Crazy busy. Just plain crazy busy. That’s the only reason I have for not writing in over three months. From continuing our downsizing to getting a new roommate, to rehabbing our house, to major projects on the website and planning our Mexico routes, to researching and buying new pieces of equipment for the trip, and more, more, more, we’ve been putting in long days for quite awhile now. It’s been good, very good. And we’re gradually winding things down to the point where the writing can begin.
After Chelsea and I raked up eighteen yard-bags of leaves and oak tree pollen today, Chelsea is out mowing the lawn while I settle at the computer to write at least one blog. I’ve got my music playing (that’s a story in itself), my bottle of water is at hand, and I’m finally alone, without interruptions.
The best place to start is where I left off, back in mid January, right before the Adventure Cycling meetings. For those who don’t know, the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) is a group near and dear to our hearts.
ACA came into being in the late 1970s as an outgrowth of the original Bikecentennial of 1974, a group that coordinated a gathering of over 4,000 cyclists to ride across the US in celebration of the 1976 US Bicentennial (over 2,000 finished the whole route).
With a mission “to inspire people of all ages to travel by bicycle for fitness, fun, and self-discovery”, ACA is a tremendous source of support and information for cyclists. They research and produce maps for new bike routes around the US, with an impressive current network of over 38,000 miles and more being developed every year. They offer resources for planning bike trips, publish a magazine nine times a year, sell bike travel gear online, offer a cyclist’s forum, lead bike tours, and work on bicycle advocacy projects.
I have no memory of how we first ran across Adventure Cycling, but it was a serendipitous discovery. Rather than struggle finding our way across the US in summer 2006, we bought maps for several ACA routes and cobbled them together to create our own route, riding from St. Augustine, Florida to San Francisco, California. That’s when we fell in love.
The maps are hard to believe – they have a map section for each thirty miles or so, with a turn-by-turn map shown in detail, along with turn-by-turn detail in writing, designed so each section is visible through the plastic viewing section on handlebar bags. And when I say detailed, I mean detailed: Chelsea and I once had to stop, as per the directions on the map, and read a number on a utility pole to see if that was really our turn.
The maps became a part of our lives for many months; we used them across country in 2006, up the east coast from Key West to Bar Harbor in 2007, and for parts of the west coast in early 2008. We’ve posted on ACA’s classified ads and bought from the online store. When the newsletter Bike Bits arrives, I read it immediately all the way through, and when the Adventure Cycling magazine arrives, I read it cover to cover the first day.
You can imagine what a thrill it was in early January to read that Jim Sayer, the executive director of Adventure Cycling, was going to be in South Florida on January 14th, both in West Palm Beach and in Miami. We made arrangements with Alex to have the car all day.
The morning session was a government meeting of the Palm Beach County MPO/Bike-Ped-Greenways and Florida Department of Transportation representatives. At the end of their regular meeting Jim was a guest speaker, giving an overview of what ACA is about and giving statistics on national bike routes – lots of detail and entertaining anecdotes.
Since we’d agreed to supply the food for the evening meeting in Miami, Chelsea and I treated ourselves to a very rare lunch out (at Panera’s), then did our shopping for the goodies. Though we headed out in plenty of time for the meeting, we were still panicked as we made our way through the awful Miami going-home-from-work traffic; we made it to the meeting just in time.
Nearly sixty people showed up for the meeting – we were just astounded. We had no idea that many people in South Florida would be interested in cycle touring, much less take the time to show up at an evening meeting! And how did they even find out about it?
Jim’s presentation was wonderful; despite his brutal schedule of events throughout Florida, he was relaxed and laid-back, showing up in a tee-shirt and board shorts (the morning meeting was more formal).
He covered a wide range of topics, from suitability of routes, traffic flow, speed, and so on, to the US Bicycle Route, and the possibility of some day having a “Rand McNally map for cyclists”. Jim talked about creating incentive funding; the East Coast Greenways; inner city and rural bypasses; the need for more bikeways; and economic tourism development (what cycle tourists spend on hotels, food, camping, local sights, etc.)
And, of course, Jim urged each of us to support cycling in any way we can, and to write letters to our congressmen. The more bikeways and the more cyclists we have, the safer cycling will be, he pointed out.
Peppering his talk with stories, Jim told us about June, the Cookie Lady, in Afton Virginia, who has provided refreshments and often a place to stay to over 11,000 cyclists in a thirty year span; and told us about the ballroom dance group of 8-18 year-olds who cycled 200 miles to a competition.
Our only regret about the evening was how short it was. We wanted a chance to talk to each and every one of the people there. We did get to meet Kris and Anna, Polish touring cyclists who are currently on tour; August Neal, who cycle tours as often as she can in two to four week increments; and Scott Little, who’s been cycle touring for a lifetime, it seems.
We got August’s phone number; we hope to get together with her before we leave. Scott Little came up from Ft. Lauderdale to spend some time with us in mid February – we had a wonderful afternoon with him – we’d like to see more of him.
And finally, we got a great chance to talk to Jim Sayer a bit. We came away quite impressed with his dedication to the cause and with his quick and easy manner, never mind his ability to whip out an astonishing array of statistics and information at a moment’s notice.
Check the Adventure Cycling site, and read Jim’s blog entry on his whirlwind Florida trip at http://blog.adventurecycling.org/search/label/From%20the%20Executive%20Director
Scroll down to Thursday January 21, “Thank You, Florida!”
Even before we realized that Jim would be coming to Florida, we’d been noticing how many more bicycles are on the road here. In real numbers it’s still minor, but there are noticeably more. We are delighted.
We see all kinds of cyclists on all kinds of bikes. More parents are on bikes around our neighborhood, even by themselves; we’ve seen a few cyclists here in our neighborhood that are dressed as though they are serious about riding; a guy who works at Ale House with Alex is taking off to ride fifty miles down to South Beach on his beach cruiser and back the same day.
A1A (out by the beach) is still loaded with the tight-spandex, flashy colors, moving-really-fast crowds of riders, but we see more and more regular folks out on their plain and simple bikes, especially on weekdays. It’s still a subtle change, but it’s encouraging nonetheless.
I can’t see truly substantive change, though, until several important issues are addressed:
* We need separate bike lanes or separate bike paths. Chelsea and I are experienced riders, but even we cringe when we have to cross major streets around here. I always take the sidewalks and crosswalks for a short way now if we have to make a left turn rather than ride with the cars – I would NEVER have considered doing that in my former life.
*We urgently need to educate drivers about dealing with cyclists and what the laws are. So many drivers are nervous around cyclists, completely ignorant of the rights of cyclists, or worse yet, openly hostile.
*Cyclists need to be educated on how to ride properly. Though we are cyclists ourselves, we find ourselves horrified at the egregious lack of manners exhibited by many cyclists, ranging from inconsiderate to downright arrogant, especially in the group “spandex” rides. We were amazed the other day on the A1A section of our ride to hear a local policeman on his bullhorn in his patrol car warning a cyclist to get on the proper side of the road, to “ride with the flow of traffic”.
*We need convenient and safe places to lock our bikes when we arrive at our destinations. Another huge plus would be a place to stow our things when we don’t want to leave them on the bikes (for fear of theft) but we can’t bring them in (like our story of the courthouse last fall).
All of this will likely be a longer time coming than we’d like, but it’s SO encouraging to see so many signs of movement! In fact, the headline article in last night’s Palm Beach Post was about the Bicycle, Greenways and Pedestrian Advisory Committee of the county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization hosting public forums this month, inviting cyclists to tell them how to make roads safer for biking to work. Very few cyclists showed up – we didn’t even know the meetings were being held despite the fact that I read the online news daily – but it’s a head start.
Florida has the most cycling deaths in the nation, and South Florida has the highest rate of bicycle theft in the nation. It’s truly time to change those depressing statistics.