Posted by Founder, Bicycling Monterey

Bike Buzz: End of 2016 News from Bicycling Monterey

Below are 30 items for varied interests—new and updated Bicycling Monterey posts, plus other news for people who bike. These 30 tips went out to Bicycling Monterey subscribers on Nov 20, 2016; and you’re welcome to subscribe.

In addition, subscribers received a few additional notices on Dec 31, 2016; scroll below the list of 30 items for that news.

But first, consider: Bicycling Monterey is recognized as an ally of the California Bicycle Coalition. As 2017 begins— and as has been the case ever since founding Bicycling Monterey in 2009—the Bicycling Monterey website and other projects remain an entirely volunteer effort for the founder. Be an ally for bicycling too, by making a contribution in any amount; click here for FAQs and how to contribute.

Newest addition to the Monterey County Bicycling Resources / Bike Community 33-section directory is Family Biking Monterey County, a program launched October 2016 by Families of Color Monterey County, which was listed as a community partner of The Parenting Connection of Monterey County. [Update, April 7, 2018: Their website, http://focmc.org, announced “FoCMC is ending.” Check with FoCMC for any details.]
(Who’s in the photo below? That Bicycling Monterey photo is from a few years back, a family I met who made use of the Class I path near Creekbridge shopping center in Salinas to help their children become bikewise. All photos in this post were shot by Bicycling Monterey unless otherwise noted below.)
Cop Alert: Cops alert for the needs of people who bike is updated with more examples of law enforcement officers especially supportive of bicycling.
Gift ideas for people who bike. In this annually recycled post—as with all the BikeMonterey.org website—there are no pay-per-clicks, etc. Info is simply provided as a public service. Along with other free and low-cost gift ideas, the post mentions this new idea for 2016: the free Monterey County 2016 bike maps can make great stocking stuffers; order yours early.
Check Bicycling Monterey’s Master Calendar for holiday rides, parties, and more. Velo Club Monterey and Monterey Off Road Cycling Association (MORCA) helpfully auto-feed their website calendars into Bicycling Monterey’s Master Calendar. A few other people occasionally submit items via the online form. And as my time allows, I scout other dates of interest to add to the calendar. To volunteer to help with the calendar (or other tasks), please contact me.
Monterey Park Cycling: For South Salinas kids, “Your community is your classroom,” and you get to class by bike! Children from this South Salinas elementary school just keep on rolling. Let them inspire you, and the children you know. (Photo provided by Ron Dillender.)
Transportation Agency for Monterey County staff contact has permission to add bike-related dates directly to Bicycling Monterey’s Master Calendar. However, as with all of us, they have many tasks and may not get a round tuit. How to stay informed about TAMC bike-related news? (A) Check TAMC’s own website calendar (which also has some, but not all, of TAMC’s bike-related dates). Included there as of 11/19/16 is their 12/1/16 Active Transportation Plan workshop in Gonzales; not included there is the 12/12/16 Castroville Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing’s ribbon-cutting. If you go to check out the overcrossing, consider also supporting bike-friendly spots while you’re in Castroville and other North County communities; click here for N Castroville, Moss Landing, Pajaro, Prunedale HER Helmet Thursdays spots and other Castroville area tips. (Second photo below provided by Erik Thurmann.) (B) Get on TAMC’s email list to better keep up with TAMC news, including such things as their request for public input on updating the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan; on the TAMC website, click here for related info. (C) TAMC’s web pages regarding the Bike & Pedestrian program and Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee are among pages of their website that will also be of interest.
Broken links, broken links, broken links! So many on the Bicycling Monterey website following TAMC, City of Monterey, City of Salinas, Sea Otter Classic, Department of Motor Vehicles, and others redesigning their websites. Why? As an information resource, Bicycling Monterey includes lots of outbound links to make it convenient for readers to find other sources of info. Some website designers are masterful at avoiding broken links, others not so much. If you find broken links, as noted in Be a Community Reviewer, please feel free to let me know. You’re also welcome to volunteer to help fix them. And by the way, the desire to avoid causing broken links for others is why earlier pages and posts on the Bicycling Monterey website still had as their root the original URL of marilynch.com/blog, rather than bikemonterey.org (or even bicyclingmonterey.com).
The City of Salinas revised website includes a new Alternative Transportation page.
Salinas Californian columnist MacGregor Eddy’s “We Could Car Less” often has news of interest to people who bike, as well as to pedestrians and public transit users. She’s among the resources in the Monterey County Bicycling Resources / Bike Community 32-section directory. When I’m tweeting at @bikemonterey, I sometimes tweet links to MacGregor’s columns. A recent example cites her 11/17/16 column, http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/local/2016/11/17/grant-awarded-cut-salinas-pedestrian-deaths/94051006/:
For 23 years, retiring (January 2017) Congressional Representative Sam Farr has worked for better bike infrastructure and so much more for the Central Coast. He had broad bipartisan support and will be greatly missed.
Among Bicycling Monterey’s memories is an October 20, 2010 lunch meeting with Congressman Sam Farr and bike advocates (including Greg McPheeters, vice president of Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition; Cory Caletti, senior transportation planner for Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission; Mark Davidson, president of Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz; Mallory Burda and Ian Dewar of Specialized Bicycles; and Mari Lynch, founder of Bicycling Monterey).
Congressman Farr commented: We get a lot of people using the coastal trail, although we don’t have any sort of counter on it to know just how many.Since then the Offset Project (TOP) has a vision: install “an Eco-totem Bike Counter somewhere in Monterey County to showcase our community’s healthy climate and bike-friendly lifestyle and encourage more residents to enjoy cycling.” A November 26, 2015 story by Ana Ceballos, “The Offset Project aims to undo daily damage to the Earth, states that “a bicycle barometer [Eco-totem Bike Counter] would track and quantify how carbon emissions are reduced by bicycling.”TOP set a goal of raising $20,000 for the bike counter in 2015 through the Monterey County Weekly’s Monterey County Gives (#MCGives) campaign. The fundraising goal wasn’t met, so TOP is continuing fundraising in 2016; see The Offset Project’s Monterey County Weekly Monterey County Gives campaign.This year my personal donation to TOP’s #MCGives campaign was in honor of retiring Congressman Sam Farr and all he has done for bike infrastructure. Can’t give a large amount of money? Consider that just as it would help if everyone who visits bikemonterey.org would contribute $5 or more, it would likewise help TOP’s#MCGives campaign if everyone who bikes Monterey County would give $5 or more.
Bicycling Monterey’s founder is not a car-free person, and encourages others too that bike-and-ride can be a great option. In 2016, “U.S. transportation emitted more carbon dioxide than the fossil-fuel-heavy power sector for first time since 1978,” reported Bloomberg writer Eric Roston on 10/31/16. See that and related information in Climate Change – Bicycling is part of the mix in climate hope.
As part of taking action on climate change, the Monterey Bay Aquarium urges biking and other alternative transportation for their staff and volunteers. They also include bicycling and other options to private vehicles for their visitors on their directions and parking page. For more Monterey Aquarium news, follow @montereyaq on Twitter.
Everyone makes mistakes, that’s why pencils have erasers, eh! And that’s why Twitter has a delete button, often appropriate to use. National Highway Traffic Safety Information isn’t the best of information resources for people who bike. As James Serrano, City of Salinas transportation wizard, dad, and a person who himself bikes has said: Most people agree that children up to approximately age 13 (some say 9-13) cannot really make the necessary decisions about vehicle speed and distance that allow them to bike safely in the street.Refer to our Children and Teens Growing Up Bikewise to get started on biking with babies, children, and teens in Monterey County, and elsewhere.
Did you know? Monterey County’s 4-day Celebration of Cycling, now in its 27th year, is expanding to Europe. Mark your calendars for Monterey County’s SOC April 20-23, 2017. Visit SeaOtterClassic.com or sign up for their mailing list to keep up with SOC news.
Team discounts are offered for the April 18-20, 2017 Bicycle Leadership Conference in Monterey.
People who bike to worship or other faith gatherings, whether on Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or other holidays, or just anytime, often appreciate that it isn’t necessary to be a bike fashionista—though that’s cool too!
Speaking of holidays, see Dec-Jan: Wintertime Gallery + Holiday Tips.
With rainy days (we hope!), and darkness coming earlier, it’s a good time to share with loved ones Bicycling Monterey posts such as these: Rain, Cold Temps, and More: Biking through the Seasons; Monterey-Salinas Transit: What to do when bike racks on buses are full, or when there’s no rack on an MST trolley. Plus many more MST tips.Riding skills, safety, and CA bike laws; (photo below provided by Naval Postgraduate School Cycling Club)
Local ordinances on sidewalk riding and more: Monterey County cities and unincorporated areas; Bicycling on Sidewalks: Misconceptions and Advisories, including crosswalks; and section 19 of the Tips for Bicycling Monterey County guide, Night Rides / Biking in the Dark.
One way to share Bicycling Monterey resources is by sharing posters, mini-fliers, logos, and more. A few, such as bike law summaries, are useful even for people not online; and Bicycling Monterey’s phone number is included on virtually all of them so people not online still have access to information and support.
Bilingual Spanish-English bike shop professionals in Monterey County, and other resources en español is a helpful post for local residents as well as visitors. The most recently published U.S. Census report on Monterey County states: “Language other than English spoken at home, percent of persons age 5 years+, 2010-2014: 52.8%.” Other than English, Spanish is the most commonly spoken language here. Bicycling Monterey’s Información en español sobre las bicicletas is referred to by people locally and worldwide.
A few resources in other languages (besides Spanish and English) are also included in the Resources / Los Recursos section of this site. Besides our many residents who speak Spanish and other languages, as does this native of China, visitors biking here come from France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and so many other countries. Even if they speak English too, many seek out information first in languages other than English.
Even though we’ve had some rain, and things are greening up, fire safety remains vital. Some park areas remain closed. The bike rack and trailhead photo below was taken at Garland Ranch Regional Park, Carmel Valley. Besides respecting signs on public lands regarding bicycle access and bike parking, trail restrictions, and such, please remember to be extremely cautious about any possible fire risks. Whether hiking or biking or camping or smoking or operating tools or equipment that might cause sparks, or whatever you do, please do all you can to prevent wildfire. Whoever built a small illegal campfire in Big Sur surely wouldn’t have guessed it would result in the huge, tragic Soberanes Fire. In the Soberanes Fire post, note some excellent resources, including avid cyclist and Monterey County Planning Commissioner Keith Vandevere, Big Sur Kate (Kate Woods Novoa), and more. Wondering about local road conditions? Besides, Transportation Agency for Monterey County—e.g., TAMC Cone Zone Reports, Cal Trans District 5 road information, and other resources, Big Sur Kate is valued for additional road conditions info (and much more).
View from Garrapata Ridge along the Big Sur Coast
Thanksgiving week is the 7th anniversary of the HER Helmet Thursdays Project (10-50% discounts on Thursdays for males and females who bike). In that post, access history, videos, audio, and more. LISTINGS, How to Get the Discounts, and FAQs about HER Helmet Thursdays includes a map and the most recent Quick Reference Guide. For your convenience, here’s the current guide—11 pages of all participating businesses and organizations in 19 Monterey County communities: HER Helmet Thursdays – Quick Reference Guide – as of 1 Sept 2016.
Nov 24, Thanksgiving: A Gratitude List for Bicycling Enthusiasts offers nine sections of ideas about individuals and organizations who help make biking better.
Bike valet parking fan, musician Laurel Thomsen performed with Dan Frechette 11/11/16 at Henry Miller Library in Big Sur and will perform at First Night Monterey on 12/31/16. Miller fans: for more Big Sur tips, see the 2011-2015 post, Biking the Big Sur Coast – Plus Greening Live Music, and House Concerts in Monterey County.
Dec 7 from 5-7 p.m. is the last 2016 Twilight Ride at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. See Bicycling Monterey’s Twilight Ride tips for details and for 2017 dates for this monthly ride.
Dec 18: Lighted Bike Parade – Critical Christmas Monterey, an Annual Event. Organized by Jim Wrona, this local event is in its 18th year. As the post tells, it has been highlighted in Bicycling as well as by local media. Check the post for tips and contact info.
March 13, May 8: Bike Maintenance for Kids – Classes with Erick Chavez of Winning Wheels. Register early so classes aren’t cancelled for lack of registration. A City of Monterey staff person stated that this time they’re only offering classes for ages 8-13 (none offered right now for ages 14+ and adults).
Bicycling Monterey’s Contact page has been updated.