Still one of the best parts of my ride home.

This is one sweet looking ride.

Via cyclelicious, of course.

Introduction to the Genesee Valley Greenway (GVG) Trail Bicycle Ride Saturday October 4.
Meet at 9:45 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. start at the trailhead in Canawaugus Park on River Road (Route 251) in Scottsville for a 15 mile ride.
The GVG is a flat trail with a hard packed dirt surface. Fat tire or hybrid style bicycle is best suited for this trail ride.
Bring water. Lunch in Scottsville after the ride is optional. Helmets required.
Ride Leader: Richard DeSarra,
rdsbike@rochester.rr.com

Saturday I biked waaay out to meet the Constantino brothers as they rode in to Albany. Then I listened to their speech and sat through the questions. And I want to make an almost desperately frustrated plea.

Please, for the love of Cog, stop whining.

I understand that it’s dangerous out there. I understand that people (in cars) don’t like us out there. I understand that people (on bikes) are getting hurt and killed out there. But is this all we’re going to talk about?

They didn’t make a new bike lane. They won’t stop bike thieves. They don’t give you three feet of space when they pass you. So what? Does anybody ever have fun on their bikes anymore?

Given all the doom and gloom, why would anybody want to start riding a bike?

This came from NYBC’s Jennifer Clunie today:

Dear Cyclists,

NYBC has received a number of calls and inquiries re: the LONG BIKE Back event tomorrow (Saturday, September 27th). Like trusty mail carriers, Pearson & Pete have ridden through heavy rain, fierce winds, blistering sun, and treacherous road conditions (16 flats & counting) since their journey began early this summer to deliver the Share the Road message to communities across the country. Our event is on rain or shine! If the weather is inclement tomorrow afternoon and you opt not to ride, we still encourage you to show your support and attend the Welcome Reception and Talk from 5:30-6:30pm, happening in the warm dry space of the UAG Gallery on Lark St.

For those wishing to ride the last 15 miles in with Pearson, Pete, and Julia, meet at the corner of Dunnesville Rd. & Route 20 (Western Ave), Dunnesville, NY. If you’re looking to ride a shorter distance, two alternate locations that are easily accessible on Western Ave. are the Twenty Mall (intersection of Routes 20 & 155) and in front of the Bank of America (across from Stuyesant Plaza/Fuller Rd.) Claire Nolan, NYBC Board member, will be accompanying our cyclists and will pick up individuals at all 3 of these locations.

5:30pm-6:30pm: “The Long Bike Back” Reception/Preview Screening at the Upstate Artists Guild Gallery, 247 Lark Street Albany NY 12210, co-sponsored by NYBC and the Upstate Artists Guild. Join us for a warm welcoming reception and early preview screening of a segment of “The Long Bike Back,” after which our featured guests will speak briefly about their journey, including Pearson’s recovery, and the need for motorists to be aware of vulnerable road-users. $10 donation ($5 student/low-income); proceeds for the event would benefit NYBC’s Share the Road campaign to increase bicycle safety awareness.

See article published in Thursday’s Times Union: Life-changing crash sparks ride for awareness: Message is that cyclists, drivers must share road

NOTE: bicycle parking is available in front of UAG Gallery and Lark St. BID. For more information about the event, visit NYBC.net or longbikeback.com.

We look forward to having you join us tomorrow,

Jennifer

Many Albany-area RocBike readers know Andrew, the cyclist in this story. It really makes my blood boil:

Tall, pink bike provokes alleged low blow

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer
First published: Thursday, September 25, 2008

Andrew Franciosa pedals a giant pink bike all over town, so the UAlbany junior is used to taunts.

But a 260-pound driver punching him in the head?

It may be a new one in the annals of local anti-bike rage.

The alleged assault, first reported in the Albany Student Press, took place on a recent Wednesday, as Franciosa rode his fluorescent bike toward UAlbany on Fuller Road.

Robert Dames drove by and “some words were exchanged,” said Albany police spokesman Detective James Miller.

Words turned to fists: Unprovoked, Miller said, Dames punched Franciosa in the face.

“It looks like a case of the defendant thinking that the victim was taking up too much space on the roadway,” Miller said.

Vertical space, maybe. The student rides a tall bike that he built by welding two frames together.

After the alleged attack, Franciosa told the Albany Student Press that he had a bloody lip and it hurt to brush his teeth. He didn’t know what set off Dames, who was charged with misdemeanor assault.

“I think he was mostly offended by how cool it (the pink bike) was when he was driving a ‘92 Buick,” Franciosa told the paper.

The original story is here. It had a photo in the paper, but not in the online version.

A RocBike reader sent in this note:

Hi everyone,

I’m in Rochester and I commute to work by bike. I’ve been a RocBike follower for a few months now and I really enjoy reading everyone’s contributions. I learn something new every time I visit the site! I recently designed a cycling inspired shirt for threadless and thought you might like to check it out:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/179352/spokes_in_my_trees

There are quite a few entries, but it would be great to see this in
print! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the design.

I’ve also linked to RocBike from my website (lemonlightning.com) so hopefully I’ve been able to send a little traffic your way.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Ride safe,
jm

The League of American Bicyclists on Wednesday September 24 announced the recipients of the 2008 Bicycle Friendly Community Awards – http://www.bikeleague.org/news/092408bfc.php.

The City of Rochester and Monroe County of New York State were sited as honorable mention.

The League awards a four-year designation to communities that have made impressive, measurable efforts to integrate bicyclists into the community. There are four levels—platinum, gold, silver and bronze—awarded twice each year.

The League’s Mission is to promote bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation and work through advocacy and education for a bicycle-friendly America.

This is the first year the Rochester Bicycling Club has applied for designation on behalf of the City of Rochester and Monroe County.

Richard DeSarra, Rochester Bicycling Club Board Member , Trail and Road Advocate.

A follow-up to this: “Half of my birthday bike ride”

I ended up in Rochester for my birthday last Thursday, and met up with some of the old cruisin posse and a couple of other good friends for a birthday cruise to dinner at John’s Tex Mex, my favorite place for vegetarian tacos.

Karl snapped this at our favorite ped bridge to ride over. He’s got more pics on his flickr

Thanks Roc-City for making my birthday a blast! Cheers!

Buncha fun rides this Saturday, September 27th.

On Saturday, September 27 at 9:30 AM, Save the Pine Bush is sponsoring a bicycle ride from the Civil War Monument in Washington Park to the Pine Bush Discovery Center on Route 155, north of Washington Avenue Extension. Once at the Discovery Center, we be given a short tour.

When riding, we will follow all traffic laws, and stay together as a group. I have a route picked out (but, I always welcome suggestions!).

I would really like to have one or two more ride leaders to come with me. Would anyone be interested?

And, if you don’t want to be a ride leader, please, be a ride participant! Its a lot of fun to ride to our beautiful Pine Bush!

I expect we will return to Albany sometime in the afternoon, around 3:00 PM, depending on how fast we go, how long we stay at the Discovery Center, and whether we stop for food.

For more information:
http://www.savethepinebush.org/Current/Ski.html

And then there’s this one, which I’m psyched about.

After two years of recovery from a hit-and-run accident, cyclist Pearson Constantino and his brother Pete are riding across America to make our roads safer and inspire more bicycling. A documentary film, THE LONG BIKE BACK, is being made about Pearson’s inspirational comeback and the brothers’ epic ride.

Pearson was one of 44,000 cyclists to be injured by a motor vehicle in the United States in 2006; an additional 68,000 pedestrians were injured in traffic crashes.

On August 12th, brothers Pearson and Pete set out from Newport, Oregon, and will continue their cross-continental journey all the way to Cape Cod, Massachusetts along US Route 20, Main Street America.

Support NYBC’s Share the Road Campaign and join “The Long Bike Back” as they ride through NYS’s Capital.

Saturday, September 27th:
4:00pm: Pearson & Pete have invited cyclists, advocates and friends to accompany them the last 15 miles on their route to Washington Park, downtown Albany. Meet at the corner of Dunnesville Rd. & Route 20 (Western Ave), Dunnesville, NY, ready to ride (Please note: all riders must wear helmets–a rider will not be allowed on a ride if he/she does not have a helmet. Riders are expected and required to follow all traffic rules and regulations.)

5:00PM: arrival in Washington Park, downtown Albany.

5:30pm-6:30pm: “The Long Bike Back” Reception/Preview Screening at the Upstate Artists Guild Gallery, 247 Lark Street Albany NY 12210, co-sponsored by NYBC and the Upstate Artists Guild. Join us for a warm welcoming reception and early preview screening of a segment of “The Long Bike Back,” after which our featured guests will speak briefly about their journey, including Pearson’s recovery, and the need for motorists to be aware of vulnerable road-users. $10 donation ($5 student/low-income); proceeds for the event would benefit NYBC’s Share the Road campaign to increase bicycle safety awareness. For more information, please contact NYBC at nybc@nybc.net or (518) 436-0889. We hope you can join us for this event!

I have no idea where Dunnesville even is. As usual, anybody in the Helderberg neighborhood who wants to ride together, let me know.

The Bike to Work Guide: What You Need to Know to Save Gas, Go Green, Get Fit will ship in November, be in stores by December, and be on sale everywhere by January. It’s now available for “pre-order” on Amazon.com and elsewhere. Affordably priced at only $7.95, the Bike to Work Guide offers a lot of helpful information to those considering commuting by bicycle.

On my xmas list, fer sure. The Bike To Work Guide.

In some ways the RTS bus system’s recent successes (see NY Times article below on this site) have benefited cyclists a great deal. Now you can go intermodal for just a buck. I sometimes take the #92 bus to cover the 30 or so miles from Downtown Rochester to Newark, Wayne County, then pedal the last 5 miles to my usual destination, Peacework Organic Farm, as a kind of transportation dessert. When I started doing this intermodal run a few years ago, the trip to Newark cost $3.10 one way. Then about a year ago, when the transportation authority adopted a new fare structure (which also eliminated transfers and zone charges), the cost went down all at once to $1.25. These days, there aren’t many prices and fees that are declining like this. And you can bet the bulk of bus riders are happy with the lower fare, though I’m sure the bottom-line for many low-income urban bus riders is more ambiguous. (They certainly haven’t benefited to the same degree that riders from the distant ex-urbs have.)

But we have not rolled into that blessed Nirvana Terminal, the mass-transit paradise where one achieves oneness with Intermodality. RTS fares have gone down, but so has RTS service in some respects. For example, on Route 92 there used to be two bus runs (i.e. two round-trips) in the morning and two in the evening. This meant fewer people on each bus, of course, but it also meant the route had some capacity and flexibility that today would be of some use in attracting riders driven to mass transit by current gas prices. (Notice I don’t say “high” gas prices – I say, let ‘em hit $10 a gallon, as in Europe; and let us subsidize the poor somehow, in cash or in transit service, so that they won’t suffer from the excesses of the privileged. And then let us the windfall to build bike facilities and boost mass transit.) So now the bus service on Route 92 works extremely well, and very cheaply, for those whose destinations and schedules are compatible with the service. But many people, including many would-be intermodal cyclists, are simply out of luck.

We need more as well as cheaper service – more routes, and more buses on many routes, and more ways to tote more bicycles on each bus. Here’s a cautionary tale: one Friday evening this past summer, I was planning one of my frequent intermodal trips to Newark. I showed up at Midtown Plaza to catch #92 eastward about ten minutes before the scheduled departing time (5:10 pm). But lo and behold, when I rolled up to the bus, which as usual was set to move out on time, I found the bike rack was full – that is, two bikes. This particular bus, like most that do the longer runs, was a coach-style one, so there was no way to bring a bike on board, even if the driver had been willing to break/bend the rules and allow this to be happen. So what did I do? I cancelled my trip and waited till Saturday morning – but not to take the bus to Newark, since there are no freakin’ weekend buses at all to Newark and Lyons. Instead, I rode the whole way on Erie Canal Trail, which is a delight, for sure, but not what was in the game plan.

Lessons learned: first, you can ride a folding bike and be prepared for anything (I unfortunately had left my Dahon at home); second, if you’re unable to board the one bus that makes an evening run like this, you’re outta luck, since there’s no later bus to catch; and third, RTS may be artificially limiting demand by cutting buses/routes, and then producing surpluses by, on one hand, letting the buses become (over)crowded and thus lowering labor and fuel costs per capita; and on the other hand, bringing home the bacon from Albany in the form of transit subsidies.

Another time I faced a similar situation – a full bike rack on a Friday evening on #92 – but in this case the driver let me slip my bike between the pair on the rack and fasten it with bungee cords. Not an ideal solution. I silently prayed to Hermes to keep my bike from getting dumped or dented.

The best-case scenario would be to have “people mover” type trains that allow bikes to be rolled aboard easily. But we live in a region of transit backwardness, where the discourse is largely limited to moans and groans about prices at the pump. In this context, I suppose that anything said or done about the buses is an improvement.

I had wanted to do something like this for Talk Like A Pirate Day. And then I forgot when that was. Turns out it’s today, and I missed it. Bummer.

Via Cyclelicious

From Thursday’s Albany Times Union:

For this, gotta love mud, bud
Cyclocross racers unafraid of sloppy elements or nasty falls

By ALAN WECHSLER, Staff writer
First published: Thursday, September 18, 2008

TROY — It seemed counter intuitive to ride a $2,000, 18-pound bicycle through the mud, but such is cyclocross.

This sport is clearly not for those who consider it sacrilege to mistreat a bike. During a typical ”cross race,” a bicycle will likely be ridden over a dirt course and covered in mud, be yanked over barriers, ungracefully mounted by sweaty riders and otherwise subject to nasty crashes.

Last Sunday, 30 local riders learned how.

The would-be racers, ranging from the first-timers to avid fans, from kids to riders old enough for AARP, came out for an annual clinic at Prospect Park in Troy. The event, sponsored by the local group Nycross.com, featured Massachusetts-based pro rider Alec Donahue, who is a road-race champion in that state as well as a high-ranked mountain biker.

Cyclocross sounds like mountain biking, but actually it predates fat tires by many decades. It was invented in Europe in the early 20th century as a way for racers to keep riding after the road racing season wrapped up in September.

Cyclocross became an official sport in the 1950s, but only recently has picked up popularity in the United States.

Read the rest of the story here.

From Tuesday’s Albany Times Union:

Albany wants to jump on cycling
Consultant sought to develop master plan for bike lanes, routes

By TIM O’BRIEN, Staff writer
First published: Tuesday, September 16, 2008

ALBANY — With high gas prices and a constant fight for parking spaces, Albany is examining ways it can promote two-wheel travel.

“We are an older city. We have a really great network of streets that lend it to be a really bicycle-friendly city,” said Doug Melnick, the city’s director of planning. “If you build good facilities, people will use them.”

The Capital District Transportation Committee is providing $75,000 for a consultant to develop a master plan to make it easier for bicyclists to ride through the city and commute to work.

“Bicycling is a viable mode of transportation,” said Mary Lou Nolan-Gillham, a member of the Albany Bicycle Coalition. Three generations of her family have been bicyclists. Her son doesn’t own a car or have a driver’s license, yet has lived and worked in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and now New Paltz.

“On any given day I’ll see six or seven bicyclists pass me while a year ago it would have been one or two,” Nolan-Gillham said.

She also works with the Troy Bike Rescue, which has moved to Albany, and lets people fix donated bikes that they can then keep.

Nolan-Gillham sees two major issues that must be addressed: fixing pot holes and getting drivers to stop treating bicyclists as obstacles.

Read the rest of the story here.

Bruce Wilbur pointed out this post from No Impact Man:

AN OPEN LETTER TO NY STATE SENATOR JEFF KLEIN, WHO YESTERDAY CALLED ME A F—ING ASSH-LE AFTER NEARLY HITTING ME WITH HIS MERCEDES:

You’re never going to believe it folks, but today I had another close call on my bike, but this time the driver was New York State Senator Jeff Klein of the 34th Senate District in the Bronx. What follows is an open letter to the Senator which I will deliver to him today.

I am asking Senator Klein to meet with me and the Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, the New York City organization that advocates for bikers and pedestrians. Since the Senator has now had first hand experience, we’d like to talk to him about policies that would help keep bikes and cars from tangling with each other.

Bloggers and journalists, please feel free to repost the letter in its entirety (being sure, of course, to attribute it to Colin Beavan at NoImpactMan.com).

Readers, please email this post to every New Yorker you know.

New York State citizens, please register your thoughts on the incident I will describe below with Senator Klein and the leader of the New York State Democrats. I will give contact details below. Please also ask Senator Klein to honor my request to meet with him.

The rest of the letter and all the relevant contact information is at Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man site.

If you’re in a hurry, you can reach Senator Klein at:

718-822-2049 or jdklein@senate.state.ny.us

Today I was getting ready to leave an a co-worker said to me “Pretty soon it’ll be time to put the bike away.”

I replied, “pffft, no.”

She said, “what are you going to do when it snows?” As if you cannot get around in snow without some giant white SUV. Truth be told, I do not know what I’ll do when it snows. But I’ll find a way to bike through it, just to challenge myself, just to prove that I can.

my plan for my birthday was to ride my age in miles, but that is actually getting broken up over two days. I ended up getting 13 miles in wednesday on the Farmington Canal Trail, near Hamden, CT. Luckily a buddy from work called me up to go for a ride in the afternoon just as I was making plans to go out and ride somewhere, so we strapped my bike with his to the back of his car and got away from Bristol for a ride.

I was riding DevilWing, Trevor was riding his Raleigh mountain bike.

here’s a map of the ride, we went up to the north end, then went down to Quinnipiac University and rode around it for a bit. Nice campus, Trevor takes classes there:

here are a couple of videos:

A good day for a ride, and a good trail for a leisurely cruise.

As always, there are more pics and videos on my flickr page

Now tonight (Thursday)! I will complete the other 13 miles cruising around Rochester with my ROC cruising posse, for old times sake. This is what I did last year, so I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate. Maybe I will see you out there :)

This summer I participated in the RatRodBikes.com Bike Build-Off 3, an online competition for custom-built ratrod and hotrod styled cruisers. There were 58 finished bikes, of all different styles. Voting wrapped up last week and the winners were announced:

1st Place: Madd Hammer (68 votes)

by MonsterMetal – Final Build Pics

2nd Place: DevilWing (65 votes)

by JoeyMac – Final Build Pics

3rd Place: Pay It Back (41 votes)

by Karfer67 – Final Build Pics

3rd Place: Maldwyn the Flying Merkel (41 votes)

by Boardtrack Fan – Final Build Pics

click here for a Gallery of all the bikes

click here for all the Final Build Pics

click here for the Build Diaries

It was a lot of fun to be a part of the competition, and a great honor to have my bike included amongst so many awesome rides. And an even greater honor for my bike to come in second place :)

Cheers to all the bike builders, everyone wins… an awesome bike!

So last night I biked out to the Sanctuary For Independent Media to hear Chris Carlsson’s talk. I met up with Lorenz at the boat launch. We split at 6:10, and made it there at 6:51. Important things to remember for the future. The valet bike parking was awesome.

Scott Kellogg’s brief talk was interesting, if a little too dogmatic. Carlsson’s talk was very thought-provoking. It’s good to hear someone else say what you’ve been thinking for months.

But, honestly, the best part was the ride home. A half dozen of us, lit up to varying degrees, cycling through mostly empty streets. Really a lot of fun. I met many people, and hopefully I’ll see them again.