Texas Bicycling News December 13th

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Lonestar Granite Enduro – RPR Texas

by clfry


A compilation of the stages at the 2014 Lonestar Granite Enduro…
I got off to a bad start going too hot into the first turn on my first stage (“Iron Swan”) and eating dirt and cacti pretty hard, while twisting my bars about 90 degrees… I lost a lot of time wrestling them reasonably straight without tools, which is why they are still about 5 degrees off in the first few clips. Of course in my excited state, I also forgot to turn the …

BCO & REI Present: Biking 101

Bayou City Outdoors


If you want to cruise, commute, mountain bike or road bike, we’ll show you where to go and how to get started. Who needs to drive when Houston has over 80 miles of trails in the parks and 345 miles of street trails?
Don’t own a bike yet? No problem, we have B-Cycle, in fact we have one of the largest fleets of bicycle sharing in the country.

Road Rage: Lubbock cyclists decry lack of safety

By BLAKE URSCH        lubbockonline.com


A mistake might have been less costly had Robert Hines been in a car.
Monday evening, Hines, 44, was riding his bicycle when he failed to yield to traffic in the 4100 block of Avenue Q. A Chevrolet Silverado struck him, launching him into the path of a second vehicle. He was later pronounced dead at University Medical Center.
Hines’ story — the first bicyclist death of 2014 — has renewed conversation on cycling safety in …

Expanded bike lane network part of Waco’s long-term transportation plan

By J.B. SMITH        www.wacotrib.com


DeShauna Hollie and Eric Martin are proud members of Waco’s 0.3 percent.
They are bicycle commuters, living in a city that until recently has given little thought to their needs. They’re also the kind of people local transportation planners are hoping to see more of.
Martin lives near downtown and uses the new mile-long bike lanes on Fourth and Fifth Street to get to his job teaching history and philosophy at Baylor University. He can get from his apartment at Cameron Heights to his office door in fewer than 10 minutes, less time than taking a car, he says. And the bike …

Aaron almost runs into a tree stump 12/13/14

by Aaron Stout

New Event Added to Texbiker.net Calendar

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Texas Bicycling News December 12th

Texbiker.net Posted on by

Bike Parking!!! (Part 2 of ???) – A Bike Parking Wonderland

bikeabledallas.com

Several weeks ago, I took a few days off and traveled to Chicago and Seattle. Just because. I took Amtrak from Chicago to Seattle and the 49-hour train ride provided plenty of fall scenery– highly recommended.
While on this autumn adventure, I also had a chance to take pictures of lots and lots of bicycle racks in both cities. I’m working to create a quick reference guidance document for the selection and placement of bike racks, and I needed pictures of a variety of bicycle racks. I didn’t want to deal with copyright infringement or other legal snafus from borrowing photos from the interwebs, so …

West Texas and the Big Bend

By Jim Powers        www.crazyguyonabike.com

A series of short overnighters from a base camp.
Alpine to Davis Mountain State Park
Thursday December 11, 2014, 28 miles (45 km) – Total so far: 28 miles (45 km)
The rabbit and beaver hats are $400.00. The all beaver hats are $700.00. My measurements are; 22 7/8 OLO according to John Davis, the proprietor of Limpia Creek Hats in Ft.Davis, TX. OLO means oval, long, oval and Mr. Davis’ practiced hands and eye sized me up in about a minutes’ time. I can have any crown height and any size and shape brim. I don’t want a “rancher” style brim, because I’m not a rancher, but the “campaign” style could work with a couple modifications. All the materials for these custom hats are sourced in the …

Dallas contractor to remove meters near bike lane

www.brownsvilleherald.com

DALLAS (AP) — Dallas officials say parking meters that were erroneously installed next to a downtown bike lane will quickly be removed.
The city’s bicycle and transportation planner told the Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1x6xbEP ) on Thursday that the meters will be removed before the weekend. Pictures of the meters and of a parked vehicle blocking …

Lockheed Martin hands out bicycles, donations

By Sarah Bahari        www.star-telegram.com


FORT WORTH
Cooper Little bent his head in examination, searching for the perfect bicycle.
As Cooper, 7, vacillated among the many blue, pink and green bicycles, he spotted the one — a red and black Huffy. Cooper, a student at the Child Study Center in Fort Worth, hopped on board and took a few wobbly strides.
“This is touching. It’s unbelievable,” said his mother, Susan Little. “It’s hard not to tear up.”
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics employees donated more than 300 bicycles and $100,000 to Fort Worth-area charities Thursday at its …

Peer-to-Peer Bike Share Market Heats Up in Austin

by Brandon Mulder        www.austinpost.org


Biking seems to be growing more popular in Austin for recreation and commuter transportation. The City-sponsored B-Cycle has taken off, the City is regularly laying paint for new bike lanes, and monthly bike events abound. With all this activity, Austin has become a destination for a new kind of cycling business.
Peer-to-peer bike sharing is most easily understood as “Airbnb for bikes.” Users can use an app to lease their own bikes for use by others. Visitors who come into town wanting to get around free or on the cheap can connect to people with bikes they’re not using. The advantage of these companies over, say, B-Cycle is that riders can …

Bikes, cars and Chelsea Norman’s death

By Dug Begley        www.chron.com

Will Houston drivers ever change the way they think about bikes?
As Friday’s story noted, the decision to sentence Margaret Mayer to prison for 15 years was a conclusion to a trial, but it hardly brought relief, either to Mayer’s family or to the family of Chelsea Norman, the cyclist who died after Mayer’s car hit her.
As Randy Norman, Chelsea’s father, said shortly after Mayer was led from court, neither side won anything.
“The one winner out of this is the city of Houston,” Norman said, after crediting local cyclists for making sure his daughter’s death didn’t go unnoticed. “If people can’t respect bicyclists for being humans, they’ll know there are penalties to not stopping.”
What got lost in the debate surrounding the trial is …

New Events Added to Texbiker.net Calendar

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Ho Ho Ho Riding to Huffman

Texbiker.net Posted on by

I wasn’t the only bike rider to think this afternoon was the time to go for a ride. The first two bikers I met were approaching FM1960 on Fairlake Drive as I turned from FM1960 onto Fairlake. Not too much further on Old Atascocita Road I met the next rider as he was going west while I was headed west. Later on the way back home on Kings River Drive the next ride passed me going the opposite direction.

The sky was mostly cloudy when I rolled out the driveway at 1:18. The temperature was 72 but had been 73 shortly before I left. I decided I wouldn’t need leg warmers or the jacket but wisely wore a short sleeve jersey over a long sleeve one. The wind had a chill to it whenever I was in the shade and the extra coverage was needed. At the beginning the wind was about 7 mph but by the time I got back home at 3:36 it had stepped up to 15 mph with 18 mph gusts from the SSE.

It was good to be back on the Stradalli RP-14 road bike riding my most used route to Atascocita – Walden – Huffman. With the wind I expected I wouldn’t ride as quickly as I did averaging as much as 15.7 mph before settling at 15.5 mph when I got home. This route totaled 31.97 miles today bringing within 18 miles of reaching my 6500 miles for the year. REaching my goal looks like a sure thing but I don’t want to count it before it happens.

As I rode I saw numerous homes decorated for Christmas. Several had piles of deflated things laying in the yard waiting for nighttime to return to full size. On Atascocita Shores Drive there was very large white sled in a front yard with two equally large white reindeer waiting to pull it on its rounds. There were a few homes with people putting up outside decorations as well.

Before I crossed Lake Houston going east I thought it would be chilly with the wind coming off the water but it wasn’t too bad with the sun warming me as I rode. Going west was not bad either. The wind was coming from a good angle that did not slow me down so that I could ride at 20+ mph.

I was hoping the Kingwood High School traffic would be gone by the time I needed to cross Kingwood Drive going north but the cars kept coming in a steady stream. One pickup in front of me got impatient and pulled out in front of a car squealing tires in the process. In the past I have tried crossing with the traffic lights at W. Lake Houston Parkway and Kingwood Drive but the timing is slow and can take 5 minutes or so to get across. The street by Fuddruckers is usually quicker but not today.

Looking forward to another ride soon but Saturday is busy with other commitments. Sunday and Monday may be rainy.

Garmin Connect and RidewithGPS metrics, charts and maps.

Today’s route on Google Earth
Today’s ride metrics
Home weather at ride end
Rides on today’s route YTD
Week to date ride summary
December to Date ride summary
Year to date rides summary

Texas Bicycling News Digest December 11th

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Woman sentenced to 15 years in prison in hit-and-run bike death

By Dug Begley        www.chron.com

Jurors sentenced a Houston woman to 15 years in prison Thursday for failing to stop after fatally injuring a bicyclist with her truck.
The decision on punishment for Margaret Mayer, 36, came after 38 minutes of deliberation. She could have been sentenced to probation or up to 20 years in prison. She was convicted Wednesday in the death of Chelsea Norman, 24, on Dec. 1, 2013.
In his closing argument, defense attorney Guy Womack returned to the theme that Norman’s failure to follow …

A West Texas Winter

by Devon Balet        www.pinkbike.com

As Old Man Winter begins to set a strong hold on my home state of Colorado, I have been needing to adjust to the cold weather again. Growing up in Colorado, snow and winter was always a major part of my life. The past few years however, I have been following the nice temps and weather to continue riding my bike year round. This past January three friends and I traveled to West Texas to see what the riding had to offer. After 12 days and far too much driving we got a great insight into the people, culture, food and mountain biking in West Texas.

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