Transportation reads: Guy who started The Race to the Clouds, sad bike scenes and 100 sketches for a train logo

My three favorite transportation reads of the day: a “bottom-of-his-class” Harvard grad who invented a gnarly-sounding race, the things we put in bikes lanes that aren’t bikes and more.

The second-oldest auto race in the United States is back this weekend. If speeding up over 4,700 feet of hill and 156 turns sounds awesome, just imagine doing it on a dirt. Westword tells the story of Spencer Penrose, the man who made Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, also known as The Race to the Clouds. (We’ve recently written about electric vehicles competing in the race.)

As a bike commuter, Streetsblog Denver’s Sad Scenes From Denver’s Bike to Work Day should make me want to cry. But seeing a crowd of tourists standing in Arapahoe’s protected bike lane just makes me laugh for some reason. Maybe Bike to Work Day 2017 will be the year that everyone stays out of the bike lane.

The New Haven Railroad logo outlasted its company by almost 50 years. The secret, reports CityLab, was Herbert Matter, who tried out 100 different sketches before settling on one.