Tempe Bicycle Action Group

Annual_Mtg_Flier[final]TBAG’s Annual Membership Meeting & Board Elections
Sunday ll/22 6:30pm
Boulders on Broadway (530 W Broadway)
We have 3 Vacancies to Fill
nominate someone or even yourself
If you have an idea for great new bike program, consider joining the board – We’ll work with you to make it happen.
The second part of the this meeting is all about volunteer involvement. We’ve accomplished a lot in 09 and we’re not about to stop now. Come find out what’s in store for 2010…and how you can get involved.
and yes, there will be FREE PIZZA
We will be sending out more info on the Annual Mtg. soon. If you haven’t signed up for the TBAG list-serve yet, now would be a good time. Check back here, on the biketempe blog

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Ryan Van Duzer is riding from San Diego to Washington DC on a New Belgium bike, three speed with a coaster brake. He’s raising money for Community Cycles in Boulder, CO and doing some bike advocacy during his ride.

He’s also filming and taking photos of bike culture along the way.

He will be at Boulders on Broadway at 7:30pm, tonight, Friday June 26th. Get the word out to anyone you know who rides a bike, bring out the fixters, roadies, mountain bikers, commuters, curmudgeons, the polo crew, bro’s on cruisers, whatever. It would be great to see the lobby packed like it was after Tour de Fat.

Check out his blog on Team Wonderbike: http://www.newbelgium.com/team-wonderbike/duzer or visit http://ryanvanduzer.com or http://duzertv.com. You’ll find the video from Scottsdale earlier today titled DAAM-Bike lovers in Scottsdale at http://ryanvanduzer.com.

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For those of you who haven’t heard, Ryan Van Duzer of New Belgium Brewing is pedaling across America on a 3 speed cruiser with a trailer in tow in support of bicycle awareness. He’s due to pass through the Phoenix area on Friday morning. Representatives from Tempe and Scottsdale will be out to meet and talk with Ryan at 10:30am at McDowell & the Crosscut Canal which is halfway between Galvin Parkway and 68th Street. All are welcome to join along in pedaling as he travels through Phoenix. These are all the details we have right now, so if you’d like to pedal along it’s probably best to be at the above mentioned location @ 10:30am on Friday, June 26th. Here’s a snippet from the League of American Bicyclists on Ryan’s journey:

Ryan Van Duzer, an experienced journalist, adventurer and athlete is representing New Belgium Brewery, one of the League’s Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Businesses, and riding a New Belgium cruiser bike across the country under New Belgium’s Team Wonderbike banner. Duzer left June 17 from Oceanside, Calif., which was coordinated to leave the same day as their Race Across America. Duzer received an official send-off from Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. Duzer will ride from Oceanside, Calif. to Washington, D.C., arriving in D.C. mid August.

The cross-country bike ride is to raise awareness about the bicycle by highlighting that if one person can ride a three-speed across America, anyone can surely become a bicycle commuter and ride your bike to work or to the store.

Please excuse the @ symbol in the title, links to our blog posts are automatically posted to Twitter and the @ symbol ensures that Duzer will see our blog post.

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Yes that’s right, we’ve set a date for our annual volunteer meeting. Sunday February 15th, 7pm at Boulders on Broadway. Anyone interested in volunteering to help us out this year is encouraged to attend. TBAG will provide some munchies and we’ll share our plans for the first half of 2009. We’ll be taking names and information from those interested in volunteering. We also hope that you’ll bring ideas to the table and share them with us, which we as a board will review, and possibly act upon.

To give you an idea of what’s in store, our board meeting last Sunday ran a full 3 hours! We discussed much and will be sharing some details with you in an email newsletter that should go out no later than early next week.

In the meantime, put on your thinking cap (or rather your helmet), go out for a ride, and put some thought into how we can make bicycling better for you, and everyone!

A few quick reminders, discussion forums are now available though off to a slow start, you can help get them off the ground by contributing! TBAG is now on Twitter. Follow us as we send updates almost daily on news and topics that relate to cycling both locally and globally.

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Please join the City of Tempe and TBAG for a community bicycle ride this Sunday, October 26th.

We’re looking for 8-10 volunteers to serve as parade marshals for the mellow, 10-mile ride. Marshals help direct the cyclists and assist with any minor repairs (mostly flats) along the way. Volunteers must be able to meet at Kiwanis Park (the parking lot off of All-American Way just north of Guadalupe) by 7:30 AM. The ride starts at 8:30 and lasts 1-1.5 hours. All participants will receive t-shirts and breakfast goodies. Because this is a City of Tempe event, HELMETS ARE REQUIRED. Goofy costumes are optional, but highly encouraged.

If you would like to volunteer for this event, please email Kate: kate@biketempe.org

Official Event Info:

1,500 bicyclists expected at annual Tour de Tempe bike ride

Tempe, Ariz. – More than 1,500 people are expected to participate in the 13th annual Tour de Tempe community bike ride Oct. 26. The ride starts and ends at Tempe’s Kiwanis Park (Parking lot off All-America Way just north of Guadalupe Road). Riders will enjoy some of the most distinct bikeways in Arizona during this 10 mile ride that begins at 8:30 a.m. Registration starts at 7 a.m.

Tour de Tempe, Tempe’s free leisurely community bike ride, is a fun, non-competitive ride that weaves through diverse neighborhoods, public art projects and other Tempe sites.

All riders will receive free breakfast snacks, and artist-designed T-shirts will be distributed to the first 800 registrants. Helmets are required.

Tour de Tempe sponsors include Back East Bagel Company, Berning’s Fine Jewelry, REI, Starbucks, Whole Foods Market, Wildflower Bread Company, Clif Bar and Tempe in Motion.

Tempe has more than 165 miles of dedicated bikeways, including on-street bike lanes and off-street multi-use paths and is designated a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. For more information, call (480) 350-2775 or visit www.tempe.gov/tim.

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Got some spare bike parts lying around?

Bike Saviours wants your old bikes and bike parts. They will be accepting donations at their booth at Tour de Fat on Saturday, October 11th.

Bring any bikes or parts in any condition. They’ll use them to help others get a bike or keep their bike on the road.

Bike Saviours is a local non-profit bike collective with a focus on teaching people to build and repair bicycles.

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Here’s a cool opportunity to take advantage of, courtesy of the Bike Saviours:

Bike Saviours Advanced Bike Maintenance Classes
Every Wednesday 7pm-9pm starting September 10th.
At the Bike Saviours Bike Co-Op, 519 W. 19th St, Tempe.
Cost: Free

http://www.bikesaviours.org/

Want to learn how to fix your bicycle? Want to get involved in a local collective with a focus on teaching people to build and repair bicycles? Bike Saviours bike co-op will be teaching an advanced bike maintenance class to train new volunteers or anyone with a general interest in maintaining their own bike. The classes are free and open to anyone who wants to attend. The class will last eight weeks with a different topic each week. Some of the topics include: Choosing and fitting a bike, headsets, bottom brackets, derailleurs and shifting, wheel truing, and brakes. Some familiarity with bikes and tools will help but won’t be mandatory, the class will be geared to the ability level of the students. If you are interested please contact: ryanguzy@gmail.com

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Bicycling has been in the news quite a lot lately, for many reasons, and the press has been both positive and negative. On the one hand, much of the coverage has been about violent events that have occurred during recent Critical Mass rides: at a recent CM in Seattle, a driver plowed through a bunch of bicyclists, hitting several, but was then stopped when angry riders slashed his tires (as reported here). Meanwhile, a police officer in New York City tackled a bicyclist during a CM ride, sparking lots of outrage (as reported here).

On the other hand, many people are switching from cars to bicycles in the wake of higher gas prices and raised social pressures to rely on greener forms of transportation. As this happens, the burden is on us, the experienced and enthusiastic cyclists, to keep bicycling fun and safe and to dispel myths about it.

I’ve come across two resources in the past couple of days that speak to these goals. The first is the website of John Pucher: you might remember my posting of a lecture that he gave a while back. The nice thing about Pucher’s work is that he has done comprehensive research to figure out what American cities need to do to continue promoting bicycling. Although his publications are primarily written for an academic audience, they contain a lot of valuable, detailed information that’s vital for arguing for change (see, for example, the article titled, “Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany”).

The second resource that I came across is a nice argument debunking what the author calls the Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist. One of the most interesting parts deals with the issue of cyclists running red lights. There’s an idea being tested out by Idaho, and possibly California, to change the rules of the road to allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs, in light of the fact that signals are designed for cars and not bicycles.

In any case, let’s keep at it, folks.

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It’s about that time. I’m waking up earlier, slathering on the sunscreen and bringing two water bottles instead of one on short road rides. Yes folks, summer is quickly approaching.

I’m putting together a cycling in the summer tip sheet for future TBAG events and I’d certainly appreciate your thoughts! Here in Arizona, many of us have found great ways to continue bicycling through the heat of the summer. What are your best tips for cycling in the heat? Leave any ideas or suggestions in the comments.

Once I’ve compiled everyone’s tips, I’ll post the fact sheet. Thanks for your input!

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TBAG recently had our first major volunteer meeting on March 24 at 7 pm at Boulders on Broadway.- thank you to all who attended and agreed to help on projects. We divided into four groups to brainstorm and plan programs to work on over the next six months or so. Click below for a quick summary of what was discussed and contact information if you want to get involved. It was great to see so many bikers excited to make a difference!

(more…)

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