On Wednesday, May 26 at 3:00 pm, the city of Sparks will hold a public workshop to gather input from the public on how to make Sparks a “connected city”; that is a city that fully supports walking, cycling, and public transit as well as automobiles. If you can make it, please go and let your voice be heard. Here is the city’s press release.
Bike to Work Week, also known as the friendliest week for the bicycle commuter, is upon us once again. The official Bike to Work Week Website for Northern Nevada has all the details on which bike shops are participating (almost all of them) and which coffee shops are participating (all the good ones, e.g. not Starbucks). If you register on the site, you get entered into a raffle for prizes and your company can participate in a commuter challenge.
Update: Whoops, almost forgot…there’s a Bike Day celebration on Saturday, May 22 at West Street Market which will host the Reno Bike Project Bike Swap.
I rode on over to the annual Earth Day celebration in Idlewild Park today. It was a beautiful day to ride anywhere. I knew it would be busy when I saw cars parked along the street several blocks away. They really need to consider using more land for this event, as it’s just too tightly packed for the amount of people that attend.
Once I got there and put my bike in the bike valet (run by Reno Bike Project), I walked around and talked to dozens of people about a wide range of topics including bikes, solar power, wind power, vermiculture, daylighting, new public lands, twine, and shaving soap. It was a full day. I didn’t see any bike shops there this year (unless you count the Reno Bike Project) which was disappointing. In terms of the impact on the earth, choosing to ride a bike instead of driving is one of the best things you can do.
Row of bikes at the bike swap
Even though it’s not pedal powered, one of the rising trends I like is the electric scooters/motorcycles. Why? No emissions, no noise, low impact on the roads, and low level of danger to other road users.
An electric scooter
For more pictures, see my full Flikr Set.
The Las Vegas Sun has an article about a survey that showed 4 out of 10 Las Vegans wanted to leave the city. Vegas has been hit extremely hard by the economic downturn because of the drop in tourism and the fact that the housing bubble was as large in Vegas as anywhere. What caught my eye was a quote from a Harrah’s Vice President who splits his time between San Diego and Las Vegas:
“I’ve lived in San Diego less and know my neighbors more because I can walk to the restaurant, to the grocery store, to get my hair cut … and I see people doing the same — the sense of community is heightened because you’re not always in your car,” he said.
I’m glad to see this in print because it means that maybe, just maybe, the average person is starting to get it. A lack of planning in Vegas led to a huge number of suburban developments full of McMansions that spread across the valley. Imagine your life in one of these developments. Even though you’re surrounded by neighbors, you don’t know them because you’re never outside. You have to take your car to go anywhere, you have a gardener to take car of your yard (or your HOA does), and you have to drive your kids a couple miles to school or to a park to play because there’s no park near you. You end up in a weird, socially constructed prison. Your house is your cell, not your castle. Your car is your only escape. And it’s not because you’re innately anti-social, it’s just bad design.
“We need to look at land-use plans and see where we might be impeding opportunities to create good neighborhoods. Do we really need block walls around every neighborhood? Do we need to force everyone into a homeowners association?”
I ride by places like this in Double Diamond all the time and I can’t imagine how people survive there. It’s stifling just riding around the edges of these stucco sandcastles that have no personality and no life. If there wasn’t a constant stream of cars going in and out of their access roads, you’d never know people lived there.
Heads up: Reno PD will be looking for cyclists breaking the rules of the road this weekend, so be on your best behavior. The Nevada Bicycle Coalition has the details.
The Reno Wheelmen Twilight Road Series begins Sunday with a time trial in Cold Springs at 10:00 am. It is free. Their website isn’t updated for 2010 yet, but their 2009 Twilight Road Series page has info on registration, venues, etc.
Update: The Reno Wheelmen have update their website for 2010. They have posted the Twilight Road Series general race info and the 2010 race schedule.
The RGJ wants to remind everyone that cyclists need to obey traffic laws, too. Nothing wrong with that…I see way too many people riding on the wrong side of the street (which makes it dangerous for me when I’m riding on the right side of the street) and riding at night without any lights. I did however, find their description of fixies very amusing:
A new problem is bicycles without brakes to save on weight, favored by college students. Riders stop by not pedaling.
Pretty much every word of that is wrong or misleading, but what can you do?
In other news, Google has added bicycling directions to their maps for certain cities. And amazingly, Reno seems to be one of those cities! I tried getting directions from the northwest part of town to south Reno and it put me on Virginia for a good 3-4 miles. Oops. Hopefully they’ll get that fixed. They have a feature where you can grab the path they created and drag it to a different street to change the route. It works pretty well, but the algorithm definitely favors the shortest route which, in Reno, is usually the wrong one.
So it turns out my web hosting company doesn’t send you an email if there’s a billing issue; they just shut your account down. Thanks a lot, jerks.
From Bike Bits, I found this little nugget of cool:
There were twelve riders in the group; one of them, Bret Taylor, mounted a camera on his handlebars and set it to take a picture about every five miles. He strung all the photos of the trail together and added lively music.
The video is here and it’s just great. Watch until the very end so you can see the finish!
By popular demand, you no longer have to be logged in to post comments. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
I finally got a good chance to put my Pearl Izumi Barrier Lobster Gloves through their paces today and I’m very happy camper.
At first glance, the gloves seem well constructed and very warm. The palm has a soft yet grippy finish and the back of the thumb section is covered with soft fleece for easy nose wiping. The gloves don’t have any cycling-specific padding, so they can be used for other purposes without the possible inconvenience of a bulky palm. Even though it’s a lobster glove, each finger has its own interior pocket.
On my test ride, the temperature was about 32 degrees with overcast skies. At first, I thought the gloves might be too warm. They’re on the bulky side and soft; they feel like my Burton ski mittens. I didn’t notice any issues that were the result of the gloves not having any cycling-specific padding. I rode for almost an hour and for most of the time, my hands felt warm. At the end of the ride, the tips of my fingers and thumbs felt a little cold, but I think I could have ridden another hour without any problem.
The one problem I had with the gloves was their bulk made it more difficult to shift my Shimano STI levers, specifically the smaller levers (for up-shifting on the rear or down-shifting on the front). I’m comfortable accepting that drawback to get the warmth they provide.
