Groot rides a bike in Laramie, WY

The girls are big Guardians of the Galaxy fans, and especially enjoyed seeing Groot ride a bike in a mural.

We made a quick trip to Laramie, Wyoming over the weekend. I lived there as a kid, and as an undergrad, and during both periods I recall it as being a great place to ride a bike. I'm happy to report that it has only gotten to be more bike friendly over time, with improvements to bike infrastructure and a blossoming bike culture.

For those of you unfamiliar with Laramie, a reasonable facsimile of it as a town may be that of the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska from the 1990s TV show Northern Exposure; a largely sleepy community that is at times quirky, with an occasional edge of sophistication. A recent development has been several public art projects in the downtown area, including some terrific murals and some highly functional and fun, locally produced bike racks that feature native animals and scenes.

An indicator of further change in advancement of bicycle support in the community was in a campaign sign for a local candidate. The sign featured a bike in place of Steamboat the bucking horse from the iconic symbol of Wyoming. For a sitting state representative, in a state where registered automobiles have historically outnumbered people, this is a bold statement.

Ride 'em cowbike! Best of luck to you, Rep. Charles Pelkey.

Thematically appropriate bike racks in this railroad town, and a wall growing food.

The ramp to the bike/ped bridge over the rail yard is a Laramie landmark. 

From the bridge, a wave to the engineer returns a horn blast, as it did when I was a kid.

Galloping antelope rendered in green steel sure beats a standard bike rack.

As does a blue moose.

The Pedal House bike shop has been a fixture in the Laramie bike community for more than a quarter century.

Littleton Criterium

I don't do much with racing or competition on this blog, or in real life for that matter. However, I felt obliged to report that we watched at least part of the Littleton Criterium a couple of weekends back.

We had a good time, and especially enjoyed watching the women's intermediate race. Both girls were duly impressed with the speed of the riders, and enthusiastically rang our cow bell to cheer them each lap.

Dark clouds and nap time approached in the afternoon. We nearly won our race against the downpour, but were caught a few blocks from home. No breakaway for us. Drenched, but still a fine day out.

Mountain towns, bikes, and rain

The Mountain Fair in Carbondale had lots of bikes around, and perhaps the biggest concentration of Xtracycles per capita of any place I've been.

We managed to squeeze in a little travel before school starts again, by making a (rare for us) trip into the mountains. It takes so much coordination for all of us to go anywhere that we don't often lug ourselves someplace where we're not obliged to go. It was refreshing to get away, even for a little while, though the traffic both ways didn't do much to dissuade my frustration of crowded driving in the mountains. We ended up visiting Aspen, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs.

Mountain towns offer some great bike spotting opportunities for an aging bike nerd such as me. The bikes to be seen did not disappoint. Foremost in my notice are the many vintage mountain bikes, some of which exhibit evidence of years of heavy action, while others appear nearly unused.  I saw far more neat old bikes than I had the chance to photograph,  but here are a few that I captured.

This circa early 1950s cantilever framed Schwinn has a bent seatpost and a newer saddle, but otherwise looked to be in fine riding condition with an admirable patina.

A matched pair of retina-jarring early '90s Klein Rascals shod in old time-y Specialized Ground Control skinwall tires, now pressed into kid transport service.

Lousy photo aside, this 1988 Fisher Hoo-Koo-E-Koo was mostly original, sporting a pair of Fisher Fattrax tires. Fisher Fattrax were my favorite treads from the old days, but were discontinued nearly 25 years ago.

Aspen's bike sharing system, known as We-Cycle, appeared to be well utilized and contributed to the town's bike-friendly vibe.

Of course the girls found lots of things to experience. The townspeople were friendly and happy to accommodate, especially at the Aspen Volunteer Fire Department.

A balloon unicorn and balloon Elmo came along for the ride. 

Back at home, we've had a lot of rain since Monday. Although this is Colorado's monsoon season, it seems as though the rain has been more intense the past couple of years. I suppose that's good for keeping wildfires at bay, though I'm certainly not accustomed to overcast, wet days. I don't know how people in wet climes survive.

The view from my office window is of pouring rain.

I took advantage of a break in the weather to take a Denver B-cycle ride, and ended up riding the elusive white B-cycle.

An enterprising fellow poses with his super chopper near the South Platte river.

A little tough to see in this shot, but that's a guy on a penny farthing commuting home from Denver to Golden. He's been an icon in the area for decades. I've talked to him on several occasions, but can't remember his name at the moment. 

Cherry Creek had been flowing over this bridge along the bike path moments before, as a result of an intense thunderstorm.

To complete a trifecta of oversized bikes spotted, I waited for the train with a doused hipster and his double decker bike. 

New bike instructive stickers in a light rail vehicle.

A fairly recently installed bike box near the Webb Building in central downtown Denver seems to be well utilized. 

My intrepid aspiring photographer enjoyed shooting some art at the Denver Art Museum.

Regresamos de México

This kid personified the joy of biciclettas. Note his bikey t-shirt.

It seems that I'm always making some flimsy excuse for not providing timely updates to this blog, but this time, it's a solid excuse. To commemorate 20 years of matrimonial bliss, Mrs. Big Dummy Daddy and I took a trip to Mexico. In fact, this was our first non family-related destination, kidless trip since our 10th anniversary, so we were well overdue.

We found Baja California Sur to be a terrific place to get some sun, spectacular food and drinks, and recharge our batteries. However, the bike element of the trip was passive, limited to spectating the vibrant array of pedal powered life visible almost everywhere. That's right; seven days without a ride. You won't hear me complain though.

I'll post something more red-meat-ish regarding bikes before long, but in the mean time, here are a few random photos from our trip. Some are with bikes and some without.

Another pic of the kid above.

A nice bike lane with bump separators, and protected by traffic control personnel.

Lots of bike traffic in the bike lane, and no helmets to be seen. Residents and tourists alike made good use.

Pedal-powered vendors were omnipresent.

We had this beach nearly to ourselves.

The only other occupants were a mare and her filly.

A cliff with an arch tunnel on Isla Partida.

That's a sea lion underwater. We did some snorkeling and they swam around us.

183 days and counting: Bike to Work Day

A little ride with Scout following the Bike to Work Day ride home.

Those of you who live outside the Denver area know that national Bike to Work Day occurred last month. However, for some reason the City of Denver traditionally conducts its Bike to Work Day in June, ostensibly because the weather is better in June than in May. Whatever the reason, today was Bike to Work Day in Denver. As is usually the case on this special day, there were a lot more people on bikes on the streets and trails around here. Curiously, bike to work day is one of the few days that many of the bike-y people I know are somewhat less likely to ride to work, mostly because many are working at bike-related events and may be required to drive vans or other motorized vehicles to haul tables and supplies. I, on the other hand, did no such thing. I rode my bike and talked with lots of bike-y people as they worked.

Activity at Civic Center Park just after Mayor Hancock spoke.  

Many snacks, stickers and other free goodies were to be had.

Coincidentally, today marked 183 consecutive days of me riding a bike. That means that I've officially hit half a year in my current streak that began late last year with the TSBC challenge. Today, like every day during the past six months, I rode in part for transportation, in part for convenience, and in part for fun. Early in the morning I was out the door with my single-speed Bean Green Surly Cross-Check, that I recently equipped with a new-to-me 16-tooth Surly cog to replace a 20-tooth antecedent. The new 16 seems to be well matched to work with the CC's 34-tooth Surly chainring. This gear combo returns a nice gain ratio to facilitate regular around-the-town riding.

Later, I went out with two of my girls; the babbling one and the fuzzy one. Along the trail we made a couple of discoveries. First, we found that people who use chainsaws can exhibit a sense of humor:

Happy stump.

Second, we made a trailside find of the canned liquid beverage variety:

These three survivors were rescued.

While making our way along a well-traveled trail, I spotted a tall Stella Artois can in the weeds along the side of the trail. I thought that the can looked like a good candidate for a new stove design featured on Vik's blog, which, as it turns out, was retired today. I picked it up, and to my surprise it was full and apparently untampered. A little farther along, I discovered another can, then another, and another. The cans looked as if they may have been either accidentally dropped or hastily ditched, as they had a few impact dents and scratches and one had been punctured. Considering the volume of traffic on the trail, it's unlikely they could have been there for too long. In any case, I'm chalking the three survivors up as a decent trailside find and will be enjoying them at some point in the future, once they have been properly chilled. Intact trailside found beer is free beer, and free beer is a cornerstone of our culture, after all. Not a bad conclusion to the day.

Tour de GREENbike in Salt Lake City

GREENbike is sponsored by Rio Tinto Mining and SelectHealth.

Public bike sharing has gotten a lot of attention as of late. Much of the recent activity is due to the launch of the New York City system, known as Citibike, which instantly became the largest system in the U.S. upon opening. While the size and impact of Citibike will likely change the landscape for bike sharing in this country, there are other, smaller systems that deserve credit for pioneering the concept, especially in places that are far more car-dependent and less dense than NYC. One of these is the GREENbike system in Salt Lake City, which opened a couple of months ago.

A GREENbike station kiosk.

While, at 10 stations, SLC's system is considerably smaller than the 300+ stations in NYC, it is an important step toward changing the way people perceive of transportation in a sprawling western locale. Utah is a great place to ride a bike, but as in many of the states in the region, residents seemingly mentally associate biking within a recreational sphere of activity, more so than for daily transportation. It is a goal of SLC Bike Share, the non-profit owner and operator of GREENbike to promote bicycle use for short utilitarian trips.

Not a traditional bike rental; prices are structured to encourage short-term use and turnover to other riders. It's simple to do a quick check-in and re-check out in the event that you're running out of time and want to keep the bike longer.

The green paint of the bikes is bright and vibrant.

I visited SLC for a conference and made it an objective to try GREENbike. During a lunch break, I completed what may be the first of what I'll call the Tour de GREENbike, similar to the Tour de B-cycle challenge ride that I completed in Denver during the initial year of Denver B-cycle. The Tour de B-cycle in Denver is a self-supported and self-initiated challenge ride to check out, ride and dock a bike at each station in the system, starting and ending at the same station. Check out. Ride. Dock. Repeat.

Map of the SLC GREENbike system.

After an initial setup through the kiosk interface at a station, my Denver B-cycle membership card worked flawlessly at GREENbike stations; reciprocity of use at any B-cycle-sourced system is a great advantage to annual membership. I rode the Tour de GREENbike in the same way that I rode the Tour de B-cycle in Denver, making my way to each of the stations successively, ending where I began. I don't know if or how SLC Bike Share tracks a Tour of their system, which they likely do not as I don't know if it has occurred to them to promote the challenge, but until otherwise I will stake claim to having done the circuit first. In the case that I was not the first to complete the Tour de GREENbike, I am willing to bet that I was the first to complete the circuit wearing a suit and tie.

Yes, that's me in a suit and tie. I had to present a paper at a conference about an hour after this photo.

I started out on GREENbike number 006, but migrated to several others throughout the ride.

I completed the ride on a sunny day of 77F degrees in about an hour, taking time to explore the city a bit, and to catalog some notable bike infrastructure I encountered along the way. It had been several years since I had last visited SLC, and I'd never ridden a bike there, so it was a great way to experience the city.

Painted bike routes were on several streets downtown. This is something that could very well be done in Denver to direct bicyclists along preferred routes.

This appeared to be a bike box designated to help bicyclists turn left, however I was confused a bit by the location of its placement on the street. It had been only recently applied and perhaps it was oriented incorrectly.

This GREENbike station was placed in former on-street car parking spaces and adjacent to a bike lane. This type of outlay could open up some possibilities in several Denver neighborhoods, but as yet has not been implemented in Denver.

This bike shop was actively promoting GREENbike. A rising tide floats all boats, as they say.

I found that much of the area in which SLC's GREENbike stations are located is well-supported through bicycle infrastructure, though there are a few streets that need improvement or where the traffic volume or speed is too high to be comfortable for the key demographic group of "interested but concerned" riders.

I could tell that much of the bike infrastructure was new or recently installed, so it is likely that SLC has made a lot of advancement to support GREENbike and a growing bike culture. Gleaming bike racks were in abundance, as were people riding. I saw evidence of a thriving bike culture not only in tattooed hipsters on fixies and kitted-out mamils, but more importantly, in family groups with kids riding down well-marked lanes, and casually dressed people on three-speeds with baskets of groceries. Fairly impressive.

I finished my circuit of the Tour de GREENbike and celebrated with a bahn mi sandwich from a food truck in a park buzzing with activity. I'm not familiar with the recent history of bicycling in SLC, but it would appear as though the addition of GREENbike and other improvements is aiming the trajectory of biking toward a brighter future.

Me at the finish line, much better prepared for my presentation after some time on a bike.

Having a bahn mi sandwich in a park following a ride is a great recipe for lunch.