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One day as a newspaper reporter in an earlier life, I was stuck on a small boat in the Chesapeake Bay with a US Fish & Wildlife Service biologist. To avoid justifying the environmental policies of the current adminstration (Reagan), he swung the conversation around to books.
His favorite was “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold. I had never heard of this conservationist (he died in 1948), so I bought that book a few days later. It later found a place on the bookshelf with John Muir, Edward Abbey, Colin Fletcher and John McPhee.
Leopold's home state of Wisconsin has honored his memory by naming the state's 42 trails as the Aldo Leopold Legacy Trail System….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/25/wisconsin-trails-named-for-conservationist-aldo-leopold/
Argue as he might, Steven Gravenites couldn't convince the federal judge in San Francisco earlier this month that he should be found innocent of possession of a bicycle in a wilderness area.
The 45-year-old mountain biker and well-known Marin County, California, wheel-builder was fined $60 but was able to reclaim his bike. Rangers had taken it as evidence for illegal trail riding in the Point Reyes National Seashore in June.
An account of the trial — it actually made it to federal court — in the Marin Independent reports that Gravenites tried to get the court to consider the bigger picture of the history of mountain biking. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/24/biking-in-wilderness-forbidden-even-in-marin-county/
Floyd Landis has begun filing appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the last stage in his attempt to regain the 2006 Tour de France championship and overturn a 2-year ban from pro cycling.
The 90-page “brief,” as reported at CNN, states that Landis is committed to removing dope from the sport of cycling.
“However, to wrongly strip a champion of his victory due to a flawed test is much worse than to have an athlete cheat his way to victory ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/21/last-stage-for-floyd-landis/
The San Jose Mercury News recently ran the story about a guy who rode his bicycle cross-country more than 40 years before the first bicyclist took to the Bikecentennial route.
Charlie Klotz was a 20-year-old working in a pharmacy in Hollister, California, when he took off on his bicycle for a cross-country tour to New York City in 1935.
He pedaled between 100 and 130 miles a day, covering the 3,100 miles in 30 days. He still has the Speed King bicycle that he rode …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/20/charlie-klotzs-1935-transamerica-bicycle-tour/
A bicycle relay is slowly making its way cross-country to draw attention to the connections between fuel dependency, war and global climate instability.
Called the Peace Transit, the ride started in Louisville, Kentucky, on Nov. 3 with cyclists carrying a baton, a petition and a rock to cyclists in Bardstown. Passed along five more times, the items arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday.
No single person is making this tour. This is a very effective way to get hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved in publicizing the problems of being too dependent on oil. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/19/peace-transit-tour-relays-message-by-bicycle/
Here it is not even Thanksgiving, and organizers of 53 “across-state” bicycle tours already have dates and routes for week-long bicycle tours in 2008.
It's never too early to start planning for next summer's bicycling adventure. If you're interested in putting your seat in the saddle for one of these RAGBRAI-like bike rides, check my list at 2008 Across State Bicycle Tours.
Listed are the standbys like BRAG, RAGBRAI, GRABAAWR, Ride the Rockies, but new ones like Indiana's RAINSTORM (this acronym is really a reach). Here are 28 states with updated bike rides and links to those pages …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/18/summer-week-long-bike-rides-schedule/
It's always nice when a favored contraption gets a little respect.
In its list of 101 gadgets that changed the world, IOL Technology credits the bicycle as a useful gadget for becoming a widespread form of transportation and a vehicle toward the emancipation of women.
Justifying its claim, the magazine explains:
“First devised as a gentleman's play thing in the 1820s, the push-powered hobby-horse quickly evolved to become the most classless form of transport, trundling by the millions along highways and byways all over the world. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/17/bicycle-is-one-of-101-gadgets-that-changed-the-world/
Many of the long bicycle trails in the Eastern US don't fade away at the state line, they just change names and keep on truckin'.
I'd been digging into some cool, long-distance suggestions for bicycle tours on “non-motorized trails” when I discovered that many well-known bike trails meet at the state borders.
Such is the case on the Georgia-Alabama border where Silver Comet joins the Chief Ladiga. It happens twice between Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the C&O Canal and Northern Central meet the Great Allegheny Passage and York County Heritage Trail…
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/16/6-eastern-bike-trails-that-make-the-connection/
South Carolina authorities charged the driver of an SUV with reckless homicide in the deaths of two bicyclists on the last leg of a cross-country, charity bicycle tour.
The 35-year-old Greensboro, North Carolina, woman turned herself in and was released on $10,000 bond, reports the Associated Press.
One of the bicyclists, Lee Anne Barry, 43, was finishing a cross-country bicycle ride called the Brain Injury Greatest Journey (B.I.G. Ride), when she was joined for the last day by Thomas Hoskins. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/16/suv-driver-charged-in-death-of-two-cyclists-in-south-carolina/
When I lived in Austin about 10 years ago, a nonprofit started a yellow bike program that allowed folks to use a bike and leave for the next person — all for free — in the downtown area.
Now I see that Lexington, Kentucky, became one of the latest cities to adopt a yellow bicycle program earlier this year when Lexington Yellow Bikes set out 80 free rides for residents.
Being up north, the group is collecting the bikes for storage over the winter and looking back at the success of the program. In spite of the program being a total success, there were a few problems. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2007/11/15/lexingtons-yellow-bikes-missing-in-action/
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