Bear on a Bike Tells of Tour das Hugel 2008

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Bear on a Bike (who comes up with these names for biking blogs?) gives his account riding the challenging course. Between flat tires and broken chain Bear makes it to the end.

“In November 2007 I participated in a moderately crazy bike ride that is held about the middle of November for five or six years now.

It’s called the Tour das Hugel and the point of the whole thing is to create as significant a ride as is done during a mountain stage of one of the grand tours of the cycling world. After all, while Austin may not have the mountains of the tours there ARE IN FACT hills to climb, and some pretty nasty ones at that!

For the 2008 edition the course was basically the same as the 2007, but resulting in a slightly longer course with a slightly higher count of ascending distance.”

link to the full story with pictures at Bear on a Bike

Cycle Dallas Weighs In on Austin’s Bike Lanes

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I guess it is open season on bike lanes. Cycle Dallas blog has a post with pictures and commentry.

“Austin Texas is a “Silver” rated Bicycle Friendly town by the League of American Bicyclists.

This is one of Austin’s 3′ wide bike lanes along a 40 mph thoroughfare (gutter pan does not count according to the AASHTO Guide, and shouldn’t, because the seam between the road pavement and the gutter-pan is dangeous to bicyclists). There were no advance warning signs that the bike lane ends, just cones. Of course, there were no cyclists, either, and who could blame them for avoiding this facility like the plague?”

link to the full post at Cycle Dallas

Austin Bike Blog: Bike Lanes Make Roads Safer for Cyclists

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The continuing question: should bicyclists ride with other vehicles or be separated? The Austin Bike Blog has an extensive post about this subject.

Elliott writes, “On Friday, I attended a standing room only City Forum Panel on Bicycle Research sponsored by the Community and Regional Planning Student Organization at the Texas Union on the UT campus. The forum included an interesting report from the Center for Transportation Research as well as an update on the progress toward adopting a new City of Austin Bicycle plan and a presentation on the past and future of the League of Bicycle Voters. The latest word on the Bicycle Plan is promising, but first let me give you the somewhat obvious results of the Center for Transportation Research report.”

link to the full post at Austin Bike Blog

Push for Better Trails in Beaumont

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from beaumontenterprise.com

by Gary Laney

There are plenty of “trails” for someone to ride a bicycle in Beaumont.

Unfortunately, said local cycling enthusiast Eric Bender, they call the trails “streets.”

“First of all, there are potholes everywhere and they just aren’t a good place to ride,” said Bender, owner of a bike shop on the Interstate 10/Eastex Freeway split. “Then, you have the traffic.”

Combined, those factors make Beaumont far from an ideal place to ride, although there are dedicated enough local cyclists to give it a try.

Groups of riders meet at various locations four times a week to ride together through some of roads less traveled in the Beaumont area and/or highways that have wide enough shoulders for bike riders to co-exist with traffic.

link to the full story at the Beaumont Enterprise