Tomorrow is Bike to Work Day and the weather looks absolutely perfect for biking to work. Reno Bike Project is doing their annual Bike to Work Day Pancake Feed starting at 6am. If you can’t make it there, you stop by a participating coffee shop for free coffee.
If you’ve been riding around Reno for a long time, you might remember way back when, if you were riding the Verdi Loop, you had to ride down a section of I-80. It wasn’t for the faint of heart, but there was no other way to get from Mogul to Verdi. Then, seven years ago, the nascent Tahoe Pyramid Bikeway project built a bike path from Silva Ranch Rd to Old Hwy 40, providing a freeway-free bike route to Verdi. It’s easy to take that little strip of asphalt for granted now, but it was a big step forward at the time. To celebrate the 7th anniversary of the Mogul-Verdi Link, there will be a ride (consider these details unconfirmed) beginning at 10am on Sunday May 20th (weather permitting) beginning at the east end of Idlewild Park, heading to Crystal Peak Park in Verdi where there may be cookies. The ride ends at Mayberry Landing (the small shopping center with Buenos Grill, Walden’s Coffee, etc). Check the TPB website for updates.
May is National Bike Month and this year (2012 if you’re not keeping track), Bike to Work Week in the Truckee Meadows will be May 12-18. The Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance has organized a commuter challenge and has all the usual free stuff and perks including coffee, a raffle, discounts at bike shops, free safety assessments, and a city cycling clinic. There’s also a section for kid-related bike events and materials as this is officially being called “Bike to Work, School, and Fun 2012″. Coincidentally, May is also “Really Long Titles for Stuff Month” 
I swung by the Reno Bike Project’s We HeArt Bikes art fundraiser show last night and snapped a few photos. Overall, I thought the sculptures were better this year, but the wall art wasn’t quite as good. Judge for yourself.
I got an email recently about a Kickstarter project called GripRings. Basically, you create your own grips out of rings of candy-colored silicone tubing. Kind of a cute project. I’m more of a cork-and-leather man myself, but I can see these being popular with the crowd that is way more hip than I am.
Due to the cancellation of the normal Earth Day event where they usually hold a bike swap, the Kiwanis Bike Program is holding a bike swap this Saturday, April 21 from 10-3. If you haven’t been to their new shop yet, they’re now located at 2500 Valley Rd in Reno.
The 4th Street / Prater Way Corridor Study is conducting an open house on April 19th at the 4th Street RTC Station from 4pm to 7pm. This could be an especially important meeting due to the fact that, as reported by Reno Bike Project, the current proposal doesn’t include bicycle enhancements on 4th between Ralston St and Lake St. This is a huge stretch of 4th that will likely remain as dangerous as it is today without any bicycle facilities. If you can, please attend the open house and let the RTC know that this is not an acceptable proposal.
Click for a larger version
(Sorry, no photos today)
This is an optimistic entry in the 2012 Bike Improvements series due to the fact that the lane reconfiguration of Plumas between Moana and Plumb has been delayed since last year due to opposition from a very small number of people. Also, this stretch of Plumas is in Ward 2 which is represented on the city council by Sharon Zadra who has long been an opponent of almost anything cycling related.
This section of Plumas has been a hazard for years due to the narrow, 4/5 lane configuration and the provision of on-street parking on the northbound lane. What makes this section of Plumas so critical to cyclists is that it connects the excellent bike lanes of Plumas south of Moana to Urban which connects to the excellent bike lanes of Arlington which will take you all the way into downtown. This is the best route to get from south Reno into downtown. And it’s mostly a nice, safe ride, except for this one section of Plumas that makes every cyclist cringe when they have to suffer through it.
I haven’t been able to find any details on the proposed configuration, but I assume it’d be a 4-to-3 road diet, just like Arlington. I just hope that wiser heads will prevail and something will be done about this awful section of road. A letter-writing request has been put forth which you can read about here. Please take a few minutes and send an email to the city council voicing your support for this project.
I’m a bit late on this, but the documentary film Pedal-Driven will be showing at CommRow this Thursday, March 22 at 7pm (doors at 6). It’s $10 and the proceeds go to TAMBA and the Poedunks.
Continuing the series of 2012 Bike Improvements, I want to take a look at Kirman and Sutro. Like many streets in Reno, they’re the same street, but with different names at different points (the name changes at Kuenzli). Currently, most of this roadway is four lanes, sometimes with a median, sometimes with a turn lane near intersections, and sometimes with neither. The scheduled change to this road is do a “Complete Streets” 4-to-3 lane conversion with bike and pedestrian improvements. The design hasn’t been done yet, but the project is scheduled to start in September of 2012.
The current configuration of Kirman St near Mill
Sutro as it approaches the river bridge
An existing pedestrian island on Sutro near the Livestock Events Center
