Sooke Park N Ride

Mark Ziegler and I attended the official opening of the new Sooke Park and Ride. We will be getting 2 bike lockers with a total storage for 4 bikes, sometimes by the end of the month. The plan is to first have them painted by our local High School students.
There is also a small bike rack next to the shelter. The plans are for getting some covered bike racks as well in the near future.
I am very pleased with the enthusiasm and interest all the BC Transit staff are taking in encouraging the Cycle/Transit interface infrastructures.
I also hope to be meeting with the head of BC transit soon to discuss some other projects. He is also very keen on improving the ridership by encouraging people out of their cars. I believe he has a very good vision of how things will hopefully become; much more pedestrian and bike friendly in all our communities.

New Approved Bike Signs in the US

Here is something that we might want to start seeing on some of roads to help drivers share their precious road space!
This comes from The Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTDC) in the US

CAN BIKE II Course

Bike to Work Victoria is putting on a 2 weekend Can Bike 2 Course. This is a fairly involved course for those serious about cycling safely on our roads. The dates are Feb 13/14 & 20/21. Cost is $150.
I will be taking the course if I can get the time off. Also there will be single day adult bike courses available later in the spring in conjunction with Bike to Work Week.
If anyone is interested contact;
Marsha Petty-Johnson
Bike to Work Victoria
Bike Skills Course Coordinator
250-744-4073 Home office
250-360-6362 Cell
250-920-5775 Office (leave message)

5 Reasons to Ride a Bike

Here are some different reasons to ride a bike, other than the more obvious that everybody knows....

December Meeting

Our next Meeting/Bike Ride is scheduled for Saturday Dec 12th. Meet at the Stick in the Mud Cafe at 10:00. We will then go for a ride (weather permitting) and meet at Farmers Daughter for a snack/lunch around noon, and discuss some of our plans, projects and throw around ideas.

CRD Pedestrian & Cycling Survey

If you haven't done it yet, this might be a good time to submit the online survey for the CRD Pedestrian & Cycling Master Plan
The survey is on the right side of the page, along with some other interesting links

HST on Bikes; Petition

Check out MLA Lana Popham's Blog with a petition on the HST for bikes!

Recyclistas

Check out Recyclistas. I stopped in on my way to Victoria while riding on the Goose. I hope to take one of their bike maintenance courses, and I think they or the Bike Lab Society might want to get involved with our Symposium.

Bikemap.net

Here is another bike and hiking route mapping page that I think we should take a look at and evaluate. So far this one and Bikely seem to be the most appropriate for the things we are looking for. Ideally once we decide on the better site, we can promote it by putting routes on it and getting businesses and organizations linking to it on their websites. Post your ideas and feedback here, and if you know of any better sites.

Chip Sealing of our roads

The Comox Valley Cycling Coalition is dealing with a very important issue on the treatment of our rural roads. Check out their website for more info. This will very much affect the ride-ability of many of our roads for cyclists, but the effects on motor vehicle traffic is also significant. It increases wear and tear on tires, increases noise levels on the road, and it decreases fuel economy due to higher rolling resistance. (That will also make it harder to cycle longer distances) Why are they wanting to do it? It is about 20% cheaper than the existing method. So the government will save money and the citizens will have to spend more! We need to talk to our MP's and MLA's on this one!

Bikely; Web page for bike routes

Bikely is a web based route finding and creation service. I think we should all start putting good routes that we discover on there. The nice feature is that we can import the routes into Google Earth. I tried it out this morning and created a safe bike to school route that my daughter and her friends have been using. (our user name is JDFCC). You can sign up and start creating your own routes. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Sooke News Mirror Covers Cycle Safe for Youth

We got some coverage in the mirror this week. Here is the clipping