Dot Bike

If you haven’t had a chance yet you should check out some of the photo’s posted in our flickr gallery – all taken and contributed by our fearless photographer Phil who has worked hard capturing the faces and rides of folks around our neighborhood.

Phil entered a few of his shots in a photo contest and has made it to the second round of voting.  So check them out below and click on the image to be taken to the voting site. The resolution is better at the contest site. Remember vote and vote often.  Voting closes December 31st.

Here’s my favorite a photo of a very practical Vivian on the DotBike art ride

And here are his four other entries.

The City of Boston is conducting a brief survey of people who bicycle in Boston. If you ride a bike in Boston–rarely, occasionally or even every single day–please take a moment to complete this very brief but very important survey.

Click here to take the survey. Let anyone else you know who bikes in Boston about this too.

by Nicole Freedman, Director of Mayor Menino’s Boston Bikes

Hosted by LivableStreets Alliance
Thursday, December 10, 6:30-8:00 PM (doors open at 6)
@ Rabb Lecture Hall, Boston Public Library, Copley Square, 700 Boylston St

Free and open to the public

Nicole Freedman, Director of the Boston Bikes Program, will present her second annual report on the past achievements and future goals of the Mayor’s efforts to create a “world class bicycling city.” Ms. Freedman will discuss plans for the city’s bike sharing program, bike lanes and off-road networks, bike parking facilities, youth programs, bike festivals, and more.

LivableStreets Alliance is a non-profit organization that believes urban transportation has the power to make the Boston region more connected – and more livable.

For more information:
events<AT>livablestreets<DOT>info, www.facebook.com/LivableStreets, 617-621-1746
www.cityofboston.gov/bikes

19th Cycle-Smart International Cyclocross Race – November 7th and 8th

Look Park in Northhampton, MA

Cycle-Smart is putting on a cyclo-cross race in Look Park Northampton, MA this weekend. It is the oldest UCI sanctioned race in the US and is expected to draw much of the top U.S. talent to western Mass this weekend. There are races on both Saturday and Sunday.

This president and founder of Cycle-Smart is Dorchester’s own Adam Myerson so if you have a chance you should head on out and check out the great action.

There is a write up on the race on cycling news or you can visit the official race site for more info.

There was a great turnout at the forum for the 8 at-large candidates for Boston City Council to discuss issues on city parks and open spaces.  At least 200 people packed into the Franklin Park Clubhouse, many of which were sporting bright high vis yellow outerwear and bike helmets.  The large turnout and the presence of all the candidates was a testament to the excellent job of organizing this event by Christine Poff, director of the Franklin Park Coalition, and Valerie Burns, director of Boston Natural Area Network, working together on behalf of the Boston Park Advocates and the 99 total organizations that signed on as co-sponsors, including Dot Bike.

I don’t want to single out any candidate as a particular favorite especially as the topic of this debate was not biking per se and I encourage you to look at the candidates positions on all the issues.  However, I will select a few ‘highlights’ for mention.

There was a charming question from one of the always-sharp B.O.L.D. teens in the audience who noted the dearth of bike racks available in the parks and asked how to get more.  One of the candidates, Doug Bennett, jumped right in with the bold statement that the way to solve the problem was to install more bike racks – one of several perhaps overly straightforward responses from this earnest  young Republican.

Stephen Murphy professed to be a cyclist, which was nice to hear.  He also stated that one of his goals was to establish a committed revenue stream/budget item for parks and open spaces although he didn’t say exactly how this might happen.

John Connolly promoted himself as the main bicycle advocate on the city council, mentioning bike lanes and the bike share program multiple times.  DotBike is still wondering if our neighborhood will see any benefits from the bike share program as currently envisioned.  Our fabulous Franklin Park would be one attractive site to consider as a recreational bike share hub.

One of Debbie and my favorite moments of the evening had nothing to do with cycling.  When Felix Arroyo, who had been fielding questions with poise and relative ease, was asked what he thought about the Asian Longhorn Beetle he was completely stumped.  After a few humorous remarks he made a great recovery by admitting he had no idea and that as a city councilor he would routinely seek out people with expertise to help him get the info he needed to make informed decisions.

Generally, all candidates had an encouraging perspective on the importance of multi-use open space and recreation.  So thanks again to the organizers and we could use more forums like this to keep our elected officials (or hopefuls) involved in the issues and problems that cyclists face every day.

You may have heard that there is an election coming up early next month that has some particular relevance for Boston citizens.  In addition to the well publicized mayoral election there are a number of City Council seats being contested this go round.

The good (and very hard working) folks at the Livable Streets Alliance developed a survey with 10 questions asking about ideas and positions on matters of sustainable transportation in Boston and sent this on September 30th to each of the City Council Candidates  asking for responses by October 15th (this coming Thursday at the time of this post).  DotBike as well as several other of the city bicycle, pedestrian and park advocacy groups signed on as co-sponsors of this effort.

So far they have received responses from only a single candidate, Chuck Turner – running for the District 7 seat, so we’ll give him a shout out for being the first respondent.  But there is still time for others to respond.  Keep checking here if your interested to see if other candidates have anything to contribute.

The candidates will be  asked about their responses at the upcoming Debate on Parks and Open Spaces taking place next Thursday October 22nd at 6:30 p.m. at the Franklin Park Golf Clubhouse.  Pam Cross, WCVB Channel 5 news anchor will moderate what will hopefully be an interesting conversation.

The first Boston Tweed Ride happened this past Sunday afternoon.  There were approximately 100 people who participated most dressed in stylish tweedy attire.

(photo courtesy of BostonBiker where you can go to view lots more excellent pics)

And for even more and better quality photos check out the tweed ride flickr photo pool.

DotBike was well represented with some natty dressers including Phil and Maggie dressed to the nines.

Sorry the dark photo doesn’t do them justice.

The pace of the ride was VERY relaxed.  There was a stop at the Otherside Cafe, location of Boston’s first (and currently only?) on street bike rack – which unfortunately was temporarily moved to the sidewalk while road resurfacing was taking place.

Because both Debbie and I had colds we had to cut out early so missed Phil winning the mount/dismount contest.  Hoping to get some photos or video of that event to add to this post.

All in all a quite fun event so make sure to catch it next year.

Debbie and I just recently got back from vacation.  The bulk of our vacation was spent cycling most of the length of Wales.  Wales is not a huge country – just a couple of hundred of miles longwise and they have this very well posted cross country cycle route Lon Los Cymru (roughly translated as the Wales Green Way).

We did this trip as a self-guided tour which was offered by Drover Holidays a local Wales-based company.   They were great.  This is the second self-guided style tour that we have done and they are quite enjoyable.  For a much more affordable cost than a fully supported tour they booked our lodging for us, transported our luggage from inn to inn, provided maps and route descriptions, nice bikes and in this case threw in a ride to the train station in a neighboring town on our last day so we didn’t have to take a slow bus to our next stop.

This style of touring has advantages over both completely self-supported tours – eg. you don’t have to cycle with your luggage and local knowledge ensures reasonable lodging and  fully supported tours – eg. no pressure to finish at a particular time and you don’t need to wait for anyone for to finish to get dinner.  As long as you are comfortable dealing with minor mechanical issues (only 1 flat the entire time for me) and don’t mind getting a little lost on occasion self-guided tours are certainly worth considering.

And I must say that it was pretty hard to get lost.  We followed sign posted markers like this the entire way and there was only a single intersection that lacked a marker in the direction we were  going – although we did miss one other turn to due lack of attention.




Well back to the trip.

The first thing we noticed was the width of the roads.  What here in the US wouldn’t be deemed safe as a multi-use bike path, were pretty much the standard for country lanes in Wales.  I’m not quite 6 feet tall and as I demonstrate in this picture the roads weren’t much wider than I am tall. 
And the other thing is that they are often without shoulders and bordered by tall hedges.  So this took some getting used to but fortunately the lanes along our route were very low traffic.

There were a couple of other things you couldn’t help but notice.  The first was the sheep.  They were everywhere – even occasionally in the road.

The other was the hills.  We were quite worried when on the first day, which was stated in the description as mostly flat, we were sent up this godawful climb with over 20% grades – they had a sign to warn you at the bottom – with switchbacks and all.  It wasn’t too long – certainly less than a mile – but I know that I was thinking that if this is one of the less hilly days we are in trouble.  Thankfully, while the terrain was almost always rolling and there were indeed some significant climbs remaining, some that were several kilometers in length we didn’t see many more of those warning 20% grade signs and we managed just fine.  And the views from the high points really were worth it.

Just got back from a bike trek across Wales (more on that in a later post) and had a nice surprise on my ride to work this morning. The city has striped bike lanes on Circuit Drive going through Franklin Park. Looks like they did a good job at it too.

This significantly narrows the travel lane so hopefully will slow down traffic on this road and also delineates parking areas more clearly than before.  And of course gives cyclists a dedicated lane.

Here is a view traveling east toward Blue Hill Ave. showing parking area, bike lane and travel lane.

new bike lane heading east on Circuit Drive

And here is a view going east near the Valley Gates intersection with Pierpont Rd.  The lane continues up Pierpont about 50 yards and along Circuit with dashed marking showing the splits at the intersection.

heading west near intersection with Pierpont at Valley Gates

TD Bank Boston Cycling Celebration

September 26 & 27, 2009

www.tdbankcyclingweekend.com

Olympians. National champions. We’re talking the country’s BEST pro cyclists pedaling by you so fast, you’ll feel the breeze! It’s the first annual TD Bank Mayor’s Cup Pro Race on Saturday, September 26^th at Boston City Hall Plaza. It’s all FREE to spectators. The “Boloco Block Party” kicks off at 2pm. Then catch the pro races, a kids race, and a mascot race. It all wraps up with a free concert featuring Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra on The Plaza.

And if you’re adrenaline is still pumping on Sunday, come on out for the fifth annual Hub On Wheels citywide bike ride. All proceeds go to support Boston school kids. When you’re done, The Boloco Block Party will still be there waiting for you.

Check it out today and enter to win a free bicycle. www.tdbankcyclingweekend.com

Proudly brought to you by Mayor Thomas M. Menino, City of Boston, making Boston a world-class bicycling city.