Balloon Biker and Indiana Dunes

A friend of mine has started her trek across the United States. Her first post was about the camping trip I accompanied her on to Indiana Dunes.

Where would you put bicycle lanes in the suburbs?

A discussion was started today over at The Chainlink asking, "Where should protected bike lanes get installed in the suburbs?"

I weighed in myself. In my opinion, if cycling is ever to be a viable day to day utility for people in the suburbs, decision makers must identify the connector streets. The roads that people must use. In Mokena, this is Route 30, Saint Francis road, Wolf, and a few others. Once these are identified, then a lane or separated path can be built.

Many roads in the suburbs are fine for cycling on, but if that 10% of the route is dangerous, then someone will just take their car.

If I had business on the other side of interstate 80, I have little or no safe options to cross the interstate. If just one of the roads crossing it had a shoulder, the issue would be moot.

If you build the infrastructure, what has been shown again and again.

Go on over and tell us your opinion.

Google maps and craft beer

Last week I attended the BOSS (Brewers of South Suburbia) meeting. It was my first meeting, and what excited me even more. I could ride to it!

So I plug my addresses into Google maps and get a route. Mostly along a bike path. Along the way I discover something interesting. More bike paths! There were not on the map.

Earlier I had discovered Google maps now provided a map maker. This wonderful tool allows you to make edit to the map. After review and approval, then get pushed to the map for everyone to use.

I knew about one "path". The sidewalk near my street is signed as a bike route, and it's used a good bit, so Google should know about it.

At first, I bring up the satellite images, trace out these paved sidewalk paths and submit them. Come to find later that Google considers a side path marked as a bicycle route, that doesn't diverge from the street marks the street as having a bike lane.

This is one of the things that I've learned differ in the suburbs. Here, as opposed to the city, they will rip out a sidewalk, pave it, put a dividing line on and it sign it as a bike route. In a way it is a separated bike lane.

They almost never show up on a bike map, but now that Google allows edits, they can. Google also allows you to mark sidewalks and the cycling suitability of a road.

I urge everyone to check your local routes and mark any missing information with Google. It helps us all out. Find a road is really bad for cycling, mark that. A short path, mark that too.

Now, if you look at my neighborhood. You'll see many more "bike lanes" then before. Hopefully helping out other cyclists. I just hope these paths are taken care of in the winter.

Can this be feasible?

That is the question I wondered to myself for a couple years. As my move came closer, I had no idea if I would be able to survive what other people love, the suburbs.

Some backstory first. I grew up in the middle of no where. In the hills of West Virginia. It was the situation where going out for bread, or ice, was a hour round trip by car. While nature is wonderful, that kind of life wasn't for me.

Then came college. Afterwords I stuck around the city of Chicago for almost a decade. There I work, there I met my wife. One of the things my wife insisted upon, and which I eventually agreed to, was living near her family. Her family, was in the suburbs. So far that some people would consider them exurbs.

We had one car, still have one car. In the city, I sold my car and used my bike as transportation almost exclusively. I was for the move from an environmental standpoint. By moving the weekend trips to my in-laws would be cut to a few miles, and my wife could work very close to home.

Chicago has a wonderful commuter train system. Since my type of work is almost always going to be downtown or by telecommute, I could use the train.

So, I've lived in Mokena for over a month, is it feasible? I think it is, if you choose the right suburb. Someone from Active Transit once told me that they considered all suburbs the same, till they started working with them. They soon found that there was a wide variety.

I think suburbs supported by good rail systems can be quite green. If they are built around strong downtowns. This, in my experience, tends to be the older suburbs. Ones establish before the idea of strip malls, large shopping centers. Before it was required to drive everywhere. This towns tend to have small streets emanating from a downtown where you can get 99% of the things you need.

It's not as easy as the city. In Chicago, I could get to every place I needed, comfortably, by bike. Down here, I will choose one grocery store over the others, based very much on where it is at. Luckily, my downtown has a nice grocer. There are benefits to the suburbs though. There is much more green space, and there is much less bike theft. I won't call it safer, cause I know the traffic fatalities even out any benefit from the lack of violent crime. It is a good feeling though knowing that with my city quality locks, it is very unlikely my bike will get stolen.

We will see what happens in the long run. I see other commuters and utility cyclists in my suburb. I think the area is ripe for a bicycle culture to spring up. Many people ride, but they don't know of others, or don't care. I know not which.

In the city advocacy is reaching diminishing returns. Out in the suburbs is the new frontier. As gas prices rise, as they are prone to do, the political will may materialize. When that occurs, we advocates must be there to promote the correct direction.

Frame Switch

Over a year ago I moved from my old apartment and in with my future wife. At the time, I very lazily left my beater bike locked under the back stairs. Recently I needed a beater bike for the winter, so I decided to take a chance and go by the old place to see if it was still there. To my surprise it was.

So I was sitting there staring at my beater bike and something came to mind. My main commuter bike was too small for me. It was a 17" mountain bike frame, while I needed an 18.5" to 19" frame. My beater bike was a 20". Slightly too big for everyday use I thought. I decided, what the hell. I'm going to switch frames. So I did. Below you can see the finished work.



I was mistaken about it being too large. There are few times I notice the top tube being too high.

I took the opportunity to put on my new crank that has been sitting in a bag forever. I originally got it off Nashbar for $10. The downside being that the crank length is 145. Which I don't mind at all, so good deal. I needed a new seatpost and stem, all of which were easily gotten at West Town Bikes.

The frame has much more rake than my previous one. When I ride it feels like I'm driving a truck. I do enjoy this, it lets me imagine I'm riding a Long Haul Trucker. :)

Touring Resources

For those that were interested in touring resources, I'll start by pointing you too a few sites. First is crazy guy on a bike, probably the biggest touring site featuring many videos and blogs. One can spend hours on this site. Most touring journals can be found on cgoab.

Next up is the touring forum on bikeforums.net. I like to keep up with the RSS feed. There can be a lot of repetition, usually over choosing equipment, but there can be some great conversations.

Next is BicycleTouringPro, this site can be a little to commercial, but it supports a tourist. He sounds like he knows what's up. His videos can be some of the best touring guides out there.

The final resource is the largest touring organization in North America, Adventure Cycling provides wonderful routes, maps, and tours.

Next I'd like to point you too some inspirational videos, the first is the Cross Canada project. This is over an hour long. It includes some of the best touring footage I've ever seen.

Then there is Bike2Oz. This is long, and full of information. My only issue is that the intro gets a little old.

If you want to follow a tour from basically the begining, check out The Path Less Pedaled.

Bicycling on the Interstate

DC adds bike and pedestrian lane to interstate bridge

here

I see this being a big part of the future of bike transportation in America. Jerry Rigging it onto our past transportation mistakes.

What kind of Jerry Rigging do you think will happen in the future?