Blennerhassett Bicycle club January newsletter
The ol’ year has said goodbye It’s time to welcome 2009 So here’s wishing you a great year Filled with happiness and great rides
Set a Goal Editorial by David Mays As you start the new year set a goal for your bicycling activities. Maybe you want to try a new rail trail or single track ride in the woods. Maybe you would like to try riding on a long road trip. Maybe just get out and meet some new friends in a group ride on a weekend outing.
How about setting a goal to ride every day? If you would decide to ride 5 miles every day you would end up riding over 1800 miles. 10 miles a day would get you over 3600 miles. A couple of years ago I set a goal to ride 10 miles every day. It was hard at first but then there was a 15 mile day followed by a 20 miler. By early September I had reached 3600 miles with lots of good days for riding ahead. So I reset my goal and made it to 5000 miles for the year and made it.
Our good friend Floyd Holshu from Williamstown pushed himself this year and rode over 10,330 miles! That is quite an achievement! He is in the top 100 riders that log onto bikejournal.com. Actually, he is ranked number 88 in 2008. You have to average nearly 30 miles every day to achieve riding that distance in one year. Throw in several days with bad weather unfit for riding or days with family activities that kept you off your bike and the daily rides would have to be a little longer now and then to make up the losses.
Well, 10,000 miles in one year is not for everyone. It would help to be retired like Floyd but stop and think about what you can do with the time you have for riding. A thirty minute ride after work at 10 miles per hour every day would be a 5 mile ride. We waste more than 30 minutes a day in front of the TV. The true fact is for every hour in front of the TV you waste 20 minutes in commercials. The time spent exercising and out in the fresh air would be better for you, wouldn’t it?
Keep a Log
Once you have set a goal for a daily ride start keeping a log to record your activities. You might just make a daily note on a wall calendar or in a note book. You might want to set up a spread sheet on your computer and make daily entries. There is an on line journal available for free use. Go to http://bikejournal.com/ Here you can set up a free journal for yourself. I’ve been using the web site for over two years and have not seen spam generated from my activities.
In addition to being able to log your cycling activities there are a lot of other useful features available. You can search for bike shops, bike clubs or other riders in the local area or a specific area of the country. You can set up a buddy list or look at what other riders are doing. You can elect to have a private journal or one open for public viewing. Go check it out.
League of American Bicyclist The League of American Bicyclists, bikeleague@bikeleague.org publishes a newsletter with interesting articles about bicycle advocacy across the United States. It is a free news letter you can sign up for by going to their web site. Below are two sample articles from the newsletter published December 8th, 2008.
Final 2007 NHTSA Crash Statistics Released
From: League of American Bicyclists [bikeleague@bikeleague.org]
In 2007, 698 pedal-cyclists (riders of two-wheel non-motorized vehicles, tricycles, and unicycles powered solely by pedals) were killed and an additional 43,000 were injured in traffic crashes. Pedal-cyclist deaths accounted for 2 percent of all traffic fatalities, and pedal-cyclists made up 2 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes during the year. The number of pedal-cyclist fatalities in 2007 is 14 percent lower than the 814 fatalities reported in 1997. The highest number of pedal-cyclist fatalities ever recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was 1,003 in 1975. Pedal-cyclists accounted for 13 percent of all non-occupant traffic fatalities in 2007. Go to this web link to read the full report:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810986.PDF
DOT Encourages Funding for Bicycling
From: League of American Bicyclists [bikeleague@bikeleague.org]
The Department of Transportation has issued a Memorandum of Understanding in cooperation with the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Interior, and Army to promote uses and benefits of the Nation's public lands and water resources to enhance the physical and mental health and quality of life for all Americans. This effort will encourage healthier lifestyle through diet, exercise and outdoor recreation. This means that the Department of Transportation will further encourage the use of its funding programs to support projects that promote accessibility, walking, bicycling, safe routes to school and other highway safety programs, recreational trails, transportation enhancements, scenic byways, and access to recreation on federal lands. Go to the following web link to view the entire MOU…. 10 pages of boring reading:
http://www.bikeleague.org/news/pdfs/dot_mou.pdf
The Hardest Part of Learning to Ride a Bike
Q. Do you know what the hardest part of learning to ride a bike is?
A. The pavement.
Teach Kids These Basic Skills
In order to ride safely, children must be able to balance, steer and stop. So, teach them these skills by practicing with them in a safe location such as an empty parking lot or park. Make sure that they're comfortable getting on and off the bike. Have them ride along a straight line and in circles. Get them to brake hard enough to skid the tire. And be sure to talk to them and explain the importance of riding a straight line, obeying traffic rules and being extremely careful and alert whenever they're riding.
Think about some special rides in 2009
Here are some special cycling events around the area you might find interesting to plan for and participate in this coming year.
May 9-10, 2009 48th Annual • TOSRV 2009 The Tour of the Scioto River Valley is a 2-day, 200-mile bicycle tour from Columbus, Ohio, to Portsmouth, Ohio, and back again. For more information go to
http://www.tosrv.org/09/index.htm
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June 20th through June 27th 2009 GOBA, The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure
What Is GOBA? GOBA's mission is to organize a yearly one-week bicycle vacation, in order to inspire independence and nurture personal growth; to learn about Ohio, it's people, geography, and history; to provide inter-generational recreation; to enhance the image of bicycling in Ohio; and to raise funds for bicycle-related projects in Ohio. GOBA has been described as "an adventure on two wheels with 2,999 of your closest friends." Each year the GOBA route features a different part of Ohio, traveling through peaceful countryside and stopping at exciting tourist destinations; click the map to see the towns visited by GOBA over the years. The week-long adventure offers fun, Ohio town hospitality, and the challenge of your life.
Around 3,000 cyclists from all across the country (and from outside the U.S.) participate each year, riding a 50-mile (average) route each day through some of Ohio's most scenic areas. GOBA is a tour, not a race; most riders find plenty of time during the day for sightseeing, snoozing on the grass, and enjoying food along the way. GOBA lays out and marks all the routes, offers guidance to the host towns, and gives riders maps, commemorative items, and informational materials for the week. Delicious and reasonably priced food is provided by civic, social, and church groups along the route and in the towns.
GOBA is primarily a camping tour. Each rider brings a large bag containing their own tent, sleeping bag, clothing, and other gear. Each morning, riders load their bags into waiting trucks, then start riding the day's route, leaving when they want and riding at the pace they desire. Meanwhile, the baggage and support personnel travel by a different route to the next host town, and begin to set up the next "GOBAville." As riders arrive, they locate their baggage and set up camp.
Different kinds of entertainment await the riders each night, including the Tour of Ohio, a criterium series showcasing some of the top teams and racers in Ohio. For detailed information on GOBA, including how to pack, what to expect on the tour, etc., see our rider handbook,
The Way to GOBA at http://www.goba.com/about/waytogoba.htm
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September 7th 2009 The 38th Hancock Horizontal Hundred, Findlay, Ohio 45839
This is one of the flattest rides in Ohio. Great ride for your first 100 mile “Century” attempt. Bicycle dealer/vendor displays and a free ice cream social Saturday evening. “Chris Cakes” serving hot cakes breakfast Sunday morning. Ride fee includes: patch (to first 1000 registrants), map, rest stops w/food, lunch, SAG support and a well marked route on smooth blacktop roads. All corners are swept the day prior to the event. Professional Sports Massage Therapy available Saturday and Sunday. Registration cutoff will be September 1, 2008. Online registration will be available in late March. For more information go to
http://www.hancockhandlebars.org/HHH%20Splash%20Page.htm
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September 12th 2009 08:30 AM Tour De Donut, Brumbaugh Fruit Farm, 6420 Arcanum-Hollansburg Arcanum, OH 45304
Go to their Duathlon. Ride to eat, Eat to ride baby!!!!! A unique bicycle race where you are awarded 5 minutes for any doughnut you eat. Are a good enough cyclist and eater to go into negative time? Riders will be given a card to have punched for doughnuts eaten at the rest stop and after the ride.
Tour de Donut information: http://www.colavitaohiocycling.com/DONUT.htm
Registration: http://www.active.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=1674533
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There are several other good riding events in our area that dates and routes for 2009 have not yet been announced. I will try to include information on these events in future editions of our BBC newsletter.
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When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamoring of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ~Diane Ackerman
There are no club rides scheduled for January or February.
