For local mountain bikers, the year started off on a somber note. Dedicated trail builder and founding member of Evergreen MTB Len Francies passed away New Year’s Day.
“Len’s heart came to rest on one of his favorite trails,” Evergreen wrote on their website memorial for him.
For the past couple decades, Len has been a force in the huge advancements in mountain biking across the region, Evergreen notes. From developing training programs to serving on the Evergreen Board to getting out on the trail and chainsawing trail blockages himself, Len earned the nickname “The Legend.”
The MTBR forum is also filled with stories and photos from mountain bikers memorializing him.
“He was a one man ambassador for the sheer joy of mountain biking. Or sawing. By which I mean, life!” wrote one person.
Boasting a secret-for-now route that “involves a state route bike riders have never been able to use,” Cascade Bicycle Club announced an all-new major ride for 2016: The Emerald City Bike Ride.
Scheduled for April 3, a Sunday, the new addition to the club’s major rides line-up aims to be “an amazing urban ride that this city deserves” with “relatively flat” routes and “views that can’t be beat.” There will be 22-mile and 8-mile options.
Like the club’s other major rides, there is an entry fee: $30 for members or $50 for the general public. It falls on the club’s schedule between the February 28 Chilly Hilly and the April 16 Ride for Major Taylor.
There are only a couple state routes in Seattle where bikes are legally not allowed: SR 520, I-5, a section of SR 99 (including the Battery Street Tunnel and the Viaduct) and I-90 (though most parts of I-90 have an adjacent trail). Below is a map we made back in 2010. Note that city-owned bike-free roads — such as the West Seattle Bridge — are not included: (more…)
Seattle Police Officer Drew Fowler was on bike patrol in Cal Anderson Park Saturday when he spotted a high-end mountain bike in the hands of a suspected thief.
Officer Fowler stopped the man and asked if he could have a look at the bike’s serial number. The man let him, according to Seattle Police, and the officer found it listed as stolen on Bike Index.
The officer confiscated the bike and the suspect was arrested for possession of stolen property. The bike was reunited with its owner thanks again to Bike Index.
There are several lessons in this example of bike theft enforcement. First, it is very hard to get someone on bike theft, but much easier to get someone on the lesser crime of possession of stolen property. Even when someone has a stolen bike and a set of bolt cutters in his backpack (as with this case), it’s still impossible to prove he was the person who stole it without witness or video/photo evidence of the theft itself. (more…)
It’s very difficult to overstate how huge an impact the Eastside Trail will have on regional bikeability and livability.
Traveling through or very near city centers, neighborhoods and employment centers in Woodinville, Kirkland, Bellevue and Renton the trail itself will revolutioninze non-motorized transportation east of Lake Washington.
Add to that existing and future trail links to Redmond, the Burke-Gilman Trail, the Sammamish River Trail and across the 520 Bridge, and the regional trails will finally resemble and function like a real network (which reminds me, have you seem Zach Shaner’s awesome dream regional trail map designed like a transit map?).
If you are super excited about the possibilities here, then join the celebration 12:30 p.m. Friday near the Kirkland/Bellevue border as the first railroad spike is removed (more details below). After the ceremony, bike the Cross Kirkland Corridor with Cascade Bicycle Club for Happy Hour at the wonderful Chainline Brewing.
As we reported previously, King County will remove the rails from about 1.3 miles of the corridor stretching from the existing Cross Kirkland Corridor southern terminus into the heart of Bellevue.
But even with the rails removed, the trail won’t really be bikeable until a hardpack gravel interim trail surface is completed. King County Executive Dow Constantine said in a November statement that the first section of interim trail could be open “in two years.”
If you want to get even more involved, the county is hosting an Eastside Rail Corridor SummitSaturday in Bellevue. The agenda (PDF) includes panels on transportation and land use, business development along the trail, and breakout conversations to help set near- and mid-term goals.
Launching the Let’s Move Seattle campaign next to a timber-supported bridge that needs replacing, feet from where Brian Fairbrother died in 2011
In 2015, Seattle Bike Blog posted 359 stories, which is actually fewer than in 2014. But that doesn’t mean I worked less. Instead, I quietly allowed my personal rule of two posts per weekday to slip in order to give myself the freedom to focus more on bigger stories.
And I think it worked, since traffic to the site went up 25 percent even though the number of posts went down 18 percent. Lesson: Quality trumps quantity, even on the Internet.
So big thanks to all of you for reading! I am so lucky to have the greatest job in Seattle (the country?). Writing about biking in such a beautiful city simply never gets old, and my list of interesting things to write about keeps growing faster than I can write them. All you awesome biking activists and artists and event planners are just the best. Thanks for keeping me busy!
2015 was a big year for biking in Seattle, even though relatively few big new bike lanes were built. Because 2015 was the year we finally took a big step towards filling the biggest piece missing from nearly every city’s safe streets plans: Funding. (more…)
KCTS IN Close covered the city’s work to fix Rainier Ave this week. And though much of the information may not be new to readers of this blog, it’s great to see it explained in such a concise and clear video.
For 2016, we have to make sure the city not only extends the safety project, but also includes people on bikes in the improvements. On a busy street like Rainier, that means protected bike lanes.
As plans for a north-south neighborhood greenway in the Rainier Valley develop, it has become clear that Rainier Ave is the only reasonably flat and direct option for a bike route in the neighborhood. While neighborhood greenways can be great for connecting homes, schools and other destinations, Rainier is the only option for a direct and mostly flat citywide connection — the kind of bike route people use travel between neighborhoods or to major employment centers.
Rainier Valley Greenways leaders have been making the case for protected bike lanes on the street, even demonstrating several blocks of such bike lanes for Park(ing) Day. It was wonderful and worked perfectly.
Let’s make Rainier Ave safe and vibrant for everyone.
