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.

Blood Moon rising

It's unlikely that I'll be up at 2:17 am to see the beginning of the lunar eclipse tonight, but the girls and I got to see a terrific golden moonrise. Not a bad consolation prize.

A long line of pelicans

While on a ride enjoying cooler evening air, we were treated by an encounter with a string of pelicans slowly passing overhead in a flying v formation. Pelicans are rare enough to see in Colorado, and I've certainly never seen this many at once before. It was quite a memorable sight.

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.

Denver B-cycle now open all year

Denver B-cycle number 365; an appropriate integer to signify year-round operation.

That's right. Denver B-cycle will now be open 365 days a year. This is the fourth year of operation for Denver's bike sharing system, but the first in which it will not close during the winter months. As of today, Denver B-cycle begins winter operating hours of 6:30 am to 9:30 pm. I'm looking forward to riding the bikes all winter long.

A couple of photos from my B-cycle ride earlier today:

Bike rack in front of Randy's Recycled Cycles on Champa Street.

Mural detail from the side of Randy's.

Lazy summer riding: 215 days and counting

Smile from the trail.

A few odds and ends from the past week or so. It is now at the point in the summer when the time seems to be speeding toward Labor Day; it's the same sort of phenomenon that made it difficult for me to enjoy Sunday afternoons as a kid. Looming responsibilities and school somehow seem to cut into enjoying the moment.

In any case, I have maintained my consecutive days of riding, which total 215 as of today. What may have been a bit of a challenge to continue early on has considerable momentum now, and even a family road trip coming up soon doesn't hold much threat to breaking my streak. Daily rides for transportation and daily rides to keep either kids or dog happy contribute to the mass of the spinning flywheel.

A few nights ago, we came upon a fire burning near the dirt trails in our neighborhood park. Julie saw a few teenage boys running from the direction of the flames, but I was too concentrated on the flames themselves and whether anyone had yet called the fire department to notice them. Within minutes, the flames were more than ten feet tall and the area was crackling.

Julie rode to the site of the fire to see if anyone needed help.

Several people at the park called fire and police, and trucks arrived within a few minutes.

We haven't yet found out exactly what happened, but it's likely a group of teenage boys were up to no good. For our girls, it was exciting to be on the arriving end of a fire truck excursion. The firemen had the flames out within a couple of minutes, but smoke and falling ash stayed in the area for some time. Fortunately, there were no injuries and the damage was minimal. A couple of days later, we surveyed the site.

Poor quality phone cam doesn't show a lot, but much of the underbrush here was turned to ash.

The trees in the fire area appear mostly unchanged.

A day after the fire, we attended a local outdoor concert. The highlight of the music was Sousa's Washington Post March, which seemed just about perfect for an evening ride.

The Dummy makes a good seat or picnic table, or provides a little shade during outdoor events.

The low evening sun and a backdrop of threatening clouds makes for some great imagery that I am just barely capable of capturing.

Earlier in the week, our out-of-town guests departed, but not before I took the girls out for one last ride. They took the opportunity to practice some skidding, and were impressed with my stories as a kid of skidding my way through tires all the way down to the cords. Perhaps their parents will have to foot the bill for some new tires for their bikes back home.

Yesterday, I was among a small group who took a B-cycle ride with Mayor Hancock of Denver. The purpose was to observe some infrastructural improvements in a couple of neighborhoods, as well as to see where there are shortcomings in the network. From an advocacy standpoint, it is encouraging to see bicycling issues taking a higher profile than they have in the past, though I have enough experience to know that improvements are hard won and take a lot of time and effort.

Mayor Hancock on the left, as Phil of Denver B-cycle leads the way.

After the ride and on the way to the office, I spotted a derelict and partially stripped Fisher Advance, predating the Trek buyout, circa 1990. It's always sad to see a nice old steel bike go out like this. 

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.