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In a carefully worded statement, the Cascade Bicycle Club has weighed in on the Friday night dust up between a motorist and some cyclists at the Critical Mass ride in Seattle.
Seattle's two daily newspapers also followed up on their reporting on the incident, with the P-I's article citing some of the shortcomings of bicycle facilities in the city and the Seattle Times interviewing the motorist.
Cascade is one of the largest bicycle clubs in the US with a membership of some 9,500 cyclists and a calendar full of bike rides and events, as well as bike education and advocacy projects. The statement recognizes that the monthly Critical Mass rides can be a “powerful reminder of the disparity” of public accommodations for bicycles and motor vehicles. However ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/29/critical-mass-undermining-efforts-to-improve-bicycling-cascade/
I've been clued into two independent cross-country bicycle tours recently that some young men are taking to raise funds and awareness and favorite causes.
Both are blogging about their adventures. One tour, heading east, ends with this weekend Pan Mass Challenge. The other, heading west, is entering its final stretch. It makes for some interesting reading if you're not out on the road yourself.
Pan USA Challenge
The two brothers, Justin and Jamie Merolla, on the Pan USA Challenge last blogged in from Christianburg, Virginia. They were celebrating the last of their hurdles, the huge climb out of Vesuvius that summits at the Blue Ridge Parkway …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/29/pedaling-across-the-us-for-a-purpose/
The Great Allegheny Passage has turned into a gold mine for communities who are watching money roll into their western Maryland and Pennsylvania towns two wheels at a time.
Time and time again it has been shown that rail-to-trail projects are a big draw for bicyclists, and longer networks like this one draw bike tours with people who need food and lodging.
The 150-mile GAP bike trail hooked up with the 186-mile C&O Canal towpath in late 2006, creating an off-road bike tour route all the way from Washington DC to McKeesport (and into Pittsburgh later this year) …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/28/gap-bike-trail-stimulates-local-economies/
Some Seattle bicycle riders made the news this weekend, but I can't say that I'm proud of them.
An altercation during a Critical Mass ride on Friday night between a motorist and some cyclists led to injuries on both sides, some messed up bicycles, and a messed up car. Fortunately no one was killed or seriously hurt.
Granted, the motorist was acting like a jack ass and should have been a little patient instead of driving his car into some cyclists. Still, there's no excuse for the reciprocal violence against the driver. It does nothing to help the cause of bicycling or to make the road safer for people on bicycles.
I'm sure violence wasn't the intent of the bike riders when they set out on Critical Mass. Most of those folks are out there for an en-masse bike ride through the streets of their city. The danger comes from largely disobeying traffic laws in trying to keep the group together. If they piss off enough people, someone is eventually going to react. It's inevitable …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/28/sad-state-of-seattles-critical-mass/
When Robert Novak struck a pedestrian in a Washington DC crosswalk with his black Corvette convertible, it was a bicyclist who chased him down and had him stop until police arrived.
The news that the 77-year-old conservative columnist, formerly of Crossfire on CNN, was in trouble obviously delighted The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. I caught the evening rebroadcast of his Wednesday show. Stewart summed up his report:
“The only difference between this and the rest of his [Novak's] career, is that this time, someone stopped him.
“D'you know what Washington needs? More vigilante bicyclists!” ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/25/jon-stewart-more-vigilante-bicyclists/
This might be someone's idea of a joke, but it wasn't so funny to dozens of RAGBRAI cyclists who fell victim to tacks on the road.
Bicycle riders swamped a repair stop in Colo on Wednesday after running across thumb tacks that had been spread across the road. By mid-morning they had already pulled 50 tacks from tires.
The tacks were dumped along the white lines of the eastbound lanes in three different stretches of old Lincoln Highway …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/24/tacks-on-ragbrai-route-not-so-funny/
Seven bicyclists are rolling out of Seattle on Friday on the Ride Green Build Green bike tour to San Francisco to raise money and awareness for affordable housing.
Each of the bicyclists is raising $2,000 to support LEED certification for a home built by Habitat for Humanity of East King County, Washington state. The seven hosted benefit concerts, T-shirt sales, and donation solicitations before the ride and will continue fund-raising efforts during the ride. All donations are tax deductible through Habitat for Humanity.
They're heading down to Olympia on the first day to visit Habitat for Humanity Olympia and tour the facilities. As they continue to San Francisco, the riders will visit sites and organizations devoted to affordable and green housing …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/24/seattle-to-san-francisco-green-housing-bicycle-tour/
The Electra Bicycle Co. is recalling 9,500 Amsterdam bicycles because of a fall hazard.
The interior alignment tabs on the bicycle's distinctive chainguard can push against the chain and drop it. The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports four such incidents, one which resulted in minor injuries.
The Amsterdam bicycles, made in Taiwan for Electra Bicycle of Vista, California, were sold through dealers from January 2007 through June 2008 for between $400 and $850 …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/22/amsterdam-bicycles-recalled/
Lance Armstrong joined the 10,000 bicyclists rolling toward Ames on Tuesday in the third day of 2008 RAGBRAI.
It's the 7-time Tour de France winner's third visit to RAGBRAI. He joined up somewhere west of Boone and stopped there for awhile before heading to Ames, reported the Des Moines Register.
His appearance isn't causing the stir as in previous years, when some warned the week-long bike tour across Iowa was in danger of being renamed LAGBRAI. He will be joined by some 200 riders on Team Livestrong at RAGBRAI this year. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/22/armstrong-making-3rd-appearance-at-ragbrai/
I had heard about bicycling the John Wayne Pioneer Trail and the Snoqualmie Tunnel ever since moving here in 2000, but I didn't have the right bike until this spring.
With a day to myself, I threw the knobbies on my Rockhopper mountain bike and drove up to the Cedar Falls (exit 32 on I-90) trailhead to find out about it for myself.
Briefly, it was a great bike ride, and I can't wait to return with my camping gear. I rode the first leg of about 22 miles to the next trailhead at Hyak on the other side of the 2.3-mile long Snoqualmie Tunnel, looked around, and returned. I was shooting photos with my Canon Elph, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to try a video. It appears at left.
The John Wayne Pioneer Trail is the old Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad — aka The Milwaukee Road — that rolls two-thirds of the way across Washington state. About 100 miles of it is a packed gravel rail-to-trail maintained as part of the Iron Horse State Park from Cedar Falls west of the Cascades to the Columbia River to the east …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/07/21/iron-horse-state-parks-john-wayne-pioneer-trail-in-washington/
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