Tempe Bicycle Action Group

TBAG Third Fridays presents:
The MULLET RIDE

Show your redneck pride! Get out the Aquanet and peroxide and freshen up your do. This month we’re heading over to the glitzy McDowell strip to sample some of the swankiest dives in east Phoenix.

We’ll be a stone’s throw from the light rail our entire route, so if you need to check out early no worries.

What to wear – jean cutoffs, tank tops, western-checked shirts – NO SLEEVES. Show your sweet farmer’s tan, the ladies love this stuff. If you feel like your tresses ain’t golden or curly enough to roll with the best, you can find wigs at places like Fun Services Party Store, Mardi Gras Costumes, or even at your local Goodwill.

MEET at Tempe Beach Park on Friday July 16th at 7:30 p.m. We’ll roll out at 7:45. Bring lights and locks

This is a 21+ event, y’all bring your ID! Also, we’ll be in traffic and it’s real important everybody exercises safe behavior.

Be sure to RSVP to the facebook event here.

From Eric Iwersen:

The bicycling community came together recently to honor two cyclists killed in separate, unrelated accidents in Tempe during May. Chris Volpe was killed May 10 when he was struck by a vehicle while riding his bike at University Drive and Ash Avenue. A week later, bicyclist Jay Fretz was struck and killed at the intersection of McClintock and Alameda drives.

Memorials for each of the cyclists included installation of a “ghost bike” – a bicycle that has been painted solid white – near each of the accident locations. A well-known practice by cycling communities internationally, the ghost bike serves as both a memorial and a reminder of the potential dangers bike riders face.

City of Tempe staff have been working together with the bicycling community for decades to make Tempe a bicycle-friendly community. Following these two accidents, members of the Tempe Bicycle Action Group and other bicycling advocates have contacted city staff and elected officials to express concern and advocate for continued efforts to increase bicycle safety.

Tempe encourages community members to participate in planning bicycle facilities and outreach efforts, and has a number of ways people can be involved, including the Transportation Commission, which is comprised of Tempe residents (several of whom are bicyclists), and the Commission’s Multi-modal Planning Committee to facilitate community dialogue and input on bicycle/pedestrian projects and issues.

Over the last 14 years – since passage of Tempe’s transit tax – the city has emphasized multi-modalism and creating a balanced transportation system with connectivity between transit, bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Improvements include on-street bicycle lanes, multi-use paths, streetscape and traffic calming projects. Tempe now has more than 170 miles of bikeways throughout the city.

On Monday, May 10, 2010, a bicyclist named Chris Volpe was struck by a motorist at the intersection of University and Ash, and was killed. In the face of this tragic event, members of the Tempe bicycling community gathered together with members of Chris’s family to prepare and install a ghost bike at the intersection. As described on their website, ghosbikes.org, ghost bikes are intended to be small, somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street.

Photograph courtesy of Patrick Leahy at http://patrickleahy.smugmug.com/

TBAG is looking for you to get involved this Bike Month. The community is our strongest asset for making Bike Month a success, and for getting more people out riding bicycles safely in general. We could really use your help for a number of events – head on over to the Bike Month 2010 page to learn about what’s going on, and how you can help promote bicycling in and around Tempe. And thank you in advance for making a difference in your community!

As described in an earlier update, the City of Tempe has been wrapping up construction along the Western Canal. Part of the Canal development has included the installation of two HAWK signals, the first such signals in Tempe. HAWK stands for High-Intensity Activated CrossWalk, and is a style of road crossing developed in Tucson. See this page for information about HAWKs, as well as the other specialized crossings found in Tucson.

The two crossings in Tempe are located on Rural Road at the Western Canal, and on McClintock Drive at the canal. The City is providing a pamphlet that describes how the HAWK signals work, available through the Tempe In Motion website, and wants to spread the word as much as possible. If you have had experiences with either of these crossings and would like to share, feel free to leave comments here. We’d love to hear if these seem like an effective system for making canal crossings safer and more efficient, and if we should be encouraging more Phoenix-area municipalities to install them.

From a bicyclist or pedestrian standpoint, the crossings change to a “walk” signal within a few seconds of pressing the button, and are designed to force cars to slow down and stop whenever someone needs to cross the street. At other times, they allow cars to pass through freely.

Hey there fella, put down that razor! It’s time to abandon cultural dignity, find your dormant masculinity, and display it to the world via follicular prowess!

This Third Friday, March 19th, TBAG is hosting a MOUSTACHE RIDE. A true ‘handlebar’ happy hour, if you will.

“Golly,” You exclaim, “what is a Moustache Ride and how does one participate?”

You’ll need only 2 things: A bike and a glorious moustache.

“Well, I’ve seen moustaches before,” You say, “but how on earth does one obtain such a thing?”

It’s all in these very easy steps:
1. Starting Monday, March 1, abandon shaving.
2. Once your upper lip begins to show signs of growth, you may resume your normal routine, but be sure to leave the area under your nose untouched.
3. Around the middle of March, you may begin to experience a certain feeling of machismo – do not be scared, but embrace this feeling and flaunt it openly to those around you.
4. By and as of the 19th, your face should be clean of any hair about the chin and cheeks, saving only the island upon your upper lip.
5. At 7:30 p.m. we RIDE, and you’ll be able to demonstrate your newly assumed confidence, virility, strength, and all the rest that come attached to the most manly of facial adornments.

Need encouragement? Instructions? Examples of handsomeness? Check out Mustache March, for one, and of course the precedent set by world class men-among-men such as Robert Goulet, Frank Zappa, Wilford Brimley, Yanni, Dr. Phil, and of course Tom Selleck.

Ladies… You are not left out! Please, join us on this ride. You’ll be offered a variety of quite natural looking and classy fake moustaches from which to choose! Come early for best selection, but have no fear, we shall not run out. You’ll be so surprised and at ease after only a few minutes of sporting your new lip buddy, that you may well choose to retain it for daily use.

The Ride meets, as always, at Tempe Beach Park, Rio Salado & Mill at 7:00 p.m., rolls at 7:30.

Ready? Let’s get started, shall we?

At the end of January, some of the TBAG board members and supporters helped board member Jeremy move house by bicycle. This was our first attempt at something of this nature, and the move was pretty far (6 miles, plus additional miles transporting the trailers), so we used a combination of bicycles plus a pickup truck and a mini-van to get things from one place to another. For this move, we were able to gather up a total of four trailer-type devices, two trailers and a pedicab from the Bike Saviours and one personal trailer.

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The City of Tempe Traffic Sign Department has graciously agreed to give TBAG some scraps of reflective material left over from street sign manufacturing. This stuff is a high grade 3M adhesive reflective sheeting that meets state requirements for roadway signs. What does this mean? It’s BRIGHT and it’s REALLY REFLECTIVE! We have quite a bit in different size scraps, mostly fluorescent yellow in 14″ right angle triangles. There is some orange in smaller 4″ squares and strips as well as little bit of red. There are also hundreds of 4″ silver circles but due to age the adhesive is not as sticky as it used to be (I haven’t tried it yet but it might be revived by heating the sticky side and object surface with a hair drier before applying).

So you want some of this material for FREE and you’re wondering how it can be acquired. Well, your first opportunity will be to come to our annual meeting on Sunday, November 22nd at 6:30pm at Boulders on Broadway. We’ll bring a bunch of scraps along and you can grab a few pieces. The material is easily cut to size with a paper cutter or scissors, both of which we’ll bring so you can cut your pieces on site.