http://www.slate.com/id/2299432

It was a bad day for intra-metropolitan area commercial aviation. Jet Blue flight No. 405—the flight that was supposed to help Angelenos beat the chaos resulting from the closure of the 405 freeway—was bested not only by the @wolfpackhustle A team (elite cyclists who had pledged to follow traffic rules), but by @garyridesbikes, a late entrant promising to take only public transit and walk, and, if Twitter is to be believed, a Rollerblader, @jennix, who supposedly came in third. The gripping tale of the race to the Long Beach lighthouse is there for all to see on Twitter at #flightvsbikes.

According to Twitter-based calculations by @bcgp, the unofficial finish times were:

Bike: 1:34
Metro/Walk: 1:44
Rollerblades: 2:40
Plane/Lost Cabdriver: 2:54

Maybe flying 40 miles isn’t a good idea but this was a great PR move on the part of Jetblue and cyclists. People who didn’t even know you could get from the Valley to Long Beach on bikes, transit or rollerblades found out that it just might be a viable option.

My apologies go out to Jetblue who just lost a race to someone on rollerblades.