Encouraging Bike Commute

I'd consider my new bike commute as a report card on how well our city accomodates bicycles. I'm working at a new job, teaching kickboxing at our karate dojo which is in the next town over, about 11 miles from here. So far I've been commuting by bike most days. It's really a terrific commute, which takes about 45 minutes each way on my around-town commuter bike. There is not a single block of the journey that I'm on a street without some sort of cycling accomodation, which is very encouraging as a bike commuter.

First, I start out on a street that's marked as a bike-friendly street. Around town they're delineated by green destination signs and these painted symbols on the street. They're generally low-traffic streets in which biking is encouraged and driving discouraged. In some cases, they have restricted entry to cars or speed bumps to discourage through-travel by cars.

After three miles on that street, I enter the riverfront bike path. Most of my commute is along this path, which winds along the Willamette river for miles on either side. This path connects the two cities of Eugene and Springfield.

Five miles down the bike path, I turn north onto a series of low-traffic streets with designated bike lanes. A new roundabout on one of the streets has a terrific bike accommodation to make it safer for cyclists. Eventually I end up on a new bike path that parallels I-5, and crossing over the freeway on a new cycling-only suspension bridge. This is one of two bike-and-pedestrian-only bridges that I cross on my commute. Our city has invested heavily in making sure cyclists and pedestrians can cross rivers and freeways easily and safely, and this makes my commute much more enjoyable.

The last part of my commute is about one mile on a high traffic street. It's the least enjoyable bit of the whole trip, but I have a good bike lane to travel in, and all of the drivers so far have been exceedingly courteous, yielding to me even when they have the right of way.

All in all, you can see how over the years the accommodations that my city has put into place to make cycling safer, easier, and more convenient have all added up to make it possible for me to commute to my job by bike. All of these changes did not occur overnight, or even in the same decade. It might be a bike lane here, a path there, a bridge here, a traffic change there. But when a city commits to making cycling a priority, you eventually end up with a network of paths, lanes, and streets that make commuting by bike an option that more and more people will choose. And that's to all of our benefit.

Better Biking Ahead

I'm very excited that a major intersection near our house that was extremely dangerous for cyclists has been completely revamped this summer when they repaved it. I think there are regulations in place now that when they re-design an intersection it is mandatory that they have to include bicycle and pedestrian accommodations. This intersection lays in between our house and the public pool, so my teenager has been biking through it by himself and I am SO grateful that there are now bike lanes and that he doesn't have to ride up onto the sidewalk and risk getting nailed by cars coming in and out of the business parking lots that front the road.

Essentially, the intersection used to have two lanes of traffic  in each direction, and they removed one lane and put in a nice wide bike lane and a wider sidewalk as well. You can see clearly here how the pedestrian and bike access has been vastly improved and made much safer by these improvements. To the people planning them, it might just seem like paint striping and pavement, but to a mom whose children are on bikes next to one-ton vehicles, it means that I breathe a lot easier when they want to bike someplace by themselves.

As a society, we want our children to be healthy and fit. Childhood obesity and inactivity are huge health problems, yet we often don't put the necessary systems in place to make sure that kids can navigate safely around town using their own two feet. I'm happy to say that my city is making this possible!

Sadly, A Ride of Silence Reminder

You can read my post on my Ironmom blog about why this Ride is so important and cyclist safety continues to be an issue taken far too lightly by far too many motorists with far too many fatal outcomes for cyclists.

The annual Ride of Silence is May 19 at 7:00 pm. You can find a location near you at their website.

Back To The Bike

Wow, I can't believe how much more we've spent on gas since I broke my arm. Not being able to ride a bike just has made such a huge difference. The number of miles isn't all that enormous, but the little driving trips around town - just to the store or to take the kids somewhere - that all adds up and the car gets much worse mileage on such trips. Normally I only take the car if we're going a substantial number of miles, but until this week I've had to drive everywhere.

Finally I've been able to start riding my bike, I rode to work tonight for the first time, but I'll have to say that my arm was so exhausted that I had to ride part of the way home with just one hand on the handlebars. It's still not quite all the way good for riding, but it's getting there! And I know it will be a few more weeks before I can even think of riding the tandem with the kids. Luckily, I think I will be all healed by the time the good weather really rolls around!

And to piggyback on that good news, here's something even better. From the League of American Bicyclists Blog, an article about Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's address at the National Bike Summit. There may be some things I don't like about the way the President is doing his job, but one thing is for sure is that everywhere behind the scenes, changes like this are taking place. They might not make the news like the big Health Care Debate, but they are positive steps that will affect all of us.

I am very excited about this! Read on (quotes from the League of American Cyclists Blog)


When the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood stood on a table at the National Bike Summit to thank the crowd and show his support for bicycling and walking, he was just getting started.

Today, he announced his new Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations. It is simply the strongest statement of support for prioritizing bicycling and walking ever to come from a sitting secretary of transportation.

On his blog, he writes:

Today, I want to announce a sea change. People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.

We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects. We are discouraging transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians. And we are encouraging investments that go beyond the minimum requirements and provide facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.

To set this approach in motion, we have formulated key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
Go beyond minimum design standards.
Collect data on walking and biking trips.
Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.
Now, this is a start, but it’s an important start. These initial steps forward will help us move forward even further.

Probably the Coolest Article About Energy Usage Ever

Okay, you've just got to read this article:

How many cyclists does it take to power a hairdryer? The answer's 18, as one family discovered in a unique TV experiment

If everyone could see the impact of their energy usage so clearly, I think peoples' behavior would change so much more easily! Very Very Cool!

Get Lit!

One of these photos is a cyclist (me) with an adequate light for night riding. The other photo is approximately what the cyclist looked like that I almost ran into on my bike last night. Sheesh people, I'm all for cycling but buy a light for heck's sake! I mean, these days you can buy a $1 LED keychain light that's brighter than my first cycling lights and duct-tape it to your handlebars!

When I started out commuting by bike (in college), I had an old-fashioned dynamo generator light on my sweet red single-speed Schwinn 40 pound fat-tired cruiser (can you tell I wish I'd never sold that bike??). The light caused a heck of a lot of friction while engaged, and put out a fairly feeble amount of light, but that was more or less what was available in those good ol' days.

Next, I moved on up while bike commuting to Microsoft. Since part of my 22 mile RT commute was on an unlighted powerline trail, I needed an optimum bike and lighting system. I upgraded my ride to a Specialized Rockhopper and my light to one of the new Niteriders, which came with this heavy duty battery that fit in your water bottle cage. It was cumbersome and I had to haul it in from the garage to plug it in every night, but it put out some good wattage and stood up to Seattle's rainy climate for years.

Now of course with the miracle that LEDS bring to our lives (let's all take a moment and truly appreciate the genius that is an LED folks), my bike light takes two rechargeable double-A batteries that last FOREVER. I can't remember the last time I had to recharge them, come to think of it. It fits in the palm of my hand, weighs a few ounces, and puts out a great beam (see photo above). The blinky on the back, also armed with LEDS and rechargeable batteries can probably be seen by sattelites orbiting the earth.

All of this to say, if you're out there and you're riding without a light, you're endangering yourself and everyone around you, and there really is NO EXCUSE. No cumbersome dynamo, no expensive gadget-laden professional lighting system, all you need is an el-cheapo LED and BINGO you're visible!

Myself, being the bike geek that I am, I really want some of THESE. They have internal micro-generators so they don't need any batteries and recharge themselves fully after 30 seconds of pedaling.
Made by DOSUN, I'm eagerly awaiting seeing them in stores.

Have Bike, Will Travel (With Pig)

Asa was over at a friend's house yesterday and was going to stay for a sleepover. She called to ask if I could bring over a sleeping bag and her toothbrush and pajamas. Sure, no problem. Slip the clothes and toothbrush into my bike bag and bungee-cord the sleeping bag on top.

I was ready to head up the driveway when the request came to add the pig. Arnold the Snoring Pig to be exact. Unzip the pannier, stuff the pig in one (fortunately not snoring), and away I was going when...

Another call, they needed cookie sheets for making pizzas, could I bring some over? Sure. Unzip the other pannier and slide the cookie sheets in. Ring, ring...could I bring two pillows and a birthday present in a bag? A towel because they're having a squirt gun fight too. And maybe some dry clothes...I'm starting to wonder if I should just give up and take the car. After all, I have two errands to run on the way over and I'm starting to look like I'm taking a world tour instead of a cross-town trip.

But I didn't have to, it all fit and barely. A few bungee cords go a long way, as well as those convenient zip-out panniers. When I got everything unloaded and kissed the wet daughter and wrapped her in the towel, I turned and headed for home with a much lighter bike.

Oh Give Me A Home, Where the Bicyclists Roam...

We just got back from our Washington trip yesterday (more on that later), but one thing I did while we were visiting my sis and BIL in Bellevue was to take a little bike ride down memory lane. At least it would've been down memory lane if anything there looked even vaguely like I remembered it.

Of course, I didn't expect Redmond to look like my first memories of the place. In 1988 when I arrived at the Microsoft campus on my first day of work (OMG, could that really have been 21 years ago this month?????), there were four buildings. Yep, four. Surrounded by a whole lot of trees (that's number four with the red arrow on the map above, now buried in the middle of the campus). Across the street was this place with a shingle hanging outside that said "Little Bit O' Heaven", you could go there and fish in a creek that they stocked with trout. No kidding! Bill Gates had a party for all of the new hires that month at his house, in his living room. It was a small place, back then. Fast forward to now, as I'm bicycling through the campus I see signs for Building 127. Holy Cow.

But the good news is that City of Redmond has been adding some bike commuting options lately (or should I say finally). Part of my ride was along the new commuter bike path that parallels Hwy 520, connecting Redmond to the Microsoft campus. When I used to commute by bike, I had to take a circuitous route through town, risking my life daily on streets with no bike lanes, hostile drivers, and big tire-eating grates, so it was no wonder that even on Bike to Work Day, I never saw another bike commuter on my journey. Now though with the addition of the bike path, bike commuters were fairly numerous on my evening ride, which is great news for this traffic-overloaded area in general, and I think in general illustrates the principle of "build it and they will come" when it comes to creating safe commuting options for cyclists.

On the minus side of the equation, the city is still extremely lacking in actual bike lanes on any surface streets, so once you leave the relative safety of the bike path, you're stuck fighting for sidewalk space with the pedestrians, or lane space with the aggressive rush-hour drivers. So clearly what's needed for real encouragement of the average bike commuter is not only to build paths but to connect them with work/shopping/home via bike lanes on major through streets. It's good to see Redmond taking a first step toward bike connectivity, but when the freeway is topped by large signs promising four new freeway lanes to the tune of $86.1 million dollars, it would be nice if even a fraction of that went toward greater bike connectivity. After all, building more freeway lanes won't reduce traffic, but building bike paths does.

Bike Commuters Hangin' On in the Cold

My tally for last night was 28 commuters on my ride in to work at 5:15. That's about one per block, not bad for a week when temperatures are plunging into the low 20's (I know that's not cold for a lot of the country, but it is here!) and ice is hanging around on the shaded parts of the roads. I don't mind riding in the evening because most of the ice has melted from the roadways, but I didn't bike in when I had to work in the early morning the other day, it was way too frosty.

Bike Envy, Again!

My friend just got one of these bikes, a Rans Fusion, and wow is it fun to ride! I found myself laughing and smiling just toodling around the block on it. It's not quite a recumbent, but comfortable and easy to maneuver around. It's kind of like those chopper-bikes that the cool kids had back in the 70's when I was growing up, and reminds me a little bit of my old Stingray with the cards in the spokes. So yet again, I have bike envy. There's obviously not enough garage space or money in my life to have all the bikes I'd like to have in my stable.