Saturday is National Trails Day

By baw_admin | Published June 2, 2011

I love the 200,000 miles of trail that we have in the US and I use them religiously.  There’s my after work walks through the old growth in Schmitz Park in my neighborhood or the midweek bike ride on one of the regional trails nearby.

Then there are my pilgrimages on trails to special places.  I backpacked into the Pasayten Wilderness and straddled the US-Canadian border.  I slapped on a pair of skis and followed snow covered paths into the winter wonderland of Mount Rainier National Park.  I pedaled and pushed my bike to abandoned mines and ghost town sites in the Cascades.
I’m not alone in my love for trails.  In fact, we Americans will celebrate our love of trails this Saturday on National Trails Day.  Organized hikes, bike rides, work parties and celebrations are planned all across this country on trails.
In Spokane, REI and the InlandNorthwest Trails Coalition are hosting the Fish Lake Trail Family Adventure.  Families are invited to come out to the trail to do some clean up, then bike or walk one of the most scenic paved trails in Eastern Washington.
The North Kitsap Trails Association is hosting a Bike, Hike and Paddle event.  Volunteers will lead a family mountain bike ride on the Port Gamble Trails, a guided walk through the North Kitsap Heritage Park, and a sunset paddle on Port Gamble Bay.
Check here for a listing of registered National Trails Day events in Washington.  Then go enjoy your local trails!
Posted in Adventure, Advocacy, Events, Kitsap County, Spokane County, Trails | 1 Comment

June is bustin’ out all over with rides!

By baw_admin | Published June 1, 2011

June has arrived, sunny weather is on the horizon, and there are a host of bike rides happening this month that support statewide bike advocacy and education with a contribution to the Bicycle Alliance.  One of these rides might tickle your fancy:

June 4   Life Cycle Bremerton (Bremerton).  Whether you want a century challenge or an easy touring family ride, there is something for everyone at Life Cycle Bremerton!  Proceeds benefit the Red Cross of West Sound.

June 5   Peninsula Metric Century (Southworth & Gig Harbor). Enjoy panoramic waterfront views, rural countryside, and lots of rolling hills.  Two start points to choose from.

June 18  Ann Weatherill Cycling Classic (Walla Walla).  Come celebrate Ann’s life and share the road with others on a ride that rolls through the vineyards and green fields of Walla Walla.  Buffet and glass of L’Ecole wine at the end of the ride.

June 25  Chelan Century and Cycle de Vine (Chelan).  The choice is yours:  a challenging century with captivating scenery or a 35-mile ride visiting Chelan Valley wineries.

June 26  Two County Double Metric Century (Tumwater).  Beautiful riding on five different routes, from a family friendly 20-miles to a grueling 200 K that will challenge experienced cyclists.

More rides are on tap throughout the summer.  Check our Rides Calendar to view the full listing.

Posted in Events, Rides | Comments Off on June is bustin’ out all over with rides!

Seattle to Copenhagen

By baw_admin | Published June 1, 2011
pedbikeimages.org/Ryan Snyder

Every bicycle advocate and transportation planner dreams of going to Copenhagen and seeing its world-class bicycle infrastructure. My dream came true: I have been invited to join a study tour June 5-10, and will join Seattle elected officials, department of transportation staff, and other bicycle advocates in Copenhagen for five bicycle-intensive days!

Developed by i-Sustain and underwritten by scan/design Foundation, the study tour examines Urban Sustainability: Bicycling lessons from Denmark. It includes site visits, presentations, and of course, touring the city by bicycle.
Increasingly, American cities realize that bicycling can and should be a significant part of transportation planning, but few electeds or planners know how to get from 1-2% commuting rate to the Danish experience of +37%. Topics on the study tour will include:

  • urban and suburban bicycle planning for commuting
  • prioritizing bicycles over cars
  • design of bicycle infrastructure including intersections, cycle paths and lanes, signals, signs and parking
  • public campaigns and marketing
  • bicycle safety
  • bicycle path maintenance
  • bicycle-specific technologies
  • financial incentives for bicycle commuting

The study tour will be the easy part: applying the lessons from Copenhagen to Seattle and Washington cities will be the challenge and one the Bicycle Alliance will take as part of our Strategic Plan action plans.

Posted in Advocacy, Attitudes, Bike Culture, Sustainable Living, Transportation | 4 Comments

8+ Fabulous Reasons to Bike

By baw_admin | Published May 26, 2011
At a staff meeting this week, we discussed our favorite reasons to bike to work. I developed the following list, and encourage you to add to it:

1. FRIENDLY & Fabulous
2. ACTIVE & healthy activity outdoors
3. BEAUTIFUL bodies
4. UNDERGROUND out of the rain 24-7 parking
5. LOSE weight
6. ONE LESS CAR on the road
7. UTILITARIAN — combine with bus
8. SHOP by bike, SAVES time and gas
Posted in Attitudes, Go By Bike, Health | 1 Comment

Go by Bike: Safe Bicycling Education for Adults

By Administrator | Published May 25, 2011

Go by Bike (GBB) is the newest addition to Washington Bikes’s family of Safe Routes to School (SRtS) programs. This program complements two ongoing SRtS programs run by Washington Bikes, one that runs programs statewide and another that is focused on King County. The GBB program will work with schools in the central Puget Sound region. 
I am the newest staff member here at the Alliance and I am excited and enthusiastic to be the program manager of GBB. This program will run for two years and includes two major programs. In one of the programs I will work directly with parents of students at two elementary schools (Suquamish Elementary in the North Kitsap School District and Pioneer Elementary in the Auburn School District) to teach them safe bicycling, encourage bicycling and encourage them to bicycle with their children. 
In the other program, I will be working with four colleges to help them develop safe cycling courses. This will include collaborative curriculum development, assisting with institutionalizing bicycle education programs at each college and mentoring the teachers who will teach the courses. I have made initial contacts with each collaborating school, and have had more detailed conversations with some of the more eager collaborators. This past weekend I completed my League of American Bicyclists instructor certification seminar.
In the Fall of this year we will have course offerings in each of the six collaborating schools. In 2012 we will have Spring and Fall courses at each school and the final round of courses will be in the Spring of 2013. I will also be developing an online forum for instructors participating in the GBB program; which will serve as a venue for information sharing, collaborative team-building, brainstorming and planning future programs.
Posted in Attitudes, Education, Kitsap County, Safe Routes to School, Safety, Seattle | Comments Off on Go by Bike: Safe Bicycling Education for Adults

USBRS: Never Alone

By Kevin Henderson | Published May 24, 2011

Today’s blog post was written by Seattle bicyclist Kevin Henderson. He shares a reason why the US Bicycle Route System (USBRS) is important to him.

In the summer of 2009, I embarked on my first long distance bike tour, alone. This had been something I’d dreamed of since I was a teenager in the 70s, and one day something finally clicked in me that said “you need to do this, this is the year.”
My destination, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, made sense to me, since I was born there and have great childhood memories of many visits with my extended family during visits over summer vacations. The only problem was, how do I get there? What’s a good route? Browsing the internet, I was lucky to find blogs of some others who had traveled along routes that I could make use of, at least in part, to get where I was going. Bike travel has some different considerations than motorized travel. For example, it’s good to plan your travel time to be off the road by the time the hottest summer sun is beating down. In order to make the day’s travel segment work out, it really helps to be able to predict what lies ahead.
I pieced my route together with combinations of local city and state bike maps, and with the help of selections from Adventure Cycling’s library of route maps. I was happy to find that I could make use of portions of both the Lewis and Clark and TransAmerica routes.
In retrospect, I have to say that traveling on a route planned for and by cyclists makes a world of difference. In a sense, though I was making this trip by myself, being on an Adventure Cycling route helped me feel like I was never really alone. The things you care about when you’re on a bike like “where’s the next available water, or restroom, lodging, or even, how much further will this uphill last” are all readily apparent.
By virtue of the work of all the people that went into making the route, I felt connected to those who came before me. In the best way, I was never really alone. The concept of a U.S. Bicycle Route System appeals to me, because it shouldn’t take planning on the order of a lunar expedition to get out and see our country in the best possible way: on a bike!
 Building the USBRS is an ambitious undertaking and the Bicycle Alliance is working with Adventure Cycling to create USBRS routes in Washington State.  A fundraising campaign for the USBRS is underway during the month of May.  A donation (as little as $10) through our Team Washington page ensures that a portion of your contribution will be dedicated to efforts in our state.
Posted in Adventure, Travel, USBRS | 1 Comment

Planting a tree for Susie Stephens

By Louise McGrody | Published May 23, 2011

Last week was Bike to Work Week and it was the perfect time to remember Susie Stephens and celebrate her life.

Anyone who ever met Susie Stephens would remember her.  Her personality was that vibrant.  Susie was the second Executive Director for Washington Bikes, the first ED for the Thunderhead Alliance (now the Alliance for Biking & Walking) and a bicycle advocate extraordinaire.  She was killed in 2002 as she legally crossed a street in St Louis.

On a sunny morning last week, the Bicycle Alliance staff gathered on Seattle’s Burke Gilman Trail near Golden Gardens to plant a tree in her memory.  We were joined by City Councilmember Richard Conlin, Susie’s mother Nancy MacKerrow, and a group of friends who had known Susie.  We shared memories of Susie, laughed and shed a few tears, and wrote messages – treegrams – that were attached to the scarlet oak that was planted in her memory.

Nancy explained that she chose to remember Susie by planting a tree in her memory every year.  The idea caught on and others who knew Susie or knew of her also planted trees for her and, before long, a Susie Forest was growing.  This forest is Nancy’s living legacy to her daughter.

Planting a tree at this location felt bittersweet to me. In 1994, shortly after Susie took the helm of the Bicycle Alliance, we led a community walk along the railroad corridor in Ballard and encouraged folks to envision the Burke Gilman Trail making its way through their neighborhood on its way to Golden Gardens Park. That walk launched the formation of the Friends of Burke Gilman Trail. Although a missing link of this trail still exists, the segment of trail where we planted the Susie tree was not around in her lifetime.

Happy trails, Susie.

You can read a previous post about Susie here.

Posted in Advocacy, Events, People, Seattle | 2 Comments

USBRS: A Tale from the Road

By Guest Blogger | Published May 19, 2011
Today’s guest blogger is Phyllis Counts of Seattle, who is sharing a tale from her cross-country bike trek in 2010.  Phyllis is supportive of the US Bicycle Route System and our efforts to create routes in Washington State.  We hope you’ll support our effort as well with a $10 donation to our USBRS Team Washington fundraising page.
Fred and Barb. 

Just two examples of why this U.S. bicycle route system is a good idea. And they’re not even from here … Egads, they’re FOREIGNERS!

Last summer when I was pedaling across the country with my friend Jerry, we had the pleasure of meeting these two colorful, happy, and vigorous souls … a 77-year-old couple from Melbourne, Australia. Fred and Barb are retired sheep ranchers, who, until around the time they both turned 70 and hopped on their first touring bikes, were simply hard working Aussies, raising kids and grandkids and keeping their ranch running. When Fred retired from sheep ranching, he became a contractor, building and remodeling homes. Barb retired from her university position as an accounting professor. 

Somewhere around that time, they were given a tandem, started bicycle touring, and haven’t looked back. They have toured in Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Canada and completed two tours in the United States, the first using the Adventure Cycling Pacific Coast route, and then fulfilled their long time dream of riding across the country, coast to coast on the classic TransAmerica route.

Fred and Barb touring Yellowstone National Park.

It was our good fortune and sheer delight to meet and travel with them for weeks while they pushed and pulled their fully loaded Co-Motion tandem through the Appalachians, the Ozarks, the Rockies and finally the Cascades. They infused our days and nights with great humor and Aussie insights, delighting in sights, sounds and historical monuments that we mostly take for granted.
Barb and Fred are only two of the many amazing adventure cyclists we met coming across from Virginia to Oregon.
My point to this reminiscing is that our trip and our lives were enriched by meeting and traveling with these people, folks we most likely would not have met had it not been for the detailed route and map system established by Adventure Cycling Association that we were all following. If we had all been on different highways and backroads, we might never have bumped into each other.
In our cross country bicycle journey, having common routes made the difference — whether it was to borrow a pump or spare tube in a crashing rainstorm, soaking up companionship and stories after a climbing three or four mountain passes in one day, or getting into a pickup game of tent-sack football in a small city park — it made the entire trip a richer experience. 
Fred and Barb on their Co-Motion tandem in the high plains of Colorado.
To Fred and Barb we say thanks for being our new friends, and for the invitation to come do a little bicycle touring in Australia. And, thanks to Adventure Cycling Association for mapping fabulous routes and continuing to be a great cycling resource, and source of inspiration to travel by bike.
Adventure Cycling is leading the national effort to create the US Bicycle Route System and the Bicycle Alliance is their partner in Washington.  A USBRS fundraising campaign is happening during the month of May.  If you make a contribution through our Team Washington page, a portion of it will be dedicated to the work here in our state.
Posted in Adventure, Guest Blogger, People, Travel, USBRS | 1 Comment

Should the Ride of Silence be silent?

By Louise McGrody | Published May 17, 2011

It began in 2003 as a bike ride in Dallas to remember a cyclist who was hit by a mirror on a passing school bus and killed.  Today it has evolved into an international event, with 250 rides scheduled in nearly 20 countries.

The Ride of Silence was created to remember cyclists who have been killed or injured on our roadways, to raise public awareness that bikes belong on our roads, and to encourage everyone to share the road.  This year’s ride occurs on May 18 and five Washington communities are hosting Rides of Silence:  Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver and Wenatchee.  Ride details can be found on the ROS website.

Thousands of bicyclists are drawn to this somber ride because they know someone who has been killed or injured on our public roads, or they themselves have been injured by a vehicle collision.  I have ridden several Rides of of Silence–to remember friends who were killed and to remember my own collision with a vehicle.  It can be an emotional experience. You can view a video of a past Ride of Silence in Seattle.

In spite of its popularity, not all cyclists are comfortable with the Ride of Silence.  Some believe that it places too much emphasis on the dangers of riding a bike.  Others don’t like the fact that participants are supposed to ride in silence–how can you educate curious onlookers and passing motorists why you’re doing the ride if you must be silent?  (If you watch the video of the Seattle ride, you’ll see one of the riders speak to a pedestrian–no doubt explaining what the Ride of Silence is.)

Some Ride of Silence organizers have chosen trails and residential streets as their ride routes.  Again, this seems to undermine the visibility and public awareness potential of the ride.  It also doesn’t speak to the bicyclists’ right to use public roads.

Have you ridden in a Ride of Silence?  How do you feel about this event?

Posted in Advocacy, Attitudes, Events, Safety, Seattle, Share the Road, Spokane County, Tacoma, Vancouver, Wenatchee | 2 Comments

Bike to Work (and School) Day!!

By baw_admin | Published May 16, 2011



National Bike to Work Day is the third Friday in May. In 2011 it falls on May 20th.
Communities across the Nation will be celebrating the day by providing treats and prizes to people on two wheels.

For the most part, you can look for a ‘celebration station’ or ‘commuter station’ depending on what your community calls it. These stations are typically stocked with yummy treats like bagels, scones, fruit or cookies. You can also find small prizes like patch kits, stickers, and other bicycle related swag. Cheering, cow bell ringing volunteers will great you with a smile and perhaps a hot cup of coffee. Like I said, it varies by community, so check out what your town is doing and be sure to bike on May 20th.

Bellingham-Whatcom County
Celebrate Bike to Work & School Day on May 20 with more than 30 public celebration locations around the county and 35 school based celebration stations. Check out their website for locations and more information
.
Bremerton
West Sound Cycling Club is organizing a commute station near the Washington State Ferry terminal for Bike to Work Day on May 20.

Snohomish County

Snohomish County Bike to Work includes Bike to Work Day celebration stations on May 20. Check the Bike to Work Month page at Community Transit website.
Spokane
Spokane Bikes is celebrating on Wednesday May 18 (6:30 – 9am): Morning Energizer Stations locations can be found here.
Seattle-King County
Cascade Bicycle Club and F5 bring you Bike to Work Day check out their website for information and locations of their commute stations.


Thurston County

Thurston County is celebrating Bike to Work and School Day. Go to their website for more information.


Posted in Bike to Work, Commuting | 1 Comment