BIKE LOVER: The Orange County Bicycle Coalition...

BIKE LOVER: The Orange County Bicycle Coalition has bucked tradition by bestowing its annual Friends of Cycling award on Caltrans Deputy Director Dale Ratzlaff. “It’s unusual for Caltrans to be thanked by any bicycling group,” says Michael Mott, coalition chairman. . . . Among Ratzlaff’s accomplishments, Mott says, are intervening to preserve bike lanes on Pacific Coast Highway and urging the widening of streets for bicyclists. “He looks at transportation in the big picture as opposed to just cars,” the cyclist says.

LEARNING BASICS: A Newport Beach businessman says he will donate $10,000 in educational games to local schools because of the county’s bankruptcy. “I just got fed up and said, ‘Hey what can I do to help?’ ” says Alan Gotlieb, whose company--Q Productions--plans to give 1,000 copies of its top game, “Ichi,” to schools throughout the county. . . . Ichi, which means “one” in Japanese, is a card game that helps teach kids about money, fractions and arithmetic.

SPEAKING OUT: In the category of “What ever happened to?” . . . Former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg will speak at UC Irvine on Jan. 28. In 1971, he created a furious controversy by giving the Pentagon Papers, a secret chronicle of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, to the New York Times. Now an advocate of disarmament, Ellsberg plans to talk on “What Limits to the Right to Lie?” at a university conference on censorship. “He certainly has experience with breaking through official containments of information,” says conference organizer Margot Norris.

NIXON REMEMBERED: Officials at Yorba Linda’s Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace say there is special poignancy in Monday’s observance of the 82nd anniversary of the former President’s birthday, the first since his death last April. . . . Among planned events are the laying of a wreath sent by President Clinton. “It’s a time to reflect on the pragmatic and significant role that President Nixon played,” says spokesman Kevin Cartwright.