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Family Cycling 101 Oui, Oui... A Great Place for Family Outings I am always on the lookout for new places to have family bike rides. I have some unique things that I look for; relatively flat, minimal or no traffic, interesting things to see and places to stop. Kim and I found a wonderful location this fall when we took a trip to Paris. No, not Paris, Virginia or Paris, Maryland but Paris, France. Now if I could just convince my editor to send me to other foreign capitals to investigate family bike riding options. As we took a boat ride along the Seine River we saw lots of families riding along the roads that parallel the river on either side. It was interesting to see how many of the children were on their own bikes but the adults were frequently on rent-a-bikes. Paris has an active bike sharing program similar to the Bike Share program that has started up in Arlington and Washington DC. The vast majority of the adults that we saw on bikes over the week were on the Share Bikes. We also saw bike lanes throughout the city with steady use, however the riders did not keep to just the streets with bike lanes, we saw bikes everywhere and there did not seem to be any contention between the motorists and the bike riders. This mapped to my experiences years ago when I did a bike tour along the north of France visiting World War II battle sites. It did dawn on me how fortunate we were to be able to experience the different cultures and how different but how alike they really were. When I look at the families riding at biking events, I see high end racing bikes, tandems, triplets, low end specials from the dis- we make cycling more cycling more l o v e y o u r bike [more] fun fun Takoma Bicycle KHS | ReDline | ToRKeR | PARTS | ACCeSSoRieS | RePAiRS 7030 Carroll Avenue Takoma Park, MD 20912 301.270.0202 www.takomabicycle.com by kevin brugman kbrugman@cox.net count stores and everything between. The important thing is that we get our families out riding. Biking along the Seine Kids on Recumbents!? My bike tendencies have always leaned towards touring bikes and as a result, most of our family’s bikes are of that nature. But when my youngest son outgrew his current bike, I asked him if he wanted to go with a bike with flat bars or drop bars? He hesitated and took a deep breath. Just as I was afraid that he was going to say he didn’t want a new bike, he told me wanted to go with a recumbent. Now I have to admit, I was happy to hear that he wanted to keep biking but I had my doubts on getting a child a recumbent. But as a good friend pointed out: he was happy to hear that Jason is interested in experimenting with bicycles. “Our kids are going to grow into adults with their own tastes, and if the boy loves recumbents, we should just remember that they have pedals, too.” They all have pedals! So we have been out looking at bikes with pedals in front of the seat instead of under the seat. We started looking at recumbents when we went down to the Between the Waters ride on the Eastern Shore. As my son pushed me along the ride on the tandem, we commented on every style of recumbent we saw. Remember how when you buy a car, it seems like everyone who has the same model as you do has the same color. The number of recumbents on the bike ride may have increased, but our awareness was far greater. It seemed like someone had put on a recumbent show for us. We saw long and short wheel base recumbents, we saw above seat steering and below seat steering, we saw recumbent tandems and recumbent trikes. And of every basic model, it seemed like there were multiple derivations. At the lunch break stop we took a walk around and looked at the different recumbent bikes we saw. As we were looking at one bike, the owner came up, ready to take off on the next leg of the ride. Before she could take off, we started peppering her with questions and she soon let my son sit on the bike and then encouraged him to try to take a test ride. This particular recumbent was a short wheelbase model with below seat steering. It was difficult enough just to get him in place with his seat down low and legs stuck up in the air and he really tried. But trying to ride a recumbent in an area crowded with bike riders riding around on a mixture of grass and gravel is not the right place for a child to try a recumbent bike for the first time. We politely thanked the lady for her time and we finished the ride on our own. I thought that this might have quenched his taste for a recumbent bike, but once again I thought wrong about my son’s interests. Upon return from the bike trip he again expressed interest in a recumbent so I called a local dealer who sells a number of different kinds of recumbent bikes and asked his advice. He said to come on up, he had a number of different bikes that might interest my son and price ranges that would not scare off dad. So on the first available day, we headed off to the bike shop. True to his word, John had several bikes there for us to try. His first suggestion was a long wheel base, above seat steering model. As soon as Jason sat down, his confidence seemed to wane. This was not his mountain bike and it really felt really strange. John went back to a method that I had used when the boys were young, he had Jason just sit on the bike with his legs off the pedals and coast down a slight hill. After a couple of times doing that, Jason seemed to have regained his confidence and desire. Next he had Jason ride with his feet on the pedals and was soon riding around in big circles in the parking lot. After getting comfortable with the first model, he switched to a short wheelbase with under seat steering. This time it was almost as if he was starting new again. But once again he started by coasting and eventually started pedaling and controlling the bike. But then he went downhill at a good clip and had to stop in a hurry. That time he slowly came back at a much more reserved pace. When he had done a quick stop, he had felt himself lurch forward off the seat and nothing in front of himself to stop him. After that he went back to the above seat steering model. We have continued to try out some bikes and have done one longer ride with a steeper hill. Jason is still trying to figure out what he wants. This is a big change and he is taking this at a slow and deliberate pace. We figure we have the full winter to try out recumbents and make a decision before spring. One nice thing about recumbents is that they are easier to ride while wearing winter clothes and with a faring you can comfortably ride year round as long as the snow is not too deep. In the meantime I can continue to ride the tandem with Jason and let him push me around while I relax and remember, they all have pedals. Speaking of winter riding, most years the weather in the Mid-Atlantic allows for riding most of the year. There are often times for short rides on the weekends in the winter when not competing with Saturday morning soccer or baseball games. Saturday morning rides are an opportunity to ride to new destinations. Instead of riding to the local ice cream store, it is a great time to ride someplace to get a hot chocolate. Even after it freezes, rides like C&O canal can take a new view. There is far less traffic and with the leaves down, the view is totally different than in the summer. While the winter rides are not as common, look out on New Year’s Day for local rides. Several bike shops in the area host rides and there is the big PPTC “most boring century of the year” ride down at Haines Point. You can ride all 33 or just a few of the 3.3 mile laps at Hains Point. What a way to start the New Year and keep any resolutions to increase exercise for at least one day. Here is wishing everyone a Happy New Year and looking forward to meeting up with everyone next spring. 24 Winter 2010/11
COMMUTER CONNECTION by ron cassie ron_cassie@yahoo.com Cities for Cycling Symposium in Baltimore A project of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, Cities for Cycling is an effort to catalog, promote and implement the world’s best bicycle transportation practices in American municipalities. According to its website, Cities for Cycling was founded in 1996 by then commissioner Elliot Sander of New York City’s Department of Transportation. Sander concluded that unlike the states, which often interact with each other through the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO), large cities had virtually no meaningful political or technical relationships with each other. They also lacked such critical relationships with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Jim Sebastian, the District of Columbia’s bicycle coordinator. Last summer, the organization named Eric Gilliland, former head of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, as the association’s new executive director. And in the fall of 2010, under the auspices of Cities for Cycling and Bike Maryland (formerly One Less Car, see below), Gilliland, Jim Sebastian, the District of Columbia’s bicycle coordinator, Dani Simons, director of communications for New York City’s Department of Transportation, Roger Geller, Portland’s bicycle coordinator since 2000, and Baltimore City bike coordinator Nate Evans, led a panel discussion at the University of Baltimore, sharing the experiences of their cities in trying to build more bicycle-friendly infrastructure and communities. With an ear aimed at listening to Sebastian, Simons and Geller, each part of nationally acclaimed efforts that have dramatically improved their cities’ bike infrastructure and community, SPOKES covered the symposium. Each brought the unique perspective of their own cities to the discussion, offering a variety of lessons, history and guidance for area bicycle advocates in the audience. Sebastian, in highlighting how far the nation’s capital has come, in terms of bike-friendliness in recent years, pointed out that in 1978, Washington D.C. had just 3 miles of bicycle lanes. And although the District of Columbia produced the city’s first Bicycle Plan that year, it remained, “kind of stagnant for a while.” The city’s bicycle rejuvenation in the last decade, “was led by advocates,” Sebastian said, making a point stressed by each city representative. Today, Sebastian noted, the District has nearly 50 miles of bike lanes, has developed bicycle parking programs, the Union Station bike station, a bike-sharing project, a dedicated cycling lane on Pennsylvania Ave. and is near completion of the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which will link Silver Spring and Northeast D.C. neighborhoods with Union Station. “Stick around long enough,” Sebastian told the audience, “and you get to see good things happen. We have 47 miles of bike lanes in place and another 20 more miles in planning and design. We’ve been installing over 100 bicycle racks a year. Last year, we installed 300 and we aren’t even keeping up with demand because of the growing number of bicycles.” Home of one of the first bike sharing programs in the country, Sebastian said over 1,000 bikes in September were rented as part of the District program. Sebastian plugged the city’s new transportation website: www. goDCgo.com and broke down the city’s $5.7 million bike budget, which includes $500,000 for bike lanes, $100,000 for bike racks, $4 million for trails, $150,000 for education and $900,00 for safe routes to school programs. Washington, D.C. is now rated the 6th best bicycling city in the country and tops on the East Coast. Dani Simons, formerly Transportation Alternatives’ director of communications, is now a part of New York City’s Department of Transportation. She is a daily bike commuter, trekking from Brooklyn to Manhattan for work. A native of Alexandria, Va., she described herself as a big fan of Baltimore’s diverse neighborhoods. “The idea of connecting them (Baltimore’s neighborhoods) by bicycle is a really exciting idea,” Simons told the local audience. A former bicycle advocate in Rhode Island, Simons moved to New York in 2004 and noted the profound changes in the city’s bicycle landscape in just the last six years. “If you told me I’d be watching people in flip flops riding bikes, women carrying purses, people standing on top of pedals, I never would’ve believed it,” Simons said. “The only people you used to see on bicycle in New York were spandex guys and bike messengers. It’s just totally different now.” A lot of the credit, she said, has to go to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made a concerted effort to increase the number of bike lanes in the city. Simons added that bicycling planning in New York is crucial to the city’s future. After population declines in 1970s, New York started to grow again in the 1990s, and is projected to add another million by 2023. “It’s an older city and we have to find space, open space, green space and street space,” Simons said. “We need to commit the resources to do that, not to mention upgrade sewer and power infrastructure. We need to green them, too, and face climate change in the process.” Public transit, Simons stressed, is actually overcrowded. “We need to shift more people to walking and biking,” Simons said. “It’s a flat city, it’s a dense city, and it’s quicker than the subway. It’s a natural.” New York has added 200 miles of bike lanes over a three-year period from June, 2006, to July 2009. The city is continuing to work on painting new bike lanes, protecting more by buffer plants and adding paths to more bridges. Meanwhile, the Westside Greenway in Manhattan is one of the busiest bike paths in the country, attracting up to 50,000 people on nice weekends. Overall, Simons said, the bicycle riding community in New York City was expected to double by 2012 from 2007 levels. Closing Broadway through Times Square and Herald Square, creating pedestrian plaza and Dani Simons, director of communications for NYC’s Department of Transportation, and Roger Geller, Portland’s bicycle coordinator. building dedicated bike lanes from 59th St. to Union Square have proved to be ground-breaking, wildly successful ventures. “No one would have dreamed this five years ago,” Simons said. Interestingly, she noted, with volume on city bike lanes up 50 percent, crashes are down 56 percent, making the case familiar to serious cyclists that more bicyclists mean safer bicycling. Roger Geller, the bicycle coordinator in Portland for the past decade and with the city’s bike program since 1994, said change in bicycle policy and infrastructure ultimately comes down in political leaders who want to make changes. That doesn’t mean, however, advocacy isn’t important. It makes it more important. “People need to let them know they want bike lanes, bike parking, on-street parking,” Geller said. “You need to get the word out, write letters, get the newspapers to write articles – anything you can to increase visibility.” Portland, long held up as a model biking city, is close in size to Baltimore and the District of Columbia, but has five times the number of bike lane miles compared to the nation’s capital. Today, Geller said, the top bike infrastructure issue in Portland is bike parking. Also, new laws are being directed at requiring greater proportional bike parking for residential and commercial buildings. A major recent victory has buses, light rails and trains accepting bicycles at all hours, in all locations. In step with the theme of the evening – that real change for more bicycle-friendly cities is underway – Geller noted that in 1991, in Portland, there were approximately 2,500 cyclists per day. That number today is 17,500. In Portland, one-in-six people identify bicycling as their primary or secondary means of transportation. As in New York, greater ridership has translated into safer bicycling, with Geller noting that bicycling in Portland today is 400 percent safer than in the mid-90s. “The next step for Portland,” Geller said, “is adapting bike signals at awkward and busy intersections, and Dutch-style design principles.” Even Portland still needs to increase the confidence of people riding on the road, Geller said. “How cyclists interact with automobiles is crucial,” Geller said. “The less confident people are, the fewer riders you’ll have.” One Less Car changes its name The Maryland non-profit, One Less Car, a longtime voice advocating for pedestrian and bicycling issues statewide, changed its name to Bike Maryland last month. The organization’s mission has narrowed its focus to bicycle issues. Its mission, according to the website, “is to encourage and promote bicycling, increase safety, commuter continued on p.26 Winter 2010/11 25
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Page 30 and 31: cyclists' kitchen Chocolate: Is It
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