy (keyword "bike") and found a whole bunch of bike goods: T-shirts, posters, bags, coasters, note cards, etc... Here's the link to that "bike" search and some images (linked) to what you'll see there:

On a recent trip to the Midwest, we had the opportunity to try out Minneapolis’s new bike share program, Nice Ride, and the awesome Midtown Greenway. As out-of-towners, all we needed for a one day subscription was a valid credit card. The bikes were comfortable and easy to ride, with adjustable seats, three gears, fenders, and a front basket complete with a built-in bungee cord. We rode around the city for about two hours and saw at least twelve Nice Ride stations, some just a few blocks away from each other. Had we wanted to use them, all had available docks for our bikes. And after our ride, we had a delicious brunch at the bike-friendly Birchwood Cafe. Yum!

Some other highlights:

We launched a new service a few weeks ago called Biking Jobs. It's our hope that this will become a place where job seekers and business owners and managers in the world of biking can connect with one another.

We thought we'd highlight a few jobs that have have been posted during the past couple of weeks:

• The Recyclery Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit is looking for a part-time bike mechanic to work 10 to 20 hours per week. Read more...
• Alta Planning + Design, a Portland, Oregon-based consulting firm, is looking for a full-time planning manager to work on projects that help to create "more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly communities." Read more...
• Bike & Roll in Washington D.C. is looking for a full-time or part-time bike mechanic to help maintain its fleet of 500 bicycles for its Bike the Sites service. Read more...
• Transportation Alternatives -- a NYC-based non-profit that supports bikes, pedestrians and transit riders -- is looking for someone to help them build and design their website and other publications. Read more...

There are tons of other great jobs available on Biking Jobs, whether you're looking for work as a mechanic, non-profit manager, planner, or retail salesperson. 

Have a great weekend and stay cool!

Ok, let's get straight to it. Just in time for sizzling summer rides, bicyclists now have another way to get around on bike in Boston: Ride the City - Boston www.ridethecity.com/boston! Our bike routing covers the City of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton, and Milton. (The dotted red line on the map shows the approximate boundary for routing.)

If you'd prefer to get your bike routes on the iPhone, the app's available in the iTunes Store. (To learn about the iPhone app's functionality, check out our recent blog post).

We'd like to thank Mike Brady and Steven Falcon for the hours of GIS spend to make this happen, Nicole Freedman, Director of Bicycle Programs, for her insightful input, and the many others who gave us early feedback.

If you're new to Ride the City, feel free to play around. If you create an account, you can rate any street in the city so that Ride the City's reflect your own preferences. Learn more about that, and other tools to make mapping fun and easy in our FAQs.

Have fun & ride safe.

Back in April we launched the iPhone app for NYC (blog post). Since then we got plenty of feedback - hootin and hollering - requesting added features to make the app easier to use. We put our developers at Door3 to work and today we're happy to announce that version 1.2 of the Ride the City iPhone app is now available.

Key features of the Ride the City iPhone app include:

• As on the website, the iPhone app steers cyclists toward routes that maximize the use of bike lanes, bike paths, greenways, and other bike-friendly streets. The app avoids high-traffic streets and steep climbs.

Riding a bicycle is fun and it's a great way to get around. But for some people the bicycle is more than just a past time or a form of transportation--it's a job. From your neighborhood bike mechanic or local city bicycle planner, to the people who designed your bike frame, there are bike-related jobs all around... but not always easy to find. Today we're changing that.

To help you find bike-related jobs more easily, we're happy to announce a new feature to Ride the City: Biking Jobs (www.bikingjobs.com). Biking Jobs is a free service to let you find (or post) a job that has something to do with bicycling. Our goal is to provide an easy-to-use, no frills job board that anyone can use to find or post a career in the bicycle industry.

Back in December 2007, before we launched Ride the City it was no piece of cake to get data from the City. For the bike route data, for example, we first had to track down which agency maintained the data. You'd think it'd be in the hands of the Department of Transportation (DOT) but actually at the time it was at the Department of City Planning. When we figured that out, we had to make a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to City Planning because although the data was public, it wasn't freely accessible. We made the official FOIL request, then after some back/forth with City Planning, and a couple months, we got the data that allowed us to begin to work on Ride the City. By the way, City Planning was always incredibly helpful and the experience was quite pleasant. Nevertheless, getting public data just a few years ago was a pain in the neck. Fortunately, that's changing.

Just this week, NYCDOT added NYC bike route data to its data feeds. Now anyone with an Internet connection can get the free public data quickly. The data includes the type of bike facility that each line segment represents, and also whether it has certain car-free hours, is an on- or off-street bike facility, and comments with descriptive information (i.e. walk your bike). The included metadata also include a suggested symbology (e.g. green lines for separated Class I bike routes; red lines for Class II routes, etc).

Do you ever feel nervous about taking your bike into new neighborhoods? Are you afraid you might get stuck on a one-way street between an expressway on-ramp and a six-lane arterial? We know the feeling. That's why we're pleased to bring you the Ride the City Photo Scavenger Hunt as part of NYC Bike Month. Use Ride the City to find safe bike routes to parks and other exciting spots in all five boroughs throughout the month of May!

Plus, if you share photos of your bike with Ride the City, you can win some great prizes from our sponsors, Bicycle Habitat, Bespoke Bicycles, and Adeline Adeline.

Ever since we launched Ride the City, we've been getting requests for a mobile version of the application. Well, here it is: Link to iTunes Preview. The app costs $1.99 and is available for New York City; we will be rolling out apps for the other cities soon.

The app gives you most of the great functionality of the web application but in a pocket-sized, location-aware package (it also works on the iPod touch and iPad). Key features of the Ride the City - NYC iPhone app include:

• As on the website, the iPhone app steers you toward routes that maximize the use of bike lanes, bike paths, greenways, and other bike-friendly streets. Routes avoid high-traffic streets and steep climbs.
• You can select your preferred route sensitivity: direct, safe, or safer. Or you can change them on the fly.
• The directions are displayed on the map with an easy-to-read scrollable screen – perfect for double-checking your trip when taking a break.
• Find the nearest bike shops (and get directions to one) with just one touch.
• We've placed a Report an Error button prominently on the map so you can provide instant feedback to report a mistake on the map or to suggest a better way around.
• As on the website, Ride the City utilizes a CloudMade basemap that is sourced from OpenStreetMap, the volunteer community mapping project that is making a free map of the world.