Month: January 2010

Winter race Leadville Colorado

Richard MasonerJanuary 6, 2010Leave a Comment

Leadville, Colorado is the highest incorporated city in the United States at elevation 10,152 feet above sea level. That means it will probably be pretty chilly there on January 23, 2010, for the first of a series of winter snow mountain bike races.

The temperatures generally range from the single digits to low 30s Fahrenheit in January, which isn’t too bad when you’re exerting yourself.

For details –>

Props to UltraRob and 303 Cycling.

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Dirt Bowl: Marin County Benefit Ride

Richard MasonerJanuary 5, 2010Leave a Comment

Mountain bike charity ride with Leadville 100 six time winner David Wiens

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition and the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League have organized the 1st Annual Dirt Bowl, a benefit ride to ensure that kids have safe roads and great trails. Proceeds from the Dirt Bowl will go towards the ongoing advocacy work being conducted by both organizations.

The Dirt Bowl offers both recreational and competitive cyclists the opportunity to participate in a fun and well organized event. The Dirt Bowl will start at the San Geronimo Golf Course in Fairfax, California on the morning of the Super Bowl. You can join the supported mountain bike ride through Camp Tamarancho or plan your own route (trail or road). After the ride, head back to the San Geronimo Golf Course for a BBQ, with local beverages, new friends and the big game.

Colorado native and Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Dave Wiens will lead the 10:30

Participants will be required to raise a minimum of $125 to join the fundraising event. Your contribution will include food and drink, a Dirt Bowl t-shirt, a chance to win prizes and a few other surprises.

    What: DirtBowl mountain bike ride.
    Who: Marin County Bicycle Coalition and NorCal High School Mountain Bike League.
    When: Super Bowl Sunday, February 7th, 2010.
    Where: San Geronimo Golf Course, San Geronimo, CA 94963. This is up the road from Fairfax, CA in Marin County.
    Why: Benefits MCBC and NorCal High School Mountain Bike League.
    How: Visit DirtBowl.net for more info and to register for this ride.
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Contest: Pedaling Revolution Book

Richard MasonerJanuary 5, 20108 Comments on Contest: Pedaling Revolution Book

Update: Contest and comments closed.

Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities

In a world of growing traffic congestion, expensive oil, and threats of cataclysmic climate change, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on the streets of urban cityscapes. In Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes explores the growing urban bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities across the U.S. He rides with bike advocates who are taming the streets of New York City, joins the street circus that is Critical Mass in San Francisco, and gets inspired by the everyday folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Mapes, a seasoned political journalist and long-time bike commuter, explores the growth of bicycle advocacy while covering such issues as the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling for short urban trips. His rich cast of characters includes Noah Budnick, a young bicycle advocate in New York who almost died in a crash near the Brooklyn Bridge, and Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN), who took to bicycling in his fifties and helped unleash a new flood of federal money for bikeways. Chapters set in Chicago and Portland show how bicycling has became a political act, with seemingly dozens of subcultures, and how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are seizing streets back from motorists. Pedaling Revolution is essential reading for the approximately one million people who regularly ride their bike to work or on errands, for anyone engaged in transportation, urban planning, sustainability, and public health’and for drivers trying to understand why they’re seeing so many cyclists. All will be interested in how urban bike activists are creating the future of how we travel and live in twenty-first-century cities.

First to correctly answer all trivia questions wins this book.

Post a comment with the correct answer to the questions below, and I’ll send you my well thumbed-through copy of Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities by Jeff Mapes. Mapes gives the political history of modern cycling advocacy and is a valuable read for anybody involved in cycling advocacy and transportation issue.

1. In the context of transportation planning: Who is Roger Geller?

2. Jeff Mapes is senior political reporter for which newspaper in which city?

3. The first Critical Mass (as such) was held in what U.S. city in what year?

4. As of today, what three cities have “platinum” status in the League of American Bicyclists Bicycle Friendly Communities program?

5. “Transportation Alternatives” is the chief pedestrian and bicycle lobby in what city?

Bonus. What was your first bicycle?

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Transit vs bike trip time in London

Richard MasonerJanuary 5, 20105 Comments on Transit vs bike trip time in London

Andreas aka the London Cyclist timed trip times of some common journeys, riding his bike and taking the London Underground and comparing the times. You can read about his experiment here.

In the various commuter challenges I’ve seen, bikes generally come out ahead of other transportation modes in urban environments, even beating out a helicopter in this challenge. For many trips in Silicon Valley, I on my bike am often quicker than taking a VTA bus, although Caltrain is almost always the quickest mode for longer trips.

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