A shoe company that got into biking from the ground up

Puma, the athletic gear company, has been getting hip to cycling.

Adidas and Nike have ridden this territory quite a bit in the past decade. It was undoubtedly the Cancer Survivor from the Biggest Consumer Market in the World that got the big two interested in buying seconds from Nalini and plastering their logos all over everything from gloves to socks.

Puma's approach may be late, but it's decidedly more street: They sponsored the Re-Bike project that accompanies the Bicycle Film Festival this year, and they also created a new folding bike with Biomega.

You, Constant Reader, know our views on folding bikes. (See Pinch Flat Poll #2: "Which would you rather do, ride a folding bike, or wear your underwear on the outside of your pants?") The Puma Biomega bike is a sort of slingshot knockoff, and it's kind of an unfortunate direction for Biomega, whose AMS city bike--with its cool shaft drive and clean Dutch lines--is a modern classic.

See for yourself:

Anyway, next week Puma street teams will be riding around New York handing out free ice cream and tickets for a Puma Biomega giveaway. There are worse things in the world than free ice cream and folding bikes-- and one of them is the smell of overheated urine on the streets of Manhattan in July. So perhaps Puma can take your mind and your nose off of that, if you're stuck in the city next week.