My, what a chatty bunch. My $.02: There is always safety in numbers such as cities(Montreal, Vancouver) which have many bike commuters. With so many cyclists, drivers have no other option but to show courtesy. They have a mix of roads with sharrows, separated(plastic cones) bike lanes and bike paths. Each offers a different comfort zone for cyclist. Once a cyclist feels good on a bike path they migrate to a bike lane (cone separated) and so on. To expect anything different is crazy. A city needs ALL of these to slowly educate the bicyclist. I also agree with Barry, if the city/state/fed continue to legally back cars over bikes, then bike commuting will always be for the foolhardy. Without laws for our safety, we will never grow in numbers.
Baltimore also has the problem of very narrow streets. Tough to get 2 lanes of cars and a bike lane through. I have always wanted to see a few streets turned into bus and bike street only. They have this in Minneapolis and it was a sea of walkers, buses, and bikes.

and so many streets with both outside lanes used for parking.

When I first moved to Hampden 10 years ago many of my older neighbors had no car and the newer ones had one car. Most of the space in front of my house was open. Today? Whoa, it's hard to find a space at any time of day. Crazy. Who needs all these cars? Young busy professional couples thinking that there is no viable option other than owning two cars. Gotta get these people thinking outside of the box.

NR,

I'll buy the beer if you're riding:
http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=9735

Dallas here :)

Only if you ride/run it too.

I have zero experience in CX. I only know what I've seen on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRZOa_E9Qs8

Damn.
I was hoping to be the one with foam spikes on my head and stupid paint on my face yelling at you to go faster while I stand on the side drinking beer.
Now you want me to get on my bike?
<considering>

NR-you already have the bike for it. GB-what would you ride?

I took a stab at CX a couple months ago, totally unprepared and definitely wrong bike, my 520 equipped with CX tires. It does seem like it could be addictive, very intense.

About cars taking up space-When I'm rolling through Rogers Forge or any other neighborhood I make a conscious effort to SEE the parked cars and try to imagine the urban-suburban-scape without them, they take up an incredible amount of the view, but we're so used to them that we don't even see them most of the time.

http://go.bikeforums.net/?id=42X1295...21.jpg%3Fv%3D0
Single speeding

need tires though

You'll also need a license, but you can purchase a single day license at the race.

Weird... I just renewed my annual license this morning, then you bring this up.

Yeah, except that I'd have to re-gear it.

I'm planning on riding up to Sparks Elementary on Saturday for the 45 miler. Should give me 85 total, big miles for me. I took my mt. bike over to Loch Raven this afternoon for a spin, went in a few hundred yards and way too muddy. I haven't done any mt biking in years so my skills are way off, very skittish. I then got in the van and went up to the NCR, did a few miles on there, boring and it felt exhausting, either I'm very tired and out of shape or the ground was seriously sucking my wheel, or both.

Just a reminder- this saturday night at Dizzy Issies HERE for a goodbye Barry send off. :beer:

...or, maybe he got that job in DC and he's staying. :D
either way good reason for all of us to get together. Max and I will be over right after the BBC meeting.

I thought we were going to reschedule??? Gloria has asked me to come to the meeting, which has brought up issues on why I am leaving MD and Bicycle Advocacy (nothing to do with the BBC) and I am having trouble sleeping. In any case, most likely I am not going to be in good shape Saturday night.

BTW Dizzy Issies is now called "The Diz"

I'm up for a reschedule since I'm planning to ride long on Saturday, because Sunday looks like poo-poo-ca-ca.

Barry, FYI--Renee ask me if I was interested in taking the club advocacy job if you left. I told her that there was no way I could do that job justice. She didn't (and, probably no one else in the club) realize how much time and effort you put into that activity--lots of trips to Annapolis and some to DC.

I don't think anyone is showing the appreciation that they should for your dedicated and untiring efforts on behalf of Maryland regarding alternative modes of transportation, especially the bicycle.

I could not come close to filling your shoes.

I guess I missed that. A reschedule is fine with me. I'll see you at the meeting then.

I missed the reschedule as well. Is there a reschedule date?


You don't have to fill them, just wear them:-)

Like this?

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thum...black-shoe.jpg

.

:roflmao2:

Ha, I wear a size 13 so that's probably close. If you or anyone else wants to post on Baltimore Spokes it would be appreciated it has a lot of state and local government people on the list, not to mention newspaper folks. Additionally independent web rankings rank it higher then One Less Cars web site. And NR's forum topic "The Stupid Stuff I See During My Commute" generally maintains a top ten most popular item on the site.

Also note that I am NOT going to the BBC meeting.

I will note that I don't do what I do for appreciation, though the BBC board has been very generous and I do enjoy the friendships that my work has helped to generate. For me it is an honor to serve something greater then myself, I could not be as effective as I have been without the BBC support.

Wait a minute, now... it's been number one for months on end, I'll have you know! It has 4,189 views--almost twice as much as the next most popular forum topic. ;)

My other topic, "WInter Riding - What to wear", is third most popular with 2,245 views. :)

Just to note the site gets about 3,000-6,000 unique visits a month (and growing.) So I am talking about over all popular pages not just the forum pages. But yes, you rock the forum section, thanks.

Nice! I get the email edition and read it religiously.

Could have, should have ridden Sunday, but didn't. Veg'ed out in front of the boob-tube.

Perhaps it was good, since I had to battle the weather somewhat this morning.

So, Bob (and anyone else who went), how was the social Saturday night?

When is the reschedule for The Diz? (My opinion - I'd like to do a ride with Barry, then follow it up with some beer drinkin'.)

what a wind today. Rather balmy, almost 60F. Weather changes again this afternoon.

+1 on what NR said, ride then drink with Barry. I'm out of town this weekend though.
Barry, do you have a departure date set?

The social/meeting was more or less the same ol' same ol, but well worth it for the chance to hang out again with Bob. :) Bob, that REBEL, did ride his Coho to the meeting, and parked it inside the building. ; On a very sad but ironic note -- NR will truly appreciate this one -- 4 cars that were parked in the lot right across the street from the meeting were broken into, and stuff stolen from them. Two of them (I think only 2 -- ?) belonged to Club members.

I'm occupied this Saturday afternoon/night, but I hope to be able to join the Farewell Beer Ride if it's scheduled some other time!