Category Archives: Biking

Twas a great weekend . . .

. . . to go by bike! And by weekend, I mean four days — in addition to my usual three-day weekend, I took an extra day to eat up some comp time.

On Thursday afternoon, after a morning making tomatillo salsa and granola, I biked to the library and then on to City Greens Farmers’ Market. On my way to the market, I was wishing for a juicy, refreshing snack — fortunately, they had grapes again — big time yum! In addition to the grapes, I filled my bike crate with eggplant (soon to be baba ganoush), sweet potatoes, and green peppers.

I started Friday with a bike trip to the dentist. I survived the little girl puking in the waiting room, only for the dental hygienist to say she thought I had a little cavity.Continue reading “Twas a great weekend . . .”

Bike curious?

I have a good friend who’s moving to Washington, D.C. and trading her car in for a bike (yay!).  She came to me for some advice.  Here’s my best attempt to be concise on the subject:

Buying a bike:

Until you know more about bikes, there will definitely be some peace of mind in buying new over used (though buying used from a bike shop would be a different story).  Visit a local bike shop (or multiple local bike shops).  Tell them where/how you plan to ride the bike, and see what they suggest.  Dress so that you can actually test ride the bikes.  If they try to put you on a fixed-gear bike (AKA “fixie” or single speed), don’t buy it, unless you plan to only bike in an area with ZERO hills.

As far as the cost, you may have considered this, but you’ll be saving a ton of money by not having a car.  There are a variety of calculators, and different factors based on location, car model, etc., but owning a car can end up costing around $6000 a year once you add in insurance, registration, maintenance, car payments, parking fees, and gas.  And that’s every year, not a one time fee.  I understand your hesitation, and definitely went through it myself, but $400 is a small fraction of what we pay (often unquestioningly) for our cars.Continue reading “Bike curious?”

Hungry in Chattanooga

So, Chattanooga.  Where were we?

Sadly, I spent most of my visit to “the highest rated aquarium in America” searching for food, since the planners of the Pro Walk Pro Bike networking party felt the need for the food to be spaced out ALL OVER the place.  Lucky for the aquarium inhabitants that I’m not a pescatarian.

This guy, on the other hand, holds no qualms about eating fish.  By the time I found the station with great vegetarian options and refueled, I felt totally wiped out.

I skipped the after party on the Delta Queen in favor of the private party in my hotel room — a little thing I like to call sleeping.  By invitation only, of course.

I woke up bright and early on my last day in Chattanooga for a bakery run (or, more accurately, a bakery bike).  If I’d had any foreshadowing of what was to come, I would have stocked up even more.

The closing plenary of Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 was scheduled from noon until 2:00pm (and the last breakout session ended at 11:45am).  We shuffled into the room shortly before noon and were met with the sight of a decidedly unlunchlike set-up: just chairs.  No tables and no food.  What???

Stay calm.  Maybe they would talk for an hour and then feed us at 1:00pm.  Not ideal, but I could handle it.

But no, there was no lunch, and everyone else seemed equally baffled and annoyed by this turn of events.  Especially when the closing remarks dragged on PAST two o’clock.

The St. Louis contingent finally managed to escape and make a much-needed lunch stop (was it even lunch at this point?) before embarking on the bus ride back to the Lou.  All-in-all, Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 was a decidedly amazing conference with an anticlimactic and disappointing finish.

And the thing was, it didn’t have to end that way.  At one point during the closing plenary, one of the speakers had the entire (hungry and tired) audience on our feet, a crowd of people working to push this movement up to and past its tipping point, with our fists in the air, responding enthusiastically to his prompts:

“What do we want?”

“More walking and biking!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

And that’s how I want to remember Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 in Chattanooga.

Not okay AAA

Click here to sign the petition letting AAA know that cutting the already small amount of funding for transportation alternatives is not okay!  You can make a difference in less than 60 seconds.Continue reading “Not okay AAA”

If it rains on your parade . . .

. . . climb back into bed and let the thunder roll.  Then get up and do some baking.

Sunday morning, the day of the third of four St. Louis Open Streets events, we woke to rain and thunder.  We were scheduled to volunteer as roving route marshals starting at 7:30am, meaning we needed to leave by 7:00am to bike to the volunteer tent.  We woke up early, checked the weather, ate breakfast, and decided that it didn’t make sense to head out into a thunderstorm.  Would there really be anyone on the route anyway?

Tired from Saturday’s long day of gardening, we climbed back into bed to see if the rain would let up so we could venture out.  The rain did not let up, nor did the thunder, not until 11:00am at the earliest, well after our volunteer shift passed.

We rolled out of bed the second time and started in on some baking and cooking: apple crisp, cornbread, and chili — perfect foods for a rainy day.

Though they never officially canceled Open Streets, I’m sure the weather more or less had that effect, which is too bad given the time and work that went into the event.  Also, on the tails of my awesome week at the Pro Walk Pro Bike conference, I was really looking forward to seeing large numbers of people out biking and walking the streets of St. Louis.

There is good news.  We have one more shot at Open Streets this year, the fourth and final event scheduled for Saturday, October 9th.  I’m hoping for some fabulous fall weather and a large turnout.