Untitled, a photo by cyclotourist on Flickr.
Telegraph Rd. in Chino Hills State Park. Live oak, grasses, cows, coyotes. Everything good in one place!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Good Roads to Ride, Southern California Edition
Untitled, a photo by cyclotourist on Flickr.
Telegraph Rd. in Chino Hills State Park. Live oak, grasses, cows, coyotes. Everything good in one place!
Friday, May 25, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Good news everyone!
I am now posting articles on the Bike Redlands web-log!
Here's my first foray: mind-on-my-money-and-money-on-my-mind Be sure to comment on how brilliant my writing is and what a great addition to the site I will be!
Here's my first foray: mind-on-my-money-and-money-on-my-mind Be sure to comment on how brilliant my writing is and what a great addition to the site I will be!
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Invest in bikes!
It's the conservative thing to do!
From http://bikeportland.org/2012/01/23/the-state-of-cycling-alliance-for-biking-walking-releases-2012-benchmarking-report-65422
From http://bikeportland.org/2012/01/23/the-state-of-cycling-alliance-for-biking-walking-releases-2012-benchmarking-report-65422
- People on bikes make up 1.8% of all traffic fatalities
- In 2009, 40% of trips in the United States were shorter than 2 miles, yet 87% of these trips are by car. Twenty-seven percent of trips were shorter than 1 mile. Still, Americans use their cars for 62% of these trips.
- While bicycling and walking fell 66% between 1960 and 2009, obesity levels increased 156%.
- Seniors are "the most vulnerable bicyclists and pedestrians"... This age group accounts for 6% of bicycling trips, yet 10% of bicyclist fatalities.
- Bicycling and walking projects create 11-14 jobs per $1 million spent, compared to just 7 jobs created per $1 million spent on highway projects.
- Cost benefit analysis show that up to $11.80 in benefits can be gained for every $1 invested in bicycling and walking.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Circumnavigating San Clemente
San Clemente means sun & surf, tanned bodies, Marines,and Richard Nixon. Add to that short list excellent bike riding! Due to a collaborative effort between the city, developers, PG&E, CA state parks and the US Marine Corps, there are extensive trails throughout town. The city’s page highlighting the trails provides a pretty good map.
To the south of town and bordering Camp Pendleton are the popular and world-class mountain bike trails. An excellent overview to the San Clemente Singletrack can be seen on mountainbike bill's site. A mountain biker’s paradise, a mile from the ocean!
While the SC Singletrack gets all the attention from “serious” cyclists, the city trail complex gets overlooked. It shouldn’t be! These are some fantastic trails with approximately 13 miles of on-dirt, car (and mostly people) free riding.
The trails are extremely well maintained. Mostly hardpack with a few sandy sections.
There are some steep spots, maybe two or three hills of consequence, but the rest is rolling trail with minimal elevation gain.
A map showing the basic route is on Bikely.com. That route includes sections riding from the North Beach Metrolink station. By the way, consider taking the Metrolik train down, riding the trails, then training back home. An entirely car-free day!
I most recently rode these trails with a bunch of friends from the Rivendell Bicycle Works Google group. Good people that it’s great to spend time with. We get together probably four times a year to ride. These are often mixed-surface routes, where there’s a good percentage of dirt, but not enough to bring a mountain bike. Rougher than what you would want to take a skinny-tired road-race bike on though. Rivendell bikes lend themselves to these routes as they are built around the “country-bike” ethos. Rough stuff riding at it’s best!
This ride took us about four hours when we did it in October. A few rest-stops, but pedaling pretty consistently over that time. Not tearing up the course by any means, but a collegial pace that lends itself to catching up with people you haven’t seen in a while.
A few of us took the extended route and rode a little more singletrack and utility roads to maximize our dirt time. At the end, we dropped into town for some well deserved pizza and beer at the world renown Pizza Port.
If you’re a SoCal cyclist, and you have a bike that’s versatile (that means fits tires larger than 25mm) you owe it to yourself to do this. A ton of fun!
More pix can be seen on flickr. Mine and Mike's.
To the south of town and bordering Camp Pendleton are the popular and world-class mountain bike trails. An excellent overview to the San Clemente Singletrack can be seen on mountainbike bill's site. A mountain biker’s paradise, a mile from the ocean!
While the SC Singletrack gets all the attention from “serious” cyclists, the city trail complex gets overlooked. It shouldn’t be! These are some fantastic trails with approximately 13 miles of on-dirt, car (and mostly people) free riding.
The trails are extremely well maintained. Mostly hardpack with a few sandy sections.
There are some steep spots, maybe two or three hills of consequence, but the rest is rolling trail with minimal elevation gain.
A map showing the basic route is on Bikely.com. That route includes sections riding from the North Beach Metrolink station. By the way, consider taking the Metrolik train down, riding the trails, then training back home. An entirely car-free day!
I most recently rode these trails with a bunch of friends from the Rivendell Bicycle Works Google group. Good people that it’s great to spend time with. We get together probably four times a year to ride. These are often mixed-surface routes, where there’s a good percentage of dirt, but not enough to bring a mountain bike. Rougher than what you would want to take a skinny-tired road-race bike on though. Rivendell bikes lend themselves to these routes as they are built around the “country-bike” ethos. Rough stuff riding at it’s best!
This ride took us about four hours when we did it in October. A few rest-stops, but pedaling pretty consistently over that time. Not tearing up the course by any means, but a collegial pace that lends itself to catching up with people you haven’t seen in a while.
A few of us took the extended route and rode a little more singletrack and utility roads to maximize our dirt time. At the end, we dropped into town for some well deserved pizza and beer at the world renown Pizza Port.
If you’re a SoCal cyclist, and you have a bike that’s versatile (that means fits tires larger than 25mm) you owe it to yourself to do this. A ton of fun!
More pix can be seen on flickr. Mine and Mike's.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Something new out there.
I live in a cycling-friendly town (Redlands, CA) and there are a LOT of bikes out and about every day. There are many more utility cyclists than in the past, but that's not what is new (just good!). The last few months has me seeing something different in the type of cyclist out there. Not the percentage of riders growing (like the utilitistas), but a new sub-genre: The serious hybrid-ist. This person has an upright hybrid bike (sit up and beg bikes as the Germans call them), but aren't a brand new, jump into cycling sort of a person. They look like the average roadie with a Radio Shack, Garmin, etc. jersey on, but are sitting bolt upright on a hybrid. And they are typically riding with other cyclists dressed the same way, but on everyday crabon fibre road bikes (MCRBs).
These cyclers don't look like they're new to the sport, but more like age or ailment has forced them onto a more upright bike. They're too comfortable on a bike and in traffic to be trying out cycling for the first time. Just moving away from the race-inspired drop barred bike. Unfortunately that leaves them little choice in alternative bikes. Basically MTBs or hybrids. They probably have a MTB in the garage, so are choosing a hybrid to get the upright position they need, but with slicks and lighter build than a MTB.
This is where it occurs to me that these people need to discover Rivendell Bikes. Rivendell isn't the bike company of the old and infirmed, it's just that they design their bikes around the idea of letting cyclers get the bars up high and comfortable. Who wouldn't want that? Once you decide that you're not going to get to podium on the local crit, maybe it's time to start thinking about comfort in a bike and what will let you ride it all day and into your dotage. Rivendell will be there for you.
These cyclers don't look like they're new to the sport, but more like age or ailment has forced them onto a more upright bike. They're too comfortable on a bike and in traffic to be trying out cycling for the first time. Just moving away from the race-inspired drop barred bike. Unfortunately that leaves them little choice in alternative bikes. Basically MTBs or hybrids. They probably have a MTB in the garage, so are choosing a hybrid to get the upright position they need, but with slicks and lighter build than a MTB.
This is where it occurs to me that these people need to discover Rivendell Bikes. Rivendell isn't the bike company of the old and infirmed, it's just that they design their bikes around the idea of letting cyclers get the bars up high and comfortable. Who wouldn't want that? Once you decide that you're not going to get to podium on the local crit, maybe it's time to start thinking about comfort in a bike and what will let you ride it all day and into your dotage. Rivendell will be there for you.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
SUCCESS!!!
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