Solstice Ride 2010

I have a success to report! I successfully went on the Bike Denver winter solstice ride!

It was cold. Cold enough that before the ride, Scott's face went numb. His thumbs remained relatively un-numbed-up enough though, so he twooshed about it.

Click to view twoosh

I reckon there were about 50 bikes on the ride, which is a good turn out. The ride started in City Park at the zoo, proceeded through Five Points (through, in fact, the five-point 26th/Welton/Washington intersection after which the area is named), down to Union Station. From there to the City & County Building and the state capitol, and then down to Marion & Colfax to the Irish Snug, where we warmed ourselves with some spirits and libations.

50 Furlongs!

Mapping out the ride later, I discovered that it was almost exactly 50 furlongs in length!

I don't really know what that means, but Google says so, so it must be true.

Click through for Facebook gallery

At the City & County building, I was coraled into a photo with the Bike Depot crew. I'm the bearded, leaning one towering in the foreground like some kind of neon yellow discount Christmas tree.


City & County Bldg, courtesy of @ubiquity

If you haven't seen the City & County building, you're missing an impressive display of complete disregard for holiday deference. It's a Christmas building. And not just a secular Christmas building, but a Christ is born Christmas building. That's Santa's barely visible sleigh on the roof, complete with reindeer. That's a nativity scene to the right of the stairs. And that's a workshop full of elves to the left.

Wow.

At this point in the ride, my feet had joined Scott's nose in Can't Feel Ya Land. Fortunately we hurried up 16th Ave to the Snug, where I spent only enough time to warm up over a few beers before returning home, where various mammals awaited their dinner.

And after that, the shortest day/longest night of 2010 was over. Here's to having some daylight in the AM and PM during which to ride!

Fixing of a Prejudiced Light

The city has been constructin' along E 25th Ave, tearing a thin stripe up out of the middle of the road and then putting it back down again. Looks terribly important and productive..

What I've noticed has happened now, though, is that the light on 25th at Downing now recognizes bicycles! (Sort of.) That intersection is on what my map calls a “neighborhood bike route,” and the light used to not change for bicycles. It was a light on my PABST! (Prejudice And Bias Suck: Totally!) list with a "red" or "High Priority" rating. It's a high priority to have traffic signals on city designated bike routes recognize bicycles. That's obvious, right?

So I would reluctantly, but out of necessity, run the red light there at least once a day during my commute.

But, now! Suddenly I notice that twice it turned green for me! Neither time was there any motor traffic to trigger it. After a few more similar encounters, it became clear that the light is now on a timed cycle. (I watched it keenly from several blocks away as it cycled for no traffic of any kind.) I had hoped that maybe the intersection had been modified to recognize and change for bicycles, but I know that was wishful thinking. I'm unaware of any intersection in Denver that does that. But that is not to say that I don't consider this a victory because I most certainly do.

The change has me abuzz with curiosity. Was this a “one shot” kind of thing, an isolated adjustment unique to that intersection and unlikely to occur elsewhere along other bike routes? Or, and this is what I hope for because this would be really stinking cool, is the city adjusting traffic controls along bike routes to actually recognize—or at least periodically assume the presence of—bikes? ‘cause that’d be awesome.

In any case, I’m stoked about this change at this intersection. One less light I have to run!

Yay, safety.

Good ridin's!

Winter solstice ride

Bike Denver just announced its Winter Solstice Ride!



I have a bit of a history with this ride.

Rather, I would have a bit of a history had I ever actually gotten to participate in it.

Two years ago

2008 was my first attempt at doing the solstice ride. It was spectacularly cold. The average number of degrees during that day was 13. And then, after that, the sun went down.

I put on four or five shirts, two or three pairs of pants, numerous other accessories, and struck out into the cold. It was about six miles from where I was living in the Highlands to City Park, from where the ride was leaving, and it took me about thirty minutes to cover the distance.

On the way, the laces of my boot got sucked into my cranks and almost threw me off my bike. I executed an emergency stop in the middle of 15th Street, numbed my hands after removing my gloves in order to gain the dexterity needed to untangle myself, and then continued on my way. After, that is, tucking those laces oh so carefully down into the collar of my boot.

I got to the park and to the fountain, where the ride was supposed to begin, only to find ... nothing. I couldn't see any person in any direction. I circled around the park thinking maybe they meant the statue instead of the fountain.

Along the way, I bumped into another cyclist who had also showed up for the ride only to find a lack thereof. He had just moved to Denver from somewhere in Alaska, and seemed comfortable in the cold.

We puttered around the park for a short while longer, and then parted ways, and I returned home, having never spotted the peloton.

Last year

We had moved across town by the time 2009's winter solstice came around. I was mere blocks from City Park instead of miles from it. And it was much warmer. The average temperature that day was 44 degrees! That's 31 more degrees!

I arrived at the fountain in plenty of time. The crowd was still gathering after I got there, so I mingled and gawked and chatted up some other riders. We all climbed up on the edge of the fountain and had our picture taken, shortly after which we started to roll out.

It was at this time I noticed my rear tire was flat. All the way, rim-on-the-ground flat. I considered patching the tube and then playing catch-up, meeting up with the group at some later point in the ride, but there weren't any scheduled stops and I realized I wasn't interested in rolling around Denver by myself searching for a couple dozen people on bikes.

I watched the last of the group roll off, and I pushed my bike home.

This year

This year, my work schedule conflicts with the ride. I was about to resign myself to the fact that I just wasn't going to go and that it was going to be yet another year of not participating, when my Partner and Co-Pilot pointed out to me that my thing is trying and then failing to go on the ride. Not failing to go for a lack of showing up.

And she's right. So if I'm going to fail yet again to go on the winter solstice ride, it will only be after making a valid effort to succeed.

I'm going to arrange to get off early. I'm going to execute a thorough pre-ride checklist to avoid flats and whatevers. And I am going to go on the damn solstice ride this year.

I want you to imagine I said that last part out loud and that I said it with all the determination that Darnielle does in This Year.

Mariposa Bike Lanes

Another ceremonial ribbon cutting for another new bike lane! This one was on Mariposa Street, and was based out of Lincoln Park, which is just a little bit outside my sphere of familiarity: I've only ridden past Lincoln Park once or twice.

A crude map of the area in question.

BikeDenver's announcement of the event.

The ride started just outside Lincoln Park with the ceremonial ribbon cutting.



Note, first of all, the thin red carpet spread across the width of the bike lane. This is BikeDenver.org's all purpose red carpet. It has been rolled out at pretty much every function of theirs I've been to, even if it's just bike parking. It is awesome.

And now, a closer look at who the folks are in the photograph.

1. Me. Behind the car and outside the frame of the picture.


2. John Hayden, Denver realtor and member of the mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee. He was at the ribbon cutting for the MLK bike lanes.


3. An especially Nordic looking member of the Denver Housing Authority. This picture doesn't do him a lot of justice; he was the size of a small car.


4. Councilperson Judy Montero, whose write-up of the event can be found here.


5. Ismael Guerrero, Executive Director of the Denver Housing Authority.


6. Somebody I thought I recognized, but it turns out now that I don't, but I had already labeled her in the picture, so ... sorry.

The ride itself was pleasant. It showed riders recommended ways to get from Lincoln Park to downtown to the high school to the Light Rail and back to the park, where there were Clif Bars and cupcakes.

I fell in beside a jolly old couple at one point in time to hear the gentleman exclaim that it is easier to bike in Denver than in Asheville, North Carolina! I have visited Asheville and thought it was lovely, so I chatted with him about the area for a moment. He turned out to be Senior City Planner Emily Kreisa's dad, in town for a visit.

If during the course of your job you get to go on a nice, slow bike ride through downtown with your mom and dad, then you've got a pretty sweet job. Well done, Emily. And, your folks are cute. I liked it when your mom was noticing out loud which foot everybody put down when they stopped.

---

And then towards the end of the ride, a funny thing happened.

The peloton had just come to a four-way stop when this car behind us whipped over across the double yellows and into the opposing lane.

Ironically, he had his left turn blinker on, in full dutiful compliance with the traffic law. While sitting on the wrong side of the road, in flippant disregard of that traffic law. It was obvious that the driver was of two minds when it came to following the rules of the road, and that he couldn't be trusted.

So he was intent on executing a left hand turn, but so were we. The peloton, taking advantage of the right-of-way to which, as law abiding citizens of the road, we were entitled, began its left hand turn. The driver, should he simultaneously execute his turn, would have to continue driving down the English side of the road until he had passed the entire group, at which point he could merge--probably while signally properly--back into the proper lane.

Unfortunately for him, he never got that far. When he initially pulled up to the intersection, he unbeknowingly pulled up alongside the two bike cops who were leading our ride, one of whom immediately shouted a stern and impressively coppy "HEY!" and corralled him.



I rode on, swept down stream by the bike current, and didn't see the conclusion of that interaction. I doubt he was ticketed because I saw the cop again shortly thereafter, but I believe the motorist won't soon be repeating that maneuver!

MLK B-LANES

So some new bike lanes went up on MLK Blvd a while ago. When they first went in, I was critical of them. "MLK is so busy, and cars just fly down it." Also, 29th Ave is bike route D6, a nice wide enjoyable route. (MLK is effectively 32nd Ave, only three blocks north of 29th.)

I hadn't ridden these bike lanes, and no plans to before hearing about the "Bike Lane Unveiling" that was planned one Friday morning. (Bikedenver's announcement here.) It sounded like it would be a hoot, so I turned out in Stapleton the morning of the event.



The Denver Bikerati were out in scores. Attendees and special guests included the Bike Depot's Chris Dunn (whose infant son wore the tiniest helmet and sunglasses, and had a kick-ass handlebar seat behind a large protective windshield), councilpersons Carla Madsen and Michael Hancock (both of whom rode b-cycles during the ride), bikedenver's Piep van Heuven (who is always awesome and fun to chat with), Senior City Planner Emily Kreisa, and others.

Clif Bar and Starbucks were both there handing out their wares. Some Stapleton neighborhood group was giving out bananas.

There was a lady there promoting a local car share program. She had a large beautiful dog next to the car, and I have to admit I felt as though I had been mislead when she admitted to me that the shared cars don't all come with large beautiful dogs. DANG!

There was also somebody there leading the crowd, which initially consisted of but one person, in pre-ride yoga exercises.


Councilperson M. Hancock on the left. Co-worker o' Mine D. W. on the right.

Incidentally, there was a five year old in the yoga crowd who could yoga the hell out of some yoga. All the adults were embarrassed of their own yoga when they saw this five year old busting out his own kick-ass yoga. He was like the Michael Jordan of basketball yoga, and everybody else was the Michael Jordan of minor league baseball yoga.

Some speakers did some speakin', during which it was spelled out to me what was significant and special about about the MLK bike lanes: they create the only continuous, newbie-friendly route between downtown Denver and Park Hill/Stapleton.

Once it was explained to me that way, I immediately ceased being critical of the MLK bike lanes. Suddenly, I was appreciative of them, and I admired them, and I valued them. They suddenly became awesome.

Some red string--perhaps it was a ribbon--was strung across the front of the podium where all the speakin' occured. Eleven or eight Important People were given tiny scissors, and together they cut the "ribbon" and the bike lanes were "opened."

The lanes had been painted and dry at least a week prior, and the cutting occurred several blocks from the beginning of the lanes. But nobody thought it appropriate to mention such things, and we all clapped and cheered instead. Hooray!

Then, soon, it was time to mount up (it means "get on your horses") and ride from Stapleton, down MLK and eventually along Champa, where we would end at Curtis Park. (Event map.)

It was a ride largely parallel to my daily commute, so it was familiar. But it was in orders of magnitude faster than usual. The reason being that we had a three car police escort through town, stopping cross traffic and ushering us through intersections. I guess that's the kind of service you get when city councilpersons are leading your bike ride.

Immediately I became accustomed to the VIP treatment, and every ride I have taken since then has been comparatively inferior and decidedly spoiled by the lack of fanfare and flashing lights.

The ride down MLK was fine. Somewhere between Steele (halfway through the phantom projection of City Park, blocks to the south) and York (exiting the phantom park) the bike lane ends and is replaced by a couple of sharrows. Which is fine for any experienced rider. But assuming these bike lanes exist for the novice Stapleton commuter, it might be somewhat unnerving to suddenly be thrust into traffic that heretofore had been driving mindlessly along without having to think of or otherwise consider the bikes that had been sectioned off and segregated in their own special private little bike lanes.

I don't recall seeing any "Bike Lane Ends" kind of sign. I think drivers and cyclists alike could benefit from one at that point.

When we arrived at Curtis Park, bikedenver had a booth set up with freebies and good will for all. There was also a cupcake truck! (I had the chocolate one because omg chocolate.)



Bikedenver unveiled (as far as this blogger is concerned) their new logo and branding. I told Piep it looked awesome, and she responded thankful that a macho dude such as I didn't find the cool blues too feminine.

So there ya go. A clear shot from downtown to Stapleton now exists.

The next question I have now is when will Stapleton get its first b-cycle station?

Boneshaker!

I got my first issue of the Boneshaker Almanac last night!

It's a small little publication, pocket-sized and looking just like the Field Guide it claims to be. It doesn't lack anything because of size, though. The goodness starts just inside the front cover, upper left hand corner, with the publishers information and the copyright information, similar to Dave Eggars' A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius.

Speaking of the publisher, Wolverine Farms Publishing is based nearby in Fort Collins. Like New Belgium Brewery, which is the first thing I think of when I think of Fort Collins, and that would be simply a coincidental association if it weren't for the New Belgium banner at the top of the Wolverine Farms website. I'm not sure what the connection is there, but I'm not surprised by it. New Belgium is pretty well established in the bike scene, and Wolverine Farms publishes bike almanac. So I guess they would be friends.

The neat thing about the publisher being so nearby is that some of the content is real local news.

Like the picture of Pennyfarthing Guy that appears in the middle of the advice column. I've seen Pennyfarthing Guy pedaling down Cherry Creek, and I saw him at BikeDenver.org's volunteer appreciation party, although I didn't introduce myself.

And like the interview with Brad Evans, editor of Kickstand Magazine and Denver Cruisers Ride architect, wherein he totally called out and heaped scorn upon the skofflaw BIKE NINJAS and their unilluminated ways. Brad Evans, I hereby bestow upon you the title of "Honorary Bike Pirate."

The content wasn't all local though, not by any means. There are blips and blurbs from Texas and beyond, including a bit about biking in Birmingham by Elisa from bikeskirt!

It has the aforementioned advice column, and a book review of David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries. I'm not even finished reading this almanac yet, but I'm obviously tickled thus far.

By which I mean to say, subscriptions are cheap and I endorse it. Go ahead and order a couple copies.

Route profile: 16th Street/Avenue

16th Street Mall and 16th Avenue are collectively known as the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.



One of Denver's stranger bike routes, notable for running along the spine of the city, but at the same time not really taking you anywhere.

Access to the mall is limited to one day out of the week; and 16th Avenue has a bike lane but is not part of the Grid, and eventually comes to an abrupt stop after a couple blocks.

The route starts at one end of the city at the northwest end of the 16th Street Mall, either at Union Station or at National Velvet.



Now, unless it's Sunday, you cannot ride on the 16th Street Mall. This is one of bikedenver.org's Big Four rules, right up there with No Riding On The Sidewalk. Bike here 85.7% of the time, and you'll get a ticket.

On Sunday though, you can cruise right down the middle of the road. It's an interesting 1.5 mile ride that's not without its own unique joys and frustrations.

At the southeast end of the mall, your route crosses Broadway and becomes E 16th Avenue.

16th Avenue is not listed on the City of Denver bike map as a "grid" route, or even as a local bike route, but simply as a "road with a bike lane."

So even the city recognizes that it's kind of special.

Personally, I have a tendency to forget about 16th Ave until I cross it coming from the north or the south, and I see a bike lane, and I think to myself, "Oh! An E/W bike lane! I need to go east … might as well use this convenient bit of infrastructure!"

So I turn onto 16th and cruise along, slowly progressing through the the stop signs that litter the route, until suddenly it dead ends at East High School.



Near the school, there is suddenly eleven or eight fleets worth of cars parked on the street, and there are always—regardless of the time day, morning or afternoon—handfuls of kids milling about outside.

Enough to make you want to point out to them that there's no such thing as education by proxy. Being at the school doesn't count. You gotta, you know, go inside and learn stuff.

Anyway, so suddenly you dead-end at the high school. You options for continuing are, to the south, Colfax Ave; and to the north, 17th Ave.

Neither of these streets are safe to bike on.

That leaves you the option of, to the north, continuing past 17th into and through City Park or, to the south, riding on the sidewalk on Colfax for one block before cutting back up to a safe side street.

Of these options, one is illegal (sidewalk-ridin') and one is inconvenient (the winding route through City Park takes you out of your way.)

---

So this route is interesting. It takes you from East High School to the far end of 16th Street Mall, and not really anywhere else.

But in doing so, you get really close to the real heart of the city.

Just off this route is City Park, Civic Center Park, the Central Library. Cheeseman Park is a short ride to the south. It runs parallel to all the wondrous crap on Colfax and it runs right through all the wondrous crap on the 16th Street Mall, including Skyline park. At the northwest end, you can get on the S. Platte River trail just north of the confluence with the Cherry Creek trail.

So from a wider perspective, I suppose it's quite a well connected hub.

But since all it literally does is connect a high school to a strip mall, I shall henceforth call this the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.

DU's early Bike Share launch

Denver's got a pretty awesome bike sharing program in the works. It's all scheduled to go live on Earth Day, 2010.

Today, Denver University launched their "bike library" b-cycle station.

According to the denvergov.org link above, DU is already scheduled to get bike kiosks as part of the plan as it exists.

I'm wondering if these two kiosks they now have are going to be it for them, of if they're planning on having a few more kiosks by Earth Day.

And what kind of pull, sway, or influence does a "student campaign" have with the city of Denver and with Bike Share Denver that a "professional, grown-up campaign," like, say, bikedenver.org doesn't?

Darn kids.

If all it takes to fast track your bike kiosks are some volunteer hours and a few cash donations, then sign me up, yall.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for all the DU students.

I'm just jealous they got to open their toys before Christmas

Good weekend for biking in Denver

If I hadn't been working this evening, I'd be at the Grand Opening of Salvagetti's new location.

If I wasn't working tomorrow, I'd be at SKATEBIKE outside Emage.

But at least I'm not working on Sunday! So you'll find me parking bikes (and scooters. and skateboards.) at the Taste Of Colorado.

It's a great weekend for bike culture, folks! Get out there and ride!

And, speaking of bike culture ... the completely and totally awesome Tour de Fat is coming to Denver next weekend. You can bet dollars to donuts you'll see me there, yall.

BIKE IT UP.

the Big Four

Here is the text from the back of the Bikedenver.org "Ride Safe" spoke cards, or what I now think of as the Big Four.

If you bike in Denver:
Drive your bike like you drive your car!

• Obey stop signs, traffic signs & stop lights
  Set an example for everyone and wait in line for a green light! Bikes and cars -- same rights, same laws.



• Take your place in traffic
  Ride your bike on the street; sidewalks are reserved for pedestrians



• Always ride with traffic
  When you're on a bicycle, you ARE traffic. Ride on the right; it's predictable and safer for everyone.



• Bicycle riding is prohibited on the 16th Street Mall
  Except on Sundays, when RTD lanes are open to bicyclists.

The first three are pretty universal. The fourth is obviously a concern only very locally. Not even everybody in Denver will ever try to ride on the Mall.

Judging from this list, one has to assume that riding on the 16th Street Mall is the fourth most often ticketed bike traffic infraction. Otherwise why include it on this list?