Tales From The Top Tube: A Chance Encounter With A French Cyclist

An auto shop seems like an odd place to meet a retired professional cyclist. Especially a nearly octogenarian French cyclist in Salt Lake City who raced with the likes of Eddy Merckx. His name is Roger and he let me know, through his thick French accent, that he wasn't interested in letting me interview him. He just wanted to talk to me about his glory days on a bike, the people he raced with and the drugs they did.

He rode his bike a lot, he said. It wasn't like these new fancy things we have nowadays. They rode hard and had high cadences. They did a lot of drugs - amphetamines - so they could ride hard during the day, and sleeping pills - to sleep better - at night. "That is cycling. How it has always been. There is nothing wrong with doing drugs," he reminds me. I remember that "cycling is a sport of cheaters," as I was once told.

I told him he should ride with me sometime. He replied that Salt Lake is too dangerous for bike riding. Riding here is crazy. He then went on to tell me how great the cycling fans in Europe are. How they would cheer him on as he rode, and that to them, he was a celebrity - till he took his kit off. "After a race I was at the train station in my suit with my bike. People who had been cheering me on an hour early didn't even know who I was. It was a strange feeling. They only knew me on a bike."

Jokingly I asked him if he has any racing advice for me. "Stay out of the big ring." Roger tells me, "You Americans are obsessed with the big ring. Get a high cadence and then start using your big ring." Ah, yes, The Church of The Big Ring is where us Americans spend most of our time on a bike.

A half hour later, I left the shop. Roger gave me his history of racing, the auto mechanics all listening in, all of us hanging on his every word. I don't know if I will ever meet Roger again, but I am forever reminded to "stay out of the big ring".

So what church am I suppose to worship at now?

CPPJ

Bicycle Ambassadors & what the program means for Salt Lake City

There is an exciting way we bicycle advocates can share our enthusiasm for bicycling. Bicycle Ambassadors programs are sweeping the country and already exist or are getting started in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Boulder, Austin, Chicago, Philadelphia, Knoxville, Alexandria, Washington DC, and New York City, just to name a few.

What does a Bike Ambassador do?

NYC Bike Ambassadors team up with Precinct 94
to promote safe bicycling at one of
Williamsburg's most notorious intersections.
(Photo: BikingRules.org)

They attend community and school events, music festivals, farmers markets - engaging people one-on-one about bikes and bicycling, acting as mobile information booths, highlighting best practices and new bike infrastructure, and riding along wherever there are bicyclists out and about.
 

The ambassadors scatter across the city on a mission to encourage bicycling as transportation and promote safe, law-abiding behavior among cyclists and motorists. More than ever before, bicycling is an integral part of the transportation system, and Bike Ambassadors are a key component in bringing the benefits of bicycling—reducing congestion, improving personal and environmental health, saving money, making streets safer—to a broader audience.

Velo City opens new store front and sponsors alleycat to celebrate

A look inside the newly opened Velo City Bags headquarters,
at 366 S 500 E in Salt Lake City. (Photo: Deb Larsen)

Velo City Bags is Salt Lake City's (and Utah's) only locally owned and operated bike specific bag company. Velo City Bags are made entirely in house at their new shop at 366 S 500 E. Prior to moving into the new shop, owner/designer/seamstress (seamster?) Nate Larsen, made the custom, semi-custom, and pre-made bags in a space near the Salt Lake Film Center HQ.

With a new space and plenty more room to sew and to display bags, belts, wallets, and more, Velo City Bags is growing. So if you're in need a new bag, shop local, and get one of these. They're practically bombproof.

As a grand opening celebration, Velo City is also hosting an alleycat on March 3rd at 3 PM at their new shop. Bring the usual alleycat necessaries (pen, lock, bike). A bag will not be required. Ironic, right?

The week in review: Bike news from around the world

Not everyone has time to read all the headlines in cycling everyday. Here are a few that caught our eye this week. From the uniting of three of the biggest bicycle advocacy groups in the US to big wins for David Zabriskie, lots has happened this week in cycling.


- Britain's Parliament debates the importance of bicycle infrastructure. Cycle parking, bike paths, and cyclists boosting the economy of Britain. Well worth watching.

- Three of the largest national bicycle advocacy groups join forces in a historic move. The League of American Bicyclists (the oldest, founded in 1880), Alliance for Biking & Walking, and Bikes Belong, have agreed that uniting the three organizations will enable them to improve bicycling nationwide in a strong and focused way.
Read more here from the Alliance for Biking and Walking
Or here from LAB
Or here from Bikes Belong

Team Salt: True Gladitors in Chariot Wars

Team SALT (Photo: Jonathan Maus, BikePortland.org)

This past weekend in the northwest Team Salt battled in the Ben Hurt Chariot Wars at Zoobomb's ninth annual Mini Bike Winter. Prior to arriving in Portland Mark Chetti and Stephen Rowbottom of Team Salt spent over 80 hours creating a metal chariot of bicycle destruction. They then loaded the chariot onto a bus and drove it over 750 miles to Portland, Oregon. After checking and rechecking schematics they rode the chariot to war.

Thank you for your support: 100,000 visits

Since the rebirth of SaltCycle in mid-2009 after a brief stint as a forum-based bicycling resource in Salt Lake City, the number of visits, comments, articles and events around and about bicycling in Salt Lake City have grown exponentially. In the nearly three years since coming back online, our readers have visited the site 100,000 times! We want to thank you for this achievement and this important milestone in the life of SaltCycle.

As you can see in the graphic, traffic has increased substantially since the winter of 2010 and 2011. More than 75% of all our visitors have read and enjoyed the blog and its resources in the last year. With an increase in traffic and demand, we've made some fairly substantial changes to the site and its content.

Caught On A Bike: Zach Pina and Jodi McLean - Two Love Birds Who Love Bikes

(Photo credit: Christy Punkin Pants Jens)

Jodi and Zach were kind enough to ride their bikes out on a cold and rainy Sunday morning to meet up and talk about bicycles. Zach,known for his mashing skills around Salt Lake,is dating Jodi,who kills it in the saddle. Together they make up one of Salt Lakes finest cycling couples. Read more about their experiences riding bikes around the salty city.

Names: Jodi McLean and Zachary Pina

Ages:
Jodi: 29
Zach: 28

Occupations:
Jodi: Dental Assistant
Zach: Copywriter

Hometowns:
Jodi: Bountiful, Utah
Zach: Traverse City, Michigan

Years together:
A year and a half. Jodi got hit by a car on her way to meet Zach at 9th & 9th for their first date. Zach went to the hospital to make sure she was okay and ended up meeting her parents.

How they met:
Zach: Jodi moved in next door. She had a really dirty bike, but it had been loved. It needed some work done to it so I did a little work on it.
Jodi: He left a note on my bike that said, "A little bit of TLC and a bike will run forever."

Supreme Court Justice Breyer explains why he still rides a bike, even at 74 years old

United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer (b. 1938) is an excellent example is action and word of why riding a bike isn't just about improving our national economy and physical and spiritual well being. First and foremost, "It's fun," Breyer said as part of a larger quote that has recently been circulating on the web and on Facebook.

When asked why he rides a bicycle (even at 74 years old and after a severe accident in the early 1990s), Breyer responded,
"The advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it's fun. An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it's not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it."

With such natural enthusiasm for bicycling, Breyer is an excellent example of the not-so-average-person who rides a bike. His example and high-ranking position in the federal government and are great resources for Breyer, as well as for all cyclists around the country, to have a significant impact on legislators and decision makers who just don't quite understand why we ride.

The Cost of a Quarter

This morning USA Today reported an interesting factoid:  "A 25-cent jump in gasoline prices, if sustained over a year, would cost the U.S. economy about $35 billion."  Hopefully hearing that will inspire people to explore alternative transportation rather than demand that the price of gasoline be kept artificially low.  Encouraging bicycling, walking, public transit, carpooling, etc. should be the obvious solution rather than threatening Iran with military action or drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge.

Utah Senate Kills Proposed Funding for Jordan River Trail Tunnel

Last week the Utah legislature showed their opposition towards funding non-automobile transportation projects. Legislators have discovered a $4.5 million dollar surplus left over from $68.5 million that was allocated in 2010 for transportation projects within Salt Lake County. Senator Jerry Stevenson (R-Layton) has sponsored SB164, which proposes $3.5 million in road improvements along SR-201 in West Valley City and initially proposed an additional $1 million to help West Jordan and Sandy build a tunnel under 9000 South for the Jordan River Parkway Trail. SB164 was heard in the Senate Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Committee last week.

Beehive Bicycles: Salt Lakes newest bike shop

It started with a casual comment after seeing a "For Rent" sign hanging in the window of a neighboring shop space by Tony Caputo's on 15th & 15th. "We should open a bike shop there" was enough of an idea for Greg Steele, a ten year bike shop veteran, to open a shop that would better serve the needs of the surrounding community.

Beehive Bicycles is focused on being environmentally-friendly, and selling smaller bike brands such as Pivot, Boo Bicycles, Ritchey, Spot, and Surly.

Caught On A Bike: Justin Daugherty

While in town for the winter Outdoor Retailers show, we caught up with Justin Daugherty, sales manager of Green Guru, a pannier and backpack company that recycles bike tubes into new products. Find out what makes Justin tick as a bike and recycling fanatic.

Name: Justin Daugherty

Hometown: Carlsbad, California. But I have lived in Boulder, Colorado for a a long time.

Occupation: Sales Manager at Green Guru

Number of bikes you own: 15, in various states of being put together.

Favorite bike: My Raleigh 29er. I love mountain biking, though I do enjoy the idea of cyclocross. But I brought my cruiser with me to Salt Lake.

New bike count infographic highlights correlation between bikeways and ridership

Tell us what you think about the correlation between safe and
standard bike infrastructure and trips made by bike.

SLCDOT seeks input on downtown bike racks

You may have seen the new, blue automated parking pay stations downtown in the past few months. About 50 pay stations were installed to replace normal parking meters with coin-operated heads as a pilot program test to measure the feasability of doing a city-wide removal of the old coin-operated meters and replace them all with the solar-powered pay stations. The time has come for all parking meters in Salt Lake City to be removed, and replaced with the more intermittent parking pay stations.

Ring racks, like the one pictured above,
won't be a full-scale solution, says SLCDOT.
(Photo: Vxla, Flickr)

With the removal of the parking meters and their posts, bicycles won't be able to lock to them anymore and this ad-hoc type of bike parking won't be available anymore. Though some ring racks remain around Temple Square and the City & County building and could be removed and relocated to satisfy demand, SLCDOT does not plan on using these as a full-scale solution to the removal or parking meters.

To alleviate the possible decrease in avaiable space to park your bike, SLC Bike/Ped Coordinator Becka Roolf has issued a request to bicyclists, businesses, and concerned citizens for suggestions on locations that could use more permanent bike parking downtown (places that previously relied on the parking meter posts to accomodate bicycle parking). This is a tremendous effort by SLCDOT to ensure that with the removal of the traditional coin-op meters, bicyclists will still have a place to safely secure their bikes.

Roolf requested the following in her email to the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee mailing list, and subsequently to all bicyclists in Salt Lake,

My Ongoing Frustration with Congress

Uggh! Upon hearing of the House bill that removes all funding for pedestrian and bicycle programs and makes severe cutbacks to transit spending, I decided to vent my frustrations to my peers, who I’m sure share that same frustration. The shortsightedness of our elected officials in matters of transportation continues to bewilder me. They keep leading the nation forward on the premise that oil will always be plentiful (actually it’s not plentiful now), which increases our reliance on a resource primarily controlled by governments not always friendly to ours and contributes to a myriad of environmental issues. The continued promotion of the automobile as the ideal method of transportation encourages sedentary lifestyles, which contributes to America’s obesity problem and other health issues, and encourages sprawl, which multiplies transportation costs and decreases our quality of life. In a time when there this so much concern over government spending and the national debt, why does Congress continue to lead us on a path that will cost us more down the road?