Bikesmiths Bicycle Shop - Bloomington, Indiana

Closed Monday, 5/25.

Thanks!

For our edification:

In Indiana, bicycles are legally classified as vehicles, meaning cyclists generally have the exact same rights and duties on the road as motorists.

Here is the fact check on three claims:

1. "Cyclist must ride as far to the right as is safe if a car is following"False. Indiana law does not require cyclists to ride as far to the right only when a car is following. Instead, the law states that cyclists must ride as far to the right as is practicable at all times, regardless of whether a car is behind them.However, the word "practicable" is key. It does not mean "as far right as physically possible." Cyclists are legally allowed to ride further out into or occupy the full lane to avoid hazards (like potholes, debris, or opening car doors), to make a left turn, or if the lane is too narrow to safely share side-by-side with a motor vehicle. Cyclists are also legally allowed to ride two abreast.

2. "All vehicles are required to pull off at the first safe opportunity if three cars are behind"True. Under Indiana Code 9-21-5-7, if a motor vehicle (including a bicycle) is driving slowly on a two-lane road (one lane in each direction) and is blocking three or more other vehicles that cannot safely pass, the slow-moving driver is legally required to pull off to the right at the earliest reasonable opportunity to allow the blocked vehicles to pass.

The Takeaway— While a cyclist is required to ride as far right as is safely practicable, they do not have to hug the shoulder just because a car approaches. But, if a cyclist is traveling well below the speed of traffic and creates a backup of three or more vehicles on a two-lane road, they are legally obligated to pull over at the first safe opportunity to let them pass.

Motorists are subsequently required by law to provide a minimum of 3 feet of clearance when passing a bicycle.§ 71.58 SLOW-MOVING VEHICLES. - American Legal Publishing Code LibraryAmerican Legal Publishing Code LibraryPark Safety - Noblesville, IN City of Noblesville, Indiana (.gov) Bicycle laws and rules of the road from IBPD.

3. A motorist can legally cross a solid double yellow line to pass a bicycle in Indiana, provided it is entirely safe to do so. The Passing Rule Breakdown:

The 3-Foot Law: Under Indiana Code 9-21-8-5, motorists are legally required to give bicyclists a minimum of three feet of clearance when passing them in the same direction.The Yellow Line Exception: To make sure drivers can actually give cyclists those three feet of space without breaking traffic laws, Indiana's safe passing framework permits motorists to cross a double yellow line in a no-passing zone. Oncoming Traffic Controls: You may only cross the yellow line if the oncoming lane is completely clear of traffic and you have clear visibility ahead. If there is oncoming traffic, a blind curve, or a hill, you must remain behind the cyclist at a safe distance until it is clear to pass. Key Enforcement Details Scenario Legality Required Action Oncoming lane is clear Legal Signal, cross the yellow line, leave 3+ feet of space, and return to the lane. Oncoming traffic is present Illegal- Wait behind the cyclist until traffic clears. Do not squeeze past them. Squeezing past without crossing Illegal. Passing a cyclist closer than 3 feet is a traffic violation, even if you stay in your lane.

Big congrats to and .
We've taken care of both of these teams bikes for years and are stoked for both of them to finally get theirs.
The WIN for AXO and second for cinzano.

A well kept secret is the great coverage of the Little 5 by IUSF. This year there was a one hour plus rain delay but both halves of the race are a good watch. The interviews are interesting too. Just skip the delay space.

IUSF | Little 500 7 likes. "38th Women's Little 500"

April 10, 1975, Bikesmiths is 50 today! Let the celebration begin! Party with us for our 50th year!

We will share stories, bring back logos products and memories from our past. Please feel free to share yours with us. Today’s… This logo has history, it is closely related to three members of our shop still here. Jeanne is our founder, Mike French showed up three weeks later. We opened as ReCycles. Six years later we transitioned from used bikes to new ones and the name Bikesmiths was picked at probably the only meeting in these 50 years. It was over pitcher(s) of beer at Bears place. Jeanne took Pictures of Mike at Recycles/Bikesmiths for our new logo. It is Mike French’s arms in our logo as he was adjusting cone settings on a loose bearing hub. Last year in preparation for this day, Adam Rodkey mentioned he had an idea we should turn the bicycle wheel into the zero in 50.

Closed Fri 1/30 in solidarity.

https://www.clevescene.com/news/cleveland-news/meet-the-clevelander-who-biked-across-all-five-ice-covered-great-lakes-this-winter/

Meet the Clevelander Who Biked Across All Five Ice-Covered Great Lakes This Winter Meet the Clevelander Who Biked Across All Five Ice-Covered Great Lakes This Winter - Cleveland Scene

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17rVDHHijz/

He was the most famous athlete in Italy. The N***s never suspected his bicycle was saving hundreds of lives.
Italy, 1943. German forces had occupied the country after the government's collapse. Jewish families who had lived in Italy for generations were now being hunted, rounded up, shipped to camps in sealed cattle cars. The countryside was a maze of military checkpoints. Roads bristled with armed soldiers. No one moved without papers. No one traveled without being searched.
No one except Gino Bartali.
At 29, Bartali was more than a cyclist. He was a national icon. He had won the Tour de France in 1938, dominating the world's most grueling race. He had conquered the Giro d'Italia multiple times. His face appeared on newspapers across the country. Children wore his jersey. When he rode through town, crowds gathered to cheer.
The soldiers at the checkpoints knew his face as well as they knew their own commanders.
And Gino Bartali realized he possessed something more valuable than any medal: invisibility hiding in plain sight.
One day, a message arrived from Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa of Florence. The Cardinal was secretly coordinating a network to save Jewish families hiding in convents, monasteries, and private homes across Tuscany. They had documents, forged identity papers that could mean the difference between life and death. But they couldn't transport them. Every courier they sent was stopped, searched, arrested.
"We need someone the soldiers won't search," the Cardinal said.
Bartali understood immediately. "I will go."
His plan was audacious in its simplicity. He would tell everyone he was training for the next big race. He would wear his racing jersey with his name emblazoned across the chest. He would ride the routes between Florence and Assisi, sometimes covering 250 miles in a single day, distances that seemed insane to anyone who didn't know professional cycling.
But before each ride, in the privacy of his home, he performed a different ritual.
He would carefully unscrew the seat post and handlebars of his bicycle. Inside the hollow steel tubes of the frame, he would roll up photographs and forged documents: baptismal certificates, identity cards, ration books. Everything a Jewish family needed to become, on paper, Catholic Italians. Then he would reassemble everything, mount his bike, and ride toward the checkpoints.
When soldiers stopped him, and they did, he had his script ready.
"Gino Bartali! The champion! Can we get a photograph?"
He would smile, chat, sign autographs. And when they moved toward his bicycle, he would become urgent, protective.
"Please, don't touch the bike! Every component is perfectly calibrated. If you adjust anything, even slightly, it ruins the balance. I have to race in weeks!"
The soldiers, starstruck and not wanting to damage the equipment of a national hero, would step back. They would wave him through. They never suspected that inside the frame of the bicycle they were admiring, hidden in millimeters of hollow steel, were documents that would save entire families.
Bartali rode past machine guns. He rode past tanks. He rode past barbed wire and military convoys. He rode in rain, in summer heat, through exhaustion that had nothing to do with training and everything to do with fear. If the N***s discovered even one forged paper, he would be executed on the roadside. His wife and children would likely be killed as well.
But he didn't stop with courier runs.
In his own home, in a concealed basement space, Bartali hid the Goldenberg family. Jewish refugees with nowhere else to go. Every day he brought them food. Every night he prayed they wouldn't be discovered. Every morning he woke up and made the choice again: to risk everything.
By the time the war ended in 1945, Bartali's secret network had saved approximately 800 Jewish lives. Eight hundred parents, children, grandparents who survived because a cyclist used his fame as a weapon against tyranny.
When liberation came, Bartali simply went back to racing.
In 1948, at age 34, when most athletes had long since retired, he stunned the cycling world by winning the Tour de France again. Ten years after his first victory. The press swarmed him with questions. They wanted to know how he had trained during the war years. What had he been doing?
He smiled and said nothing.
For the next 52 years, Gino Bartali never spoke publicly about what he had done. When his son asked about rumors of wartime heroism, Bartali said: "Good is something you do, not something you talk about. Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket."
He died in May 2000, at age 85, still silent about his wartime actions.
Only after his death did his family discover the diaries, the letters, the documentation. Only then did the survivors come forward. Children and grandchildren of the families Bartali had saved began sharing their stories. A photograph here, a forged document there. Testimony from aging partisans who had worked alongside him.
In 2013, thirteen years after his death, Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The cycling champion who once stood on podiums holding trophies was finally acknowledged for the victories that truly mattered. Not the races he won, but the lives he saved. Not the medals pinned to his jacket, but the ones pinned to his soul.
Gino Bartali proved something the world needs to remember: heroism isn't always loud. Sometimes it's a man on a bicycle, pedaling through enemy territory with documents hidden in hollow steel tubes, racing not for glory, but for humanity.