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!
Jim Sayer is the Executive Directure of the Adventure Cycling Association and he was kind enough to give a presentation tonight on the current state and future goals of Adventure Cycling, including the U.S. Bike Route System. It’s pretty exciting stuff; imagine being able to walk out your front door and ride on bike-friendly facilities (bike lanes, paths, or roads with good shoulders) to any other destination in the country. By combining local (intra-city) cycling infrastructure, regional routes, and a national bike route system, this dream is the ultimate goal of the U.S. Bike Route Network. It is essentially a network of networks, much like the Internet.
Jim also brought along something I couldn’t wait to see…a map of the new Sierra Cascades Route! I had one of my minions distract Jim (what, you didn’t know I had minions?) while I snapped a couple photos of the maps with my spy camera.
All kidding aside, it was cool to see that the route is already drawn and segmented into map sections.
Jim will also be speaking at the 8th Annual Nevada Bicycle and Pedestrian Conference on Wednesday May 20th and Thursday May 21 at the MontBleu Resort Casino and Spa in Stateline. Go to www.bicyclenevada.com for more information.
The Reno-Tahoe area is well known for great mountain and road biking, but not so much for bicycle touring. It’s unfortunate because this would be a great area for weekend to week-long touring rides into and around Lake Tahoe and the Sierras. I don’t know of any place in town that carries real touring bikes or equipment except for REI, and their in-store selection and knowledge is limited. The only published route I know of in the area is Adventure Cycling’s Western Express Route. I’ve ridden it and it’s quite an adventure, but it’s designed to get you over the Sierras and across Nevada as quickly as possible.
However, in the most recent please-give-us-money letter from the Adventure Cycling Association, they mentioned a new route they are working on called the Sierra Cascades Route. In the printed letter they had a map which I can’t find on the Web, but here is the most recent description of the route I could find:
This 2,750-mile route will traverse Washington, Oregon and California from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. The route will parallel the Pacific Crest on paved roads. Points of interest include the Northern Cascades National Park, Crater Lake National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park. Research was completed in the summer of 2008 and the maps will be created in GIS. The maps should be available sometime in the winter of 2009/2010.
Also, in an article in the Missoulian, Jim Sayer, the executive director of Adventure Cycling, mentions that REI plans to put Adventure Cycling maps in all its stores across the United States.
According to the map I can’t find, the route will pass through Truckee. Although I wish it would come a little closer to Reno, I hope this will still spur a little more interest in bike touring.
