Dot Bike

The next DotBike meeting will happen on Tuesday September 16th at 6:00 p.m. at the Dot2Dot cafe address 1739 Dorchester Ave.

Please note the slightly earlier than usual time.

Tasty food will be available for purchase.  We’ll talk about the upcoming Hub on Wheels ride, the sustainable transportation student presentations, the Green energy transportation alternative festival, advocacy efforts and other upcoming rides and events.  More details on the agenda will be forthcoming  to the list.

Dot2Dot is close to both Shawmut and Ashmont T-stations and with 2 new city bike racks located right nearby.

All are welcome and looking forward to seeing you.

Finally! After what has seemed a long wait since the start of the process the city has actually installed some of the promised racks in the neighborhood.  I had heard rumors that some racks were starting to appear so Debbie and I did a bit of reconaissance on our ride home last evening.

Of the 9 rack requests that had made it through all the bureaucratic steps of the process and been submitted to the contractor for installation we were able to confirm with our own eyes that at least 5 of them have been installed.

On Dorchester Ave. racks have been installed in front of the Dot2Dot cafe (1739), the Plaster Place (1730),  JJ’s Irish Pub (1130) and the Banshee (934).

Here’s a picture of the one near the Banshee and look it’s being used!

A rack has also been installed in front of the Dorchester YMCA at 776 Washington.

Not sure if the one planned at COB Inspectional Services 1010 Dot. Ave. is there as we couldn’t locate  the address and we didn’t check out the one slotted for the Strand Theatre in Upham’s corner.

The racks planned for 1452 Dot Ave. in Fields corner and the Ashmont Grill don’t appear to be installed as of yesterday.

It’s a start.  Thanks to Nicole and the City for getting this going and I am hoping to see more of the over 30 requested racks installed over the coming weeks.

Bike parking issues have recently been in the local news and have been keeping DotBike busy but not in the way that we would wish.  A couple of local business owners have been complaining and have prevented requested city post racks from being installed in Lower Mills near the Ice Cream Smith and Flat Black Coffee and jeopardized a rack on MBTA property at the Savin Hill station.  Not Good!  But the appearance of the new city racks in our neighborhood is all to the good.

The weather was beautiful for the crowds of cyclists that started off from various locations in and around the city and ended up at City Hall for the second Boston Bike Friday.  The Dorchester convoy again represented with 35 riders.  Alas we didn’t win the contest for the convoy with the most registered riders (this ‘honor’ went to Lexington).

Coffee, bagels, fruit and clif bars were breakfast (what happened to those tasty pain chocolat?) and there were plenty of booths giving away schwag and info.

A good warm up for the Hub on Wheels ride coming up on September 21st so don’t forget to register and join the DotBike team.

September 21st is the city wide bike ride.  There is still plenty of time to get in shape for the 50 miler and to register for the ride either as an individual or as part of a team.  In fact, you can join the DotBike team.

That’s right DotBike is registered as a team!  If you can ride with is, when you register, after agreeing to the waiver choose to “Join a Team” and then select DotBike from the list of teams.

This is a fantastic event that features 10, 30 or 50 miles routes entirely within the City of Boston as well as entertainment and food.  One highlight of the start of all routes is the opportunity to ride on Storrow Drive while it is closed to cars — though I’ve always thought the section right through Dorchester are also a key highlight.

All routes start and end with a festival at Government Center and there are fun stops with snacks and music throughout the ride.  Volunteers along all routes help with traffic.

Check out this video created by a group scouting the ride last week to see some of the scenic highlights.

The second Boston Bike Friday is coming up this Friday.  The weather is forecast to be great.  The DORCHESTER CONVOY starts in Peabody Square. Hope to see you there.

Check out the city’s Boston Bike Friday page and our event listing for more info.

WHAT: SAFE, GUIDED CONVOYS WITH POLICE ESCORT Lead by experienced cyclists and escorted by Boston Police, convoys follow a fixed schedule and route and originate at locations throughout metro-Boston. All convoys finish at City Hall Plaza Boston.

FREE BREAKFAST, BIKE EXPO AND MUSIC Whether you ride in with a convoy or ride along, join us at Boston City Hall for free food and fun, courtesy of 100.7 WZLX, Mass Commute, Mass Bike, and all our sponsors.

The weather was fantastic, the crowds were large and everyone had a great time at the Dorchester Beach Festival this past Saturday.  DotBikers escorted several families from Pope John Paul Park to the festival and a number of bicyclists arrived on their own.  Many festival goers availed themselves of the free valet bike parking and as an added bonus got a free ABC safety check.

We gave away lots of schwag and info and had a lot of interest.   There was definitely much interest in getting the gaps in the Harbor Trail closed with numerous folks wanting to know how they could help move this forward.  We will continue to work with the various agencies involved to push on this and provide updates and suggestions for how you can help.

A big thanks to everyone who helped out at the festival as well as MassBike, the City of Boston and Officer Rorie at District C-11 for providing us with  goodies for the festival.

DotBikers had a fun and successful time at the two neighborhood community events hosted by Representative Marie St. Fleur this past Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the Tuesday event which was held at the St. Peters School on Bowdoin St. five DotBike volunteers were there to answer questions and provide info to the attendees.  But even more fun than working the crowd was the St. Peter’s teen center bike club.

These youth are planning on riding in the Rodman Ride for Kids coming up in late September.  Many of them had bikes that were in need of some repair and not correctly fitted for the rider.  Vivian worked with them, showing them some minor adjustments that they could make to make riding easier and more comfortable.  He and others will continue to work with this group to get them ready for the ride.  We hope to join them on some training rides so stay tuned for upcoming announcements.

At the Wednesday event at Project Hope on Dudley St. we mixed and mingled with the attendees and helped some of them out with minor repairs. Fun was had by all.

Just a reminder to mark your calendars for the upcoming Dorchester Beach Festival happening on August 16th from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.  Ride to the festival with DotBike.  We’ve added a whole new page with information, links to the festival web site and DotBike activities to the blog so click on the tab above or go directly to the page here.  Come by bike if you can - we’ll provide the parking - and even if you can’t stop by our table and say Hi.

The Tour de France recently concluded with Carlos Sastre of team CSC-Saxo bank winning the final yellow jersey in Paris.  For many people the Tour de France is the only bike race they may have heard of and that is likely due to that guy named Lance who won seven in a row.

However, there is a whole world of bike racing out there at various levels and disciplines and here is just a little taste of where you can go to find out more if you are interested.  I follow road racing so will focus on that but there are Mountain Bike, Cyclocross and BMX specific sites and reports out there if that is your thing.

Most of the teams that race the Tour de France are the top level elite Pro Tour squads (actually there is a question as to whether there is going to be a ‘Pro Tour’ next year - but that is another story).  These are teams like CSC-Saxo bank, Columbia (formerly T-mobile/High road) and Astana.  They have multi-million dollar budgets and consist of about 25 riders whose talents are divided between climbers, sprinters, time trialers, roulers and all-rounders.   These are the major league of cycling.

There is a second level of teams, the pro-continental teams, that have slightly lower budgets and fewer riders but some of these can hang with the big boys and get invites to the Tour due to strength of their results in other high profile European stage races.  Teams such as Garmin-Chipotle and Agritubel.  These are like baseball AAA minor league teams.

However, the vast majority of professional cycling teams in the U.S. and Europe are classified as continental teams.  These teams usually have relatively small budgets and anywhere from 5-15 riders.  They tend to race mostly in their home country but sometimes get a chance to race overseas.  A DotBike member, Adam Myerson, who lives in Fields Corner races on just such a team, Time Pro Cycling.  Time Pro Cycling is in its first year with a professional license and is focused on developing up and coming talent by mentoring young racers with more experienced riders.  Adam (check out his blog here) is one of those more experienced racers and currently he is leading in the USA Criterium Series (which is pretty awesome if you ask me).

Then there are those who like to race for the fun and fitness but don’t make their living by racing.  There are clubs in the area including the Blue Hills Cycling Club who support this type of rider.

Aside from the links to the teams and organizations above there are some great web sites that will allow you to follow lots of bicycle racing at all levels.

There is the VeloNews website with a bit of a focus on american racing, Cycling News based in Australia (I think) which is entirely on line and has pretty comprehensive race coverage and the Bicycling magazine web site which is more of a general bicycling information site but does have some race coverage.

The Mayor and David Watson of MassBike will be speaking in the courtyard at the BU school of communication at 640 Commonwealth Ave. about the new Comm Ave. bike lane, installing bike racks around the city, and one other topic yet to be disclosed.  It’s happening next Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. and it would be really great if a bunch of bicyclists could show up.  See the event listing to the right for more details.