Slow news week. You've got some babes on bikes and in swimsuits. Obama getting his outdoors on. Some climbs. Some Skiing. And announcements from Yvon and Google about things you should care about. Have a good weekend folks. Finds some outdoors and enjoy.

• Biking boys are all in a tizzy over Google's big announcement
• Yvon will be remember best by mainstream America for hawking credit cards
• Tibet closes as Spring climbing season begins
• Vonn Wins 3rd Straight World Cup
• Obama's Yellowstone vacation video
• Surfing Magazines spank swimsuit issue is out
• Assassin spire climbed
• Vélocouture from January and February 2010

You thought I was going to take the piss out of these shoes, didn't you? So did I at first, but then I had to go to the loo, came back, took a few shots of Plymouth gin, stared at the shoes again and decided, hey they're not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe it's the European in me. Or maybe its the gay in me. Could be both, but you know what? If I wore these bad girls during my daily commute I would no doubt be the prettiest cyclist in the greater San Francisco area. Beats the hell out of the Chrome [insert WWII battle of choice] shoes I've been wearing for the last few months. Just saying. Look me up in a few weeks when I'm prancing about in a pair of PUMA Cycling to Mars cycling shoes.  These shoes could very well be the next shoe of the thug hipster thugster thipster life. You read it here first. Or maybe second. Via too many trendy blogs to count.

Forgive me if I'm underwhelmed, as usual, with yet another Google announcement. Somebody has to be since it seems like the whole biking community is falling over themselves with glee. But as I wrote earlier, what else is there to get excited about in the biking community nowadays. Anyway, you can test out the new feature at http://maps.google.com/biking. I tried it out for my daily bike commute, and the route it recommended was predictably out of my way and required I head to either of the two bike lanes on Valencia and Harrison, couple blocks away. Why would I do that? I'd rather ride down a secondary rode, without stop lights, other bikers, and cars so I can avoid the daily commuter time trials going on with people passing back and forth, California stop the stop signs, and avoid tired, cranky drivers to get to work safe, sound, and alive. But that's me. It might be useful for longer trips, but only if you can't find a good book on long distance rides, your local bike shops has no good beta, and nobody online does either. Then I get its utility. For city riding, it seems pointless to use unless you're scared of riding on roads with no bike lanes. Just saying. Anyway, read about how great this thing is on Google's official blog and more in-depth on Google Lat-Long.

UPDATE: When it comes to biking blogs, there is NYC Bike Snob, and then there's the rest of them. Sure he's verbose to the point of somnolence, is obviously in love with his own writing, and somewhere in the scramble to ingratiate himself to the equally navel gazing niche biking community with his never ending prose & photos, forgot the whole point of a blog was brevity. But damn if he doesn't command a room. Plus he got a book deal out of the whole thing so he's obviously smarter than all the bloggers on this site. Especially me. But like I said, as the NYCBS goes, so does the biking world. At least the 1000 guys from Williamsburg that read him missing the whole point. So when he gives Google's new bike route layer a triple MEH, I get to look around the room I command, which strangely reeks of urine, vomit, and cheap beer, and smile. Yes I do. High five!

The BarBra is great example of a solid gear idea hamstrung by a questionable prodcut name that makes it sound like some kind of female support thing for bartenders. Regardless, short of using your mink stole to keep your hands warm, riding to work in winter is hell on the hands. Constant wind, snow, wind sucks the heat out of your hands no matter what kind of gloves you wear. Or at least that's what we assume. Here in California a cold day is anything over 50 degrees. But we trust Canadians to invent things to keep people warm. We don't trust them to name consumer goods, however. Anyway, as we said, simple idea; a nylon cover fits over the handlebars, keeps the cold air, rain, snow off your hands and reduces windchill. Easy access in and out. Costs $29 Canadian. Ships to U.S. for another $22. 

Dunno. A credit card commercial? Was that the only way to get the message out about the Matilija Dam? Really? How about just asking Amex to take some of the $3.4 billion in bailout money they got from us and give it to the groups trying to take down the dam? Should have spliced in a pic of Belinda Baggs surfing to at least make it memorable. We already forgot it and we watched it five times. Meh.

More we think about it, the worse it seems as an idea. But what the hell do we know? We do know that you can embed hypertext links on YouTube videos. Start there with links to where you can donate to bring the damn down. Hopefully they got some links on the Amex site as well. Just saying, for $3.4 B we should at least get some links on the Amex site for f$@k sake.

I thought I was already using that feature on maps, except instead of using my car I just ride there on my bike. Dunno, the whole cycling world is super excited, but what else does the cycling world have to get excited about without Armstrong? Me? I need less things to use Google for, not more. From Cycling Portland:

UPDATE: It now seems likely that Google will announce a “Bike There” feature tomorrow morning. I’m meeting with a rep from the company after what they referred to as “an announcement.” They’d like to show me a “demo” and a spokesperson for Google said I “won’t be disappointed with the news.”

Oh yay! Google has a new feature just for us bikers. We love Google. Yay! Neat. You know what wouldn't disappoint me? If they added a feature where I could find more naked people on Street View easily, instead of having to click through miles and miles 10 feet at a time. Just saying.

Yup. Jumping out of an airplane in a kayak.Via UK Telegraph.

Miles Daisher turned the extreme sport of skydiving on its head after deciding to jump out of a plane in equipment normally used only in water.

Mr Daisher then swoops in at 50mph and lands on the water in spectacular fashion.

"In skyaking I usually put the chute quite high. With skydives I will pull at 2,000 ft above the ground whereas with skyaking I will pull at 5,000 ft above the ground in case anything starts to go a little crazy.

"That way I have a time to sort things out, get out of the boat and then pull the chute for the kayak."

Wow, that might be our best title ever. And hyperbole free, completely accurate. Check out the evidence.

Fourteen thousand watched naked bobsledding instead of the Olympics.

Somehow we had to figure out how to combine these two items about hipsters into one. We think the title speaks for itself and is completely descriptive of these two items, and the fact that we include biking keeps it outdoorsy. Love it. Via Consumerist and some other site we forgot about.

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