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Bike Buzz: Autumn 2024 News from Bicycling Monterey

Be a bike hero! See our end-of-year home page message.

Autumn Buzz is continually updated with more photos, news, and event dates through the end of the season (December 20). It includes some items of interest throughout California and the nation, with a primary focus on Monterey County—and visitors and residents biking in the county this autumn!

To quickly access all Bicycling Monterey posts since the previous issue of Bike Buzz, jump here. To receive email notifications of Bike Buzz and other alerts from Bicycling Monterey, here’s how to subscribe. You may also want to follow @bikemonterey on social media.

While biking Seaside, Sand City, and Monterey on November 10, we met this Merced family of five, who came to Monterey County for the Monterey Bay Half Marathon. As we told them, we appreciate our county’s visitors—especially the ones who bike!

They had sunshine all weekend. Then on Monday, November 11, it was raining. A good time to refresh the tips for biking in rainy weather.

Roberts Lake, Seaside

Other visitors we met on the bikeways November 10 were the two men below, Mitch and John of Aptos. We told them some of our own Aptos and other Santa Cruz County memories, including about this billboard we’d see on our regular bike-to-work route in our former hometown of Santa Cruz.

Monterey County residents: Have you considered attending a meeting, in person (vs Zoom or phone) of the Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC) Bicycle & Pedestrian Facilities Advisory Committee (BPAC) meeting? In addition to meetings held at the TAMC office in Salinas, some months the meetings are at an alternate location, such as Sand City (at left).

Nearby is a peaceful rest stop—the patio of the Sand City community garden. For more about rest stops, click here.

Below is one of Sand City’s many murals. Most murals on the Bicycling Monterey website are photos we took while biking in Salinas, e.g., https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/110690878975069766. For our Sand City mural photos, follow @bikemonterey on Mastodon on #MuralMonday (e.g., https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113426035137135954 and https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113352870304674037), or maybe we’ll get a round tuit and publish a separate post with Sand City mural photos before long!

On November 9 we had errands to do in Monterey and were glad to do them by bike! First we made a stop at Window on the Bay Park to check out a community gathering that Sara Rubin had announced November 8 in Monterey County Now. Many people, the majority women, had gathered to soak up the sunshine and community love and support. We saw familiar faces, including Supervisor Wendy Root Askew and Supervisor-Elect Kate Daniels, and we also met people we weren’t yet acquainted with. Among those were county residents Nicky and Deanna, pictured directly below.

Continuing on our ride, the fun helmet of the young rider below caught our attention. Mom was about to shepherd the two children safely through the busy intersection at Del Monte Avenue and Camino El Estero, heading in the direction of Dennis the Menace Park and Lake El Estero. We admire her traffic awareness, and the joy and enthusiasm for biking she’s cultivating in her kids!

Do you cross that intersection or similarly busy intersections and wonder about the safest way to cross with children? Refer to Step 4 in Bicycling on Sidewalks: Misconceptions and Advisories. Also: Crosswalks, and “What Pedestrians and Bicyclists Want Each Other to Know.”

Also, you may notice that sometimes adults don’t wear helmets (especially on car-free bike paths / multiuse trails, such as the one that happy trio had just exited), whereas most children are helmeted. Why is that? California law requires helmets for minors only and allows adults to decide for themselves about helmet use. See our 411 on bike helmets, “FAQs: Are bicycle helmets required in Cali?” Curious about helmets for adults being controversial? See our 2010 post on that topic; click here.

November 3 was a beautiful day to bicycle in Monterey County! We biked to Monterey, and among people we met were the Salinas residents immediately below: Robert, a 5 Pass finisher in Death Ride Alpine County; and two young children who were loving their mom and dad’s choice of outdoor fun—renting a surrey to enjoy the coastal trail!

On our November 3 ride, we also noted some challenging conditions in Monterey—a bike detection failure at a traffic signal on Aguajito Road, near the Hilton and the Monterey Peninsula College campus; and shattered glass (below) in a bike lane on Garden Road. We reported both to City of Monterey. The link below will take you to Monterey’s Streets and Utilities web page. Info there includes how to report problems via their online portal.

https://monterey.gov/city_hall/departments/streets___utilities.php.

We urge everyone to join us in reporting such conditions throughout Monterey County! Here’s how to report bikeway maintenance needs. As mention in that post, often “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” The broken glass was still on Garden Road when we biked there November 10, so we plan to send the City of Monterey a friendly reminder if it’s not cleared soon—and encourage you to do the same when needed.

On October 26, walking along Asilomar State Beach, we chatted with many lovely people—including these people who bike. Liz and Lizzy, of Marina (below, on left), were celebrating Liz’s 30th birthday by biking 30 miles. Jaime and Carol (below, right), of San Jose, share a dedication to service through Rotary International, as well as having a shared appreciation for the multiple benefits of bicycling!

Liz and Lizzy
Jaime and Carol

While biking on Friday eve, October 25, we met Abby, Keagan, and their son (below) in Monterey. Family outings by bike and biking for transportation are common for them. We understood from Keagan that getting that bike was one of the best things he’d done while in Monterey! Very soon this Marine will be off to his next assignment, and we’re so glad that he and his family will carry in their hearts many bicycling memories from this time in Monterey County.

For some bike memories others have made, click here and here. For more military service personnel biking in Monterey County, click here.

Being in the fresh, open air while getting about—as you are on a bicycle—is so much more enjoyable than being cooped up in car. That’s not only true for Janice and her dog (below), who we met while biking Monterey on October 23, it’s true for many other dog lovers who bike!

Autumn sunsets—like the one below, which we witnessed along Asilomar State Beach on October 20, 2024, after biking to Pebble Beach—are typically some of Monterey County’s most beautiful sunsets of the year.

These Swedes biked from Carmel to Marina on Sunday, October 13 and were heading back to Carmel when we met them while biking in Sand City. Their cheerfulness reflects the increased endorphins and overall joy of biking—not so much the infrastructure challenges they experienced in sections of Carmel, Pebble Beach, and elsewhere.

Bikepacking is second nature to Rob Smolund, who we met while biking Garden Road, Monterey on Sunday, October 13. Rob has biked from Oakland to San Diego eleven times since about 1982. He had just spent a couple nights in Big Sur.

We biked to Marina on the last Sunday of September and came upon this happy trio while biking a section of Monterey County’s 18-mile coastal trail. These children had freedom from motor vehicle traffic and easy access to the beach for sandplay breaks, along with bike-savvy guidance and support of their attentive father. No wonder Chris’s daughters radiated such joy!

On September 28, we paused pedaling to chat with Lissa and Cody, and their napping little one, along the city of Monterey section of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. Visiting from Nevada, they appreciated the city’s car-free recreation trail aka bike path, along with the refreshing coastal air and the day’s 75-degree autumn sunshine.

Calendar Notes for Autumn
(September 21 – December 20)

November 9 concert location; details below.

If you have a Monterey County bicycling or bike-related activity, event, or meeting scheduled that is open to the public, contact us to have it added to this “Bike Buzz: Autumn 2024” post (dates through the end of autumn, December 20) and/or shared on @bikemonterey’s social media.

Volunteer opportunity

There are many active Bicycling Monterey projects, such as this one that saves cited teens and their families money. Volunteers are needed, including to help with website tasks. If you may be able to help compile Calendar Notes additions for Oct-Dec 2024, please contact us.

California News

“It was Chevron that sued Monterey County and a voter initiative [Measure Z, Protect Monterey County],” Governor Newsom stated in a 9/25/24 signing ceremony. He was signing his approval of California’s Local Environmental Health and Safety Act, AB 3233, along with AB 1866 and AB 2716. To watch the ceremony, including an intro by Physicians for Social Responsibility, go to https://www.youtube.com/live/J2sAAls_Ljc?si=4NN3W2Yftrsj79E_.

NOTE ABOUT YOUTUBE: You may want to do as we do, i.e., make use of Duck Duck Go’s Duck Player. The Duck Player “lets you watch videos on YouTube without privacy-invading ads, and keeps what you watch from impacting your recommendations.‌” Details: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/duck-player/

California Bicycle Coalition End-of-Session Legislative Recap: https://www.calbike.org/end-of-session-legislative-recap-big-wins-for-safer-streets/

Celebrate a win! On September 27, California’s Governor signed the Complete Streets Bill of 2024: Senate Bill 960. As CalBike wrote to supporters, the SB960 “victory wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy. Senator Wiener introduced his first Complete Streets Bill in 2017 with CalBike’s sponsorship. We sponsored his second Complete Streets Bill in 2019 and SB 960 this year. We campaigned hard for each of these measures, getting closer to passage each time, never giving up on a policy we know is vital to California’s green transportation future.”

“New CalBike Report Details the Unfulfilled Promise of Complete Streets in Caltrans Projects” https://www.calbike.org/new-calbike-report-details-the-unfulfilled-promise-of-complete-streets-in-caltrans-projects/

California Bicycle Coalition turns 30 this autumn.

“To be a bicycle advocate is to know disappointment….The car-centered mindset that built much of our state is difficult to change, and progress is sometimes painfully slow. But if we keep coming back, eventually, we win.”—Kendra Ramsey, executive director, CalBike: https://www.calbike.org/celebrating-30-years-of-better-biking/. Support the work of CalBike and its local partners! Californians, find your local partner for the Central Coast, Central California, Northern California, San Francisco Bay Area, or Southern California: https://www.calbike.org/about_us/who_we_are/local_partners/

Support the Bicycling Monterey work

Share items from our Tool Kit, as the teen above did, and/or make a donation to support the work of Bicycling Monterey projects.
How to donate?
Go to https://bikemonterey.org/about/financial-donations.
You may specify how you’d like your donation used, i.e., for Website and Public Outreach, Education Projects, Advocacy Projects, or General Operating Expenses of the Bicycling Monterey work, now in its 16th year.
For contribution FAQs, click here.

If donating via PayPal, you also have the option of setting up an automatic monthly donation. On Bicycling Monterey’s financial contributors page, anyone making an automatic monthly donation of ten dollars ($10) or more is recognized as a Pedal Pusher.

If you have a Monterey County bicycling or bike-related activity, event, or meeting scheduled that is open to the public, contact us to have it added to this “Bike Buzz: Autumn 2024” post (dates through the end of autumn, December 20) and/or shared on @bikemonterey’s social media.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY: We’ve too many bike to-dos! Contact us if you can round up more Monterey County bike calendar notes for Aug-Dec 202For October, November, December 2024 posts, check back here later, or check Archives in sidebar.

National news

Nationwide, many immigrant workers, especially those depended on by the U.S. agriculture industry, speak indigenous languages. Among those are the top indigenous languages spoken in Monterey County—Triqui, Mixteco, Zapoteco, and Chatino, all native to Oaxaca, México. Bicycle and pedestrian videos have long been needed in various indigenous languages, and a new one was released this autumn. Thanks to a California Office of Traffic Safety grant, a County of Monterey video in Triqui on pedestrian safety was released September 17 via Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reel/DACH6_hgAYy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==, published on YouTube November 12 https://youtu.be/mfknG0ZlUGU?si=U-MGVhAW100W8sqF.

Photo above courtesy of Monterey County visitor Gregg Havens. A resident of a Southern state, Gregg and his wife drive an EV, ride e-bikes regularly (e.g., as above, taking them along on travels), and make use of solar energy at home—all to help create a brighter future for their children, grandchildren, and future generations.

Standing Up to Big Oil
Voting as Climate Action

Bike the Vote
I bike, I vote!

Nov 5, 2024 U.S. General Election—and voter registration deadlines

From @bikemonterey’s Mastodon stream

Since @bikemonterey left the Twittersphere in November 2022, we are still on social media, although less often. Mastodon is where @bikemonterey is currently most active: https://sfba.social/@BikeMonterey. Below is just a sampling of our recent Mastodon posts.
For some tips on using that decentralized social network, refer to our Contact page. When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency by Anna Leticia Zivarts. https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113162313346523655

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is aka America’s environmental intelligence agency. https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113247596111213990

Thank you, Monterey Police. https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113199735065454654

Gracias to Ricardo y Susana Eyre of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113133931043182351

New CalBike report: https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113228687869791720

Valencia Street, San Francisco followed Monterey’s lead on center bikeway design (Monterey’s, on North Fremont Street, was the first in the state), then regretted it. SF residents advocating for “Better Valencia” infrastructure design shared resources: https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113117195186927883

North Fremont, Monterey, 9/8/24

Whether on North Fremont Street (which lacks sufficient bicycle parking for shoppers and others) or wherever you bike, the kindness of business managers and others can help. https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113145554309346347

North Fremont Monterey – September 15, 2024

Sadly, when it comes to bicycle parking, Del Monte Center, Monterey has gone backward: https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113052967731078328

Del Monte Center, Monterey, Aug 30, 2024

Shout-out to Salinas Police
https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113054872357150631

Equity, inclusivity? As we chimed in at a recent Mastodon #BikeNite: Our eyes have now been opened wider. https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113054790396729752

The Tern NBD P8i, which we first saw at Sea Otter Classic 2024, has no throttle. It provides e-assist only when the rider is pedaling, and its maximum assisted speed is 20 mph. Per California’s classifications, it is a Class 1 e-bike. Tern (https://www.ternbicycles.com/en/bikes) is among e-bike brands available from Monterey Bay locally owned bike shop Current eBikes (https://currentebikes.com/local-ebikes/).

New posts since Summer Bike Buzz was published

Rest in Peace

Bill Ragsdale-Cronin of Del Rey Oaks
https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113054702279921526

Patrick (“Pat”) R. Perry of Salinas
https://sfba.social/@bikemonterey/113133964875682853

This post was published on 21 September 2024. One or more changes last made to this post on 18 November 2024.

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