CNC Day 1: CNC rolls into Laurel Springs

...and took the town by storm. I'm uploading pics of Wild Woodys General
Store and the antique shop across the street now.

CNC Day 1: Field of Squeams

First we came on some cool looking spiderwebs that people were stopping to take pictures of. Then we came to a fence that looked full of webs. Then we came to this.

CNC Day 1: Holy crap it's cold

My friends at The Weather Channel said to expect lows in the mid-50's overnight, but instead I woke up with ice on my rainfly. They were off by 20+ degrees. It's cold. And the morning's descents added a pretty healthy wind chill to the mix.

Fortunately, as always, I over-packed. But this time it paid off. Unexpected heroes included my new Foxwear fleece pants and socks (thanks Lou!) and my Defeet wool arm and leg warmers. I was pretty sure all of those would stay packed the whole trip, but the pants and socks were great around camp, and the wool warmers were indispensable for the first 20 miles and packed easily for the other 35.

Tonight shouldn't be as cold, but it doesn't matter if it does. I'm covered.

Cycle North Carolina

I'll be on Cycle North Carolina next week, riding the state from the mountains to the coast over 7 days. I'll be blogging while I'm gone and sending pictures to Flickr. You can use the link at the left to see all my CNC photos.

I've heard CNC referred as "summer camp for adults," and the events planned for this year's ride seem to bear that out. I'll try to get some cycling in amongst the wine tastings. Stop by here next week to see if I make it.

Yahoo! hates Durham (somebody needs to tell Oprah about this)

On signing up for a new Flickr account, I ran across this anomaly from our friends at Yahoo.





You can click to enlarge, or I can just tell you that I selected "I live in United States" in postal code 27713 and was told by Yahoo, "This postal code is not located in the country you selected." I got used to bringing my passport to get to and from Canadia, but am I gonna need it to get to Morrisville now?

Morrisville's Hooters-Bojangles Roundabout

I have absolutely no idea why this exists. Check it out on Google Maps (pre-Bojangles).

Uncle Junior was my flight attendant

The Steve Goodridge/Bruce Rosar Show

I had the pleasure of attending the "LAB Road I for City Planners, Engineers and Police Officers" course taught by Steve Goodridge and Bruce Rosar a couple weeks ago. Avid Triangle cyclists likely know Steve and Bruce from their active participation on local, regional and world wide cycling advocacy listservs. They are staunchly in the Vehicular Cycling camp and aren't afraid to, on occasion, use emotionally-charged language in making their points. With that previous introduction to their feelings about vehicular cycling and bike-specific facilities, and knowing the intended audience for this course, I was looking forward to seeing the dynamic.

It ended up being refreshingly uneventful. Steve and Bruce are are excellent teachers. Both are obviously extremely comfortable with the material, and are also adept at handling student questions, even challenging ones, with a positive, instructive demeanor. There were a couple times, for instance, when they addressed questions posed from a "cyclist inferiority" perspective and provided positive-action answers, explaining how and why cyclists are able (and should feel able) to proceed confidently in all traffic scenarios.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment was the lack of turnout. Personally, I believe that cycling vehicularly is the right way for pedal-powered travellers to navigate traffic. Separated facilities often create intersections that are counter-intuitive to both cyclists and motorists and are, therefore, dangerous. And the "magic white line" bike lanes can give both cyclists and motorists a false sense of security, discouraging active sharing of the road. Govt representatives need to hear Steve and Bruce's messages regarding bicycle accident statistics and how the principles of VC make cycling safer for all vehicles. Getting the message delivered clearly will help municipalities make better decisions about whether to provide bike-specific facilities (almost certainly yes, for better or worse) and how to use real-world statistics and lessons-learned to design those facilities in such a way as to increase the overall road comfort level of cyclists.


I was pleased, though, that of the six participants, the city of Durham was well-represented by its Bicycle-Pedestrian Coordinator, a City Planner and me from the Bike Ped Advisory Commission. Durham has a very active community of cyclists who use their bikes in at least some part for transportation. Hopefully having city reps in this class will ultimately lead to policies that will make Durham not just more bike friendly, but also better designed to support cycling vehicularly.

• Read more about Bicycle Driving at HumanTransport.org and at BicycleDriving.com.
• Read more about Vehicular Cycling on Wikipedia.
• Read more about Effective Cycling on JohnForester.com.
• Join the Durham Bicycle & Pedestrian Yahoo! Group or the RTP Bike/Ped Listserv.

Diane Ca-HOTTIE

Ok, not really.* I just snicker like a teenager when I see one of her signs and that Wayne's World-ian phrase pops in my head. I just wish Blazer Manpurse were still around to utter it in proper context and with a straight face.



*Or maybe she is. I really don't know and don't feel compelled to find out.

Ditch the drive to work

From the Chicago Daily Herald, a decent article on Chicagoland bike commuters. While the article starts with a focus on saving gas money by biking, I was happy to see this quote which, while only one sentence in the whole article, provides a better context;

"Three things are now behind the increase in bicycle commuters, says League of American Bicyclists spokeswoman Elizabeth Preston: the obesity crisis, global warming and high gas prices."

(Thanks to Paul Dorn for posting this.)

The Truth Hurts

YouTube's way of saying, "Welcome to social networking, old man."

Hello Brazil (?)

Ummm... ok. A site in Brazil has used one of my pics from last week's Critical Mass. They are certainly welcome to use it, I really don't care. This site is anti-copyright, so help yourself. But, its pretty amusing to see a picture from my phone on a site in Brazil.

(Thanks to Phillip for noticing.)

Demand Actuated

I start a new job next Monday, which shifts my bike commute pretty dramatically. I've had a few such shifts with the offices of my last company moving 4 times in the seven years I was with them. The most recent commute was 10 months of a casual 6 mile ride on the American Tobacco Trail. That was luxury.

So, Sunday morning I rode out to my new office to learn the route and find the bike racks. Its not a cushy ride like the ATT, but the roads aren't too bad, and they're all roads I've been on before. I was happy to notice that all of the traffic lights across bigger intersections on my new route appear to be demand-actuated and configured to detect bicycles. Thanks to the cities of Durham and Morrisville for the serious hook-up. I, and the other cyclists who take these roads on a regular basis, really appreciate it.

(For those of you keeping score at home, the new commute is Woodcroft across Fayetteville and through some neighborhoods to get to Carpenter Fletcher, across 55 to Alston and on to 54. Left on 54 toward Miami, but straight through on to Slater, then Slater all the way to Airport and I'm there.)

Durham Critical Mass

Critical Mass returned to Durham this past week with 80+ riders cycling a comfortable route through the downtown area. I was impressed with the turnout after reading that expectations were for there to be about 50 riders. And I was impressed with the range of cyclists. There were four of us that I saw (probably more) who are regularly out commuting on the Tobacco Trail each day, folks in cycling jerseys, folks in business clothes, and folks "dressed up" for the event. The bikes included stereotypical road bikes, restored beaters, pedicabs, mountain and comfort bikes, and Phillip had his Xtracycle. There were multi-gear, singles and fixies.

All said, the event was great. It was fun to ride through town with a group like this that is out to advocate cycling as transportation. Most of the group rides I've been on recently have been training for a charity ride, and the timbre is entirely different.

The police rode with us. That's not unexpected, as CM's in other parts of the country have experienced instances of ummm... less-than-desirable behavior. But, the nature of their participation was a little odd. They actually rode into intersections and stopped traffic for us. While that is a nice gesture, it did seem to dilute the value of the ride. Critical Mass is about asserting cyclists rights to the road - same rights, same responsibilities. Ellen pointed out that stopping traffic for us gave the ride a parade-like atmosphere.

A few suggestions for future months... a) stop at all signs and signals, even if the police halt crossing traffic and b) "Critical Virus" - meet at Major and, instead of following a single route, everyone disperse in groups of two or three to a particular part of town and return to Major an hour later. Also, I hope there is a different route month after month.

It was a great ride, though, thanks to Phillip, Alison, Dave and anyone else involved in putting it together.

Four pics here
10 minute video here