There are two ways this post could go. Well, actually, once you add "well" and "poorly" to the options, I think you then encounter at least four ways in which this post could go. I will proceed in chronological order, starting with the pretty interesting news and ending with the exciting news. I don't think you should just skip to the end, though.
"All of it is good."
Interesting News (with historic photos to hook you, dear reader!)
For the past six weeks or so, I have been, uh, let's admit it - - slightly obsessed - - with bike access to my neighborhood park. The park has a recreation center, which offers day care services, after-school programs, community ed classes, etc. It also has a good playground and a newly refurbished kiddie pool, a beach, tennis and basketball courts, and access to the
City of Minneapolis' 85 miles of off-street bike paths.
I live on the north end of the park, where the bike trails don't go. A few years ago, the Park Board installed a fence near the sidewalk entrance to the park to discourage bikes from riding on the sidewalk to enter the park. About six weeks ago, park staff painted "No Biking" on that same sidewalk.
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Lake Hiawatha - 1936
(black arrow is where my 1920s house is) |
Now, I'm not a sidewalk bike rider and think that separate paths are better than shared paths, but this sidewalk is the only way for kids and other people to get to the playground, the rec center, the beach, the bike trails, etc., unless they either ride on a busy street and THEN ride on a sidewalk or if they go the wrong way down a one-way street. So, my friends with small kids: Do you teach your kid to just ignore the "no biking" paint and go on the sidewalk, which is safe and direct? Do you have your kids ride on a busy street with no bike lane? Do you teach your kid to go the wrong way down a narrow one-way street? You see the dilemma.
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Lake Hiawatha - Google satellite roughly 2010?
(red flag is my house; red arrow is the sidewalk entrance;
blue arrow is where the trail in the park connects to the
bigger trail system) |
To make a long story short, after being polite, yet persistent. I met last week - on election day - with the guy who manages the park. He was nice (and had funky glasses, I should add). He doesn't think a bike path can be added to the north end of the park, due to the narrow entry point, but says he has asked a planner for the park system to come have a look. He said that if time/weather allows, he will have a park worker take the power washer they use to remove graffiti to remove the "no biking" paint. Otherwise, they will just let it fade and not repaint it. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
He even agreed to check into reinstalling one of the two backboards at the basketball court and checking whether benches could be added along the perimeter of the park so that old people - like my former neighbor Esther - and others could take a break on their way to the main park areas. I have more wishes, but thought I should stop there.
My neighbors are happy, and I'm glad that I was able to have my concerns addressed.
Exciting News (with other images!)
The frequency of my biking is decreasing in direct proportion to the colder temperatures
I'm not a winter commuter by any stretch of the imagination. This also means that I am not a hard core late fall commuter either.
My nephews were recently reminding me of the rules to keep a mogwai from turning into a gremlin. I realized that I have similar rules, for biking: I don't ride in temps below 30, I will not leave my house by bike if there is steady rain or if there is any lightning whatsoever, and I will not ride if there is anything resembling snow or ice on a road I will be taking. (If there has been snow, and it was plowed to the side of the trail and the trails are dry, I will ride on them.)
So why do you care?
I haven't been biking much, other than a 40-mile ride each of the past few weekends. I'm dreading winter and will miss riding my bike outside. (Although, conveniently, the weather outside will be so icky, the trainer will feel like a treat.) So... you can only imagine my excitement last week when the MS Society released the July 2014 TRAM route! Yahoo! I signed up instantly. So, guess what I'm doing for a week in July? Exploring a part of the state I don't know so well.
I don't know the exact route we'll be taking, but I threw together this map with lines connecting the cities in which we'll be starting each morning and stopping each day. We will start in the southwest corner of the state, near South Dakota. (I labeled the neighboring states and Canada for those of you who aren't midwesterners.) Leaving from Pipestone, we'll go to Marshall, Redwood Falls, St. Peter, (or is it St. Peter and then Redwood Falls? see - I don't know that part of the state), New Prague, and end at Welch Village, about 30 miles from Minneapolis.
I am really excited. Almost unnaturally so. I guess part of the reason is that now I have a goal to focus on to make sure I get on my bike a lot in the spring. But perhaps a bigger reason why I find this exciting is that it means that summer will come again, and it will be hot. I will complain about the lack of shade near Marshall in mid-July, I'm sure, but it will maybe help keep me from complaining about the winter ahead. Maybe.
So, I got ye olde fundraising sites set up for 2014. Again, I'm making the MS150 my priority due to the fact that the perks of being a high fundraiser (no port-a-potty lines) come in more handy during a ride with 3800 participants, versus a ride with 800 participants. As Thanksgiving nears, I'm feeling extremely grateful for all the support I've received over the past four years, especially all of the generosity I experienced this past year - both in spirit and in terms of donations.
If you are looking for one last tax-deductible donation before 2013 comes to a close, please consider a donation to the MS Society, my charity of choice, by using one of my links:
