Sunday, December 1, 2013

First-Ever Temecula Cranksgiving Bicycle Ride Benefits Community Pantry





More than 40 cyclists participated in Temecula's first-ever Cranksgiving bicycle ride sponsored by the Bike Shop and Temecula Bike Train on Saturday, November 30, and collected food for the Temecula Community Pantry. Cranksgiving is part bike ride, part food drive, and part social event.
Cranksgiving riders started at the The Bike Shop and made stops at a half dozen markets, buying food to donate to the Pantry. More than 200 pounds of food was delivered to the Pantry.
More information about Cranksgiving can be found at Cranksgiving.org.



Friday, November 15, 2013

San Diego to get $200 million in cycling improvements -- We can dream, right?

This is good news. We don't live in San Diego County, of course, but a lot of us  ride there. San Diego County is going to spend $200 million for cycling infrastructure over the next 10 years. There is not that kind of commitment in Riverside County, but we can dream. Here is the link:
http://www.sdcbc.org/temp/news/newsletterChainGuard_Fall2013_WEB.pdf?utm_source=Fall+Chainguard&utm_campaign=Chainguard-+Fall&utm_medium=email

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Bike Trail Master Plan Meeting


Kudos to the city of Temecula, Rick and the Bike Shop, hosting the Oct. 26 meeting on the bike/hike/equestrian trail meeting. The city is looking for input about which trails to link up first, so go to hikebiketemecula.org and vote for where to start work. There's money to start linking trails. Best news of the day: There will be bike lanes on the new interchange north of Winchester, and bike lanes on the new Main Street bridge in old town (outside the car lanes, sharing with pedestrians).

Monday, August 12, 2013

San Diego's CicloSDias, time for a Temeciclovia?

On Sunday we rode the San Diego version of Ciclovia, an event held around the world where cities close streets to car traffic and let cyclists, walkers, rollerbladers and skateboarders enjoy their communities without dodging traffic.

Hats off to the progressive leaders of San Diego for staging their first CicloSDias. It actually takes a little getting used to having complete right of way in the streets for one day. Plenty of entertainment and even shopping on the way. Lots of volunteers helping out -- San Diego has an active cycling community and they were everywhere.

While I was riding, I was thinking about what would happen if we closed Old Town Temecula to car traffic for part of day on Sunday. We could let cyclists and walkers own the streets for a few hours, set up entertainment, food booths, shopping booths, whatever we want.

The name Temeciclovia came to mind, but you know how ideas pop into your head on rides. Is there a better name? Is there support? Would it work? Time to put Temecula on the map.

Here is an incentive: Riverside is thinking about the same thing, according to news stories. Riverside already has buttons to let cyclists trip the traffic lights and cross busy streets, a dedicated bike path/on street lane system and circumnavigates the city, and a bike consultant who actually rides a bicycle and has great ideas for improvements.

Are we going to let the city to the north, and the city to the south have a great event like this and do nothing? Where is our competitive spirit? They can do it, we can do it, right?


 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

CicloSDias is on Sunday. Would be very cool to ride San Diego streets without cars, go the link, http://www.ciclosdias.com/#promo_0. It's time to close down Old Town Temecula and ride some circles without cars!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Help a stranded cyclist, they might be a rock star

Help a stranded cyclist, they might be a rock star.
Emily Kraus and her boyfriend Joe Proffitt were driving down a back road near Hersey, Pennsylvania to a Dave Mathews Band concert, when they swerved past a rider with a flat tire. Joe quickly recognized the cyclist as “Dave.”
Emily was unconvinced. Thousands were waiting to hear Dave Mathews perform that night, why would he be on the side of the road? But after a few seconds the couple turned around to help the rider.
Sure enough, walking on the side of the road was the multi-platinum recording artist and Emily’s favorite singer Dave Mathews. Turns out, the musician decided to take a quick ride before his show, but punctured and was without his cellphone.
Mathews thanked the couple for the lift by inviting them to dinner, giving them front-row seats and signing their tickets. Mathews gave Kraus a shout out during his show, weaving his experience in the opening of the song “Granny.”


See all the Bicycling.com blogs.

http://bicycling.com/blogs/thehub/2013/07/16/dave-matthews-needs-a-flat-kit/

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Reflections on the 2013 Temecula Ride of Silence -- This town is changing

 
Reflections on the Temecula Ride of Silence
 
 
It was a great honor to be among cyclists Wednesday who participated in the Seventh Annual Temecula Ride of Silence as we paid special tribute to Randy Pruett, a local school teacher and active member of a cycling club, who lost his life in a bicycle accident last year.
 
Pruett’s widow Laura read a particularly moving piece, The Cyclists' Prayer, by Fr. Amado Picardal, which ends: “As we enjoy each other's company, as we feel we could bike forever, may we continue biking even as we grow old, and up to the day we die, and may you allow us to continue biking in heaven, forever and ever, Amen!”
 
The Ride of Silence is truly a worldwide event, held in 368 cities at the same time, 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of May. It honors the hundreds of cyclists killed on the road and thousands more injured.
 
 As I rode through Temecula in the dark, I thought about Temecula being named a Bike Friendly city, the City Council approving $45,000 to design more bike lanes, and news that the city was going to hold its first Bike to Work Day.
 
Things are changing in Temecula. It's time to thank Mayor Mike Naggar, Councilman Chuck Washington, City Planner Matt Peters, and everyone else who is involved at City Hall in leading these changes.
 
 And special thanks to the dozens of cyclists who rode Wednesday to honor their friends and family, their fellow cyclists. Temecula residents have always shown they care. The Ride of Silence is a simple, silent, testimony to that. By the way, photos from the event are available at www.rideofsilence.org and at Temecula Ride of Silence on Facebook.




Monday, May 13, 2013

Temecula earns Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community Status


 
 
This just in, Temecula has been awarded Bronze in the Bicycle Friendly Communities Program from the League of American Cyclists.
 
This is the first time the city has been on this list, which gives us national recognition.
 
Congratulations to the city, to Mayor Mike Naggar and Chuck Washington on the transporation subcommittee (they ...are friends to cyclists in Temecula), and to planner Matt Peters (the application is about a foot high worth of paper). I am pasting the details from the League website, to read more about what it means to be a BFC, the commitment to make improvements each year and work up to Silver, Gold, Platinum and now, Beyond Platinum (we can dream), go to http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/profiles/index_test.php?type=c&id=62&formid=245


Bicycle Friendly Community
City of Temecula | Bronze




Award: Bronze

BFC Since: 2013

Total Population: 103,092

Population density: 3,419 people per square mile

Total area: 30.15

Contact: Matt Peters, (951) 694-6408, matt.peters@cityoftemecula.org

Percentage of arterial streets with dedicated bicycle facilities:

26-50%

Modal split of commuters:

Bicycling: 0.8%

Walking: 1.3%

Transit: 0.6%

Percentage of schools offering bicycling education:

Elementary Schools: 1-25%

Middle Schools: 1-25%

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Ride of Silence Video

The Temecula Ride of Silence, our seventh and the 10th for the event nationally and internationally, is only two weeks away. Here is a great video of last year's Ride of Silence.
https://vimeo.com/45293149

Monday, April 29, 2013

Santa Barbara Cycling

Just got back from three days of cycling in Santa Barbara, including UCSB and Isla Vista -- that's where thousands of UCSB students live just off campus. What a place. Walk out of your dorm and step onto a private beach. Wow.

Back to bicycling, I saw probably gazillions of bike racks on the campus of UCSB, where everybody gets around on two wheels, and which also boasts one of the most intricate bike trails system I have ever seen.

Not only are there roundabouts for car traffic on campus, which are useful in controling traffic, but there are so many bicycles, they have installed roundabouts for cyclists on the bike trails. They need them. Even on a Saturday, the bike trail is a freeway -- there are so many bicycles you get swept along in traffic. I wonder what it looks like during a busy school day.

Because of the roundabouts and clear marking on the trails, I saw no collisions or even near collisions. Not so much in Isla Vista, probably due to the fact that it was Alumni Week and there seemed to be a citywide block party going on. The only collision I witnessed, but I am sure there were others, was a young lady on a beach cruiser who was busy texting on her Iphone, slam head on into a guy on a skateboard who was distracted by a nearby group of partygoers.

There was a large "thud" when they collided. But they both ended up laughing it off and exchanging numbers. Not sure why since no one appeared injured. I must be getting old.

I visited a bike shop in Isla Vista full of classic bikes, beach cruisers and even some very high end racing bikes. Where did you get all these, I asked.

The owner said at the end of the term, students leave school and leave their bikes behind. Apartment managers call the bike shop and they go out and round them all up. Except the ones that get tossed off the cliffs in another unique tradition -- students toss their bikes off the cliffs when they graduate, much like other students toss mortar boards. The recycled bikes get fixed up and sold to new students. I liked the idea that none of them end up in the dump.

What does any of this have to do with cycling in Temecula? We have to get our minds around the fact that young people today don't want the same things as their parents. The older crowd wanted a place in the suburbs, an Expedition to bring home groceries from Costco (I don't know why, I can bring home everything my family needs in two saddlebags), and an average of 4.2 hours a day watching TV on the couch. Young people, on the other hand, want to live in busy cities, somewhere downtown if possible, they want to get around on public transportation and bicycles, eat healthy food bought fresh daily (not in 500 ct. frozen boxes), and an active healthy lifestyle. The couch is a coffin, they say. Get up, get outside, go for a ride, a run, a swim. Do something.

They will either try to find that culture here, or they will go elsewhere. We can build that here, and remain a vibrant, young town. It's a choice. For them, and for all of us. 



Friday, April 19, 2013

They are building a new bridge across the creek at Main Street, replacing it with a new MODERN bridge with 10-foot sidewalks, and NO BIKE LANES! Come on, this is 2013. Why is the city of Temecula operating like it's 1913? When are cyclists in Temecula going to be fed up with being treated like second class citizens? Do you care that the city is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of YOUR money to build a new interchange north of Winchester to save motorists a few seconds of wait at Winchester, with NO BIKE LANES? Don't we pay taxes? Don't we pay gas and car taxes? We all drive too. Why can't we get one bridge in this town with bike lanes? It's time to start emailing and writing the mayor, city council and city staff and let your voices be heard. Don't wait. When the new interchange is done, it's done. There won't be any adding in bike lanes after they have a ribbon cutting with the mayor and council and happy motorists smiling at you from the front page of the newspaper.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Ride of Silence is May 15, 2013

We will roll with the Ride of Silence on May 15, 2013, starting at City Hall in Old Town Temecula at 7 p.m. This is your chance to take part in the largest single day cycling event in the world. We ride to honor cyclists injured or killed on the road. To learn more about the event, the history, to read ride reports from the last six ROS events in Temecula, go to www.rideofsilence.org and check out the scope and size of this event. Remember to bring black armbands and lights, and bring a friend. If each of us who rode last year brought one friend, we would double the size of this event. Heck, we might even be important enough for the Temecula PD to offer an escort....

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Grates can kill

I get asked this all the time -- what's the big deal about fixing grates on Temecula streets to make them bicycle safe? Just go around them? (City staff informs me that Temecula's grates are bicycle safe because that's what their engineering specs say. They are not. Even if your skinny tires don't fall all the way through, they will redirect your front wheel and you can end up getting flung into traffic. )
Well here's a story about someone who went around a grate and got killed. You will have to read through a lot of verbiage I would classify as "it's the cyclist's fault," this time, concludes authorities, for not wearing MORE reflective clothes. He was wearing reflective gear and had lights, but for critics, that's not enough.
So after you wade through that muck, read the last few lines about a cyclist who swerved around a grate and got killed. Adding insult to death, the driver was fined $2,000 and can't drive for a few months. By the way, the victim was a police officer.

High visibility gear should be compulsory for cyclists - coroner

By Rebecca Quilliam
Superintendent Stephen Fitzgerald was killed while cycling in Petone in June, 2008. Photo / supplied
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Superintendent Stephen Fitzgerald was killed while cycling in Petone in June, 2008. Photo / supplied 
 
 
A coroner has recommended it be compulsory for cyclists to wear high visibility clothing after the death of a senior Wellington police officer who was hit by a truck while riding his bike.
Superintendent Stephen Fitzgerald was killed in Petone in June, 2008.
In his finding into Mr Fitzgerald's death, released today, Wellington Coroner Ian Smith made a number of recommendations to the Minister of Transport, including that cyclists wear high visibility clothing while riding.
Coroner Smith said wearing high visibility clothing while cycling was, in his view, a "no-brainer''.
"It should be compulsory for cyclists to wear at all times when riding on public roads - with the exception of a controlled race or similar.''
At the time of the crash, Mr Fitzgerald was wearing reflective stripes on his clothing and backpack, and both front and rear lights were working.
Under legislation, bicycles were considered vehicles and just as entitled to use the road, Coroner Smith said.
Coroner Smith also recommended road rules be changed to ensure there was a metre between cyclists and passing traffic.
He said there should also be enhanced cyclist education in primary schools and driver licence education with respect to cyclists be incorporated to a "high degree''.
Mr Fitzgerald, 57, was cycling to his Eastbourne home when he swerved around a grate and was hit by a truck that was too far on the left side of the lane.
The driver, Desmond Wilson, was charged with careless driving causing death and was found guilty in September, 2009.
Wilson was disqualified from driving for nine months and ordered to pay reparation of $2000.