Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Late spring status report

It's a great time of year to be a transportation cyclist!  If I were more organized, I would've put all the winter gear away by now.  (I never have time to get organized, so the winter gear is just collecting dust.)  The mornings are brisk but tolerable, the afternoons are warm but tolerable.  The amateurs and wankers are starting to show up on the Greenbelt (particularly in the teenager hot spots - check out the new Water Park area!)... but generally aren't yet like a large herd of cattle or sheep.

I had the good fortune to cross paths with "dlb" today - he occasionally posts a comment, and we live almost within hollerin' distance of one another.  We were both astride our velocipedes.

I missed the last 10 days of May, bicycle-wise... had the good fortune to travel back east - specifically to Providence, RI, where my daughter Kellyn married Lucky Man Edward.  They are good people - I'm confident they will care for one another and make a wonderful relationship together.  (Providence was lovely, too!  Traveling to such a place and one wonders, "Why do they call Boise the 'city of trees'?  This is a desert, for cryin' out loud!")  On the day we got back, even though the day had started at before 2am (Mountain Time) to get to the airport on time, I went on a nice 15-mile shake-out ride.

Bonnie and I had an interesting ride, last Saturday.  We rode a couple laps around the big fountain at Ann Morrison Park which is operational for the year.  Then we rode over the footbridge, where we mingled with the tail-end runners competing in the Ironman race.  (I didn't know their route until we were briefly sharing it with them.)  From there, we rode past the Firefighters' Memorial... where a ceremony was taking place!  Full-uniform firemen... flags at half-mast... and best of all, a pipe and drum corps!  Which marched right past us!  Fantastic!



Yep - I feel a little sorry for those poor souls, stuck in their cars.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

NYC Bike Share - ZERO fatalities, one year in

When the CitiBike program debuted in New York City over the Memorial Day weekend, 2013, the talking heads and finger-waggers all had dire predictions about how dangerous it would be, to introduce thousands of relatively inexperienced cyclists, on unfamiliar bicycles, onto the mean streets.

Amazingly, 12 months and 8.75 million trips later, there have been 100 or so reported accidents, which resulted in 25 or so trips to the emergency room... but ZERO fatalities on the shared bicycles. Remarkable!

Story HERE.

(I continue to see occasional updates about the proposed Boise Bike Share that we may see in the not-too-distant future. My opinion remains constant - I'm not sure Boise is big or "urban" enough to support such a program, and I'm not a fan of expending general taxpayer funds. But nobody's asking me anyway.)