May
2008

Bike Week 2008 is sprinting our way!



Touring cycling and entertainer Willie Weir will return to Santa Barbara for our annual Bike Week Celebration evening.

• In these times of rising gas and energy costs, declining fitness, and global climate change, the humble bicycle provides the solution to all our challenges while providing responsible mobility.
• Bike Week 2008 will parade the benefits of bicycling before our community. Here is a brief listing of major events. Go online for details about them all at www.sbbike.org/BW/bw.html. The following events are sponsored by our Bicycle Coalition unless otherwise noted:
• May 15 and 17, Street Skills for Cyclists class.
• May 16-23, Bike Week Flags.
• May 16-18, Santa Ynez Valley National, sponsored by RideSB.
• May 17, Children's Festival, sponsored by COAST and our Bicycle Coalition.
• May 17, Bike Art Project.
• May 17, Fifth Annual Bike Week Celebration.
• May 18, Willie Weir Bikes around India.
• May 20, Bike to School Day, sponsored by COAST.
• May 21, Bike to Work Day, sponsored by UCSB and the City of Santa Barbara.
• May 21, Ride of Silence, unsponsored.
• May 21, Use Your Bike for Transportation.
• May 22, Bikestation Anniversary Celebration, sponsored by the Bikestation Santa Barbara and our Bicycle Coalition.
• May 22 and May 24, Bici Centro Repair Workshops, sponsored by Bici Centro.
• May 24, Bike to the Merc, sponsored by Bici Centro
• May 24, Bike Film Night, sponsored by our Bicycle Coalition and HopeDance.
• May 25, Bike Clinic, sponsored by Open Air Bicycles.

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Barry Siegel Bikepath dedicated in Montecito



Supervisor Salud Carbajal and Martha Siegel hold up one of the six upcoming Barry Siegel signs. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• On April 16, the "Barry Siegel Bike Path" was dedicated on North Jameson Lane in Montecito. Barry Siegel, a community transportation activist after he moved here from Los Angeles with his wife Martha Siegel in 1993, passed away last September.
• Siegel had been involved with Santa Barbara’s Transportation and Circulation Committee, the Montecito Association Board of Directors, and the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation. With his engineer’s rigor, he would devour complex and intimidating government transportation documents and ask astute, pointed questions at meetings. After SBCAG meetings in particular, he emailed meeting reports that were widely read not only by those missing the meetings, but also by those who attended them.
• Although Siegel didn’t bicycle, he loved walking along North Jameson to Summerland. Because of his efforts, we now enjoy pedaling—or walking—on the bikelanes there.

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Coalition evening to honor Grant House and Ed France

• At this year’s Bike Week Celebration evening, our Bicycle Coalition will award certificates to honor Santa Barbara City Councilman Grant House and Ed France, the director of the Bici Centro community bike program.
• For the past four years, we have honored individuals who have contributed to making our community a better place to bicycle, and are pleased to include Grant and Ed for their years of active support for bicycling.
• The Celebration evening again will return on Saturday, May 17th to the Chase Palm Park Center on East Beach in Santa Barbara. The evening will start at 6:00 PM, and will include voting for winners of our Bike Art contest, chatting over drinks on the patio overlooking the bikepath and ocean, enjoying a dinner catered by Country Catering, applauding the deeds of Grant and Ed, and hearing tales by Willie Weir, who has just returned from three months of bike touring in Colombia and Venezuela. All for $35.
• Invitations to the Celebration evening have been sent to Bicycle Coalition members. And others can reserve by going to www.sbbike.org/BW/2008/dine.html.

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Tibetan Bike Relay passes through county

• A Tibetan Freedom torch was carried through our area on April 14-15th by Tibetan cyclists as part of a 50-city protest against oppressive Chinese rule. The cyclists included Jigme Norbu, a nephew of the Dalai Lama.
• Bicycle Coalition president Ralph Fertig was impressed that they selected the bicycle as their vehicle for non-violent, self-propelled travel. Not an SUV, not a Hummer, not an armored vehicle, but a bicycle. So he biked to the Santa Barbara home where they were staying, expecting to take photos and see them on their way. However, they asked him to guide the group to UCSB for their noon rally, which he did.
• "They were good cyclists, following all the rules of the road, wearing helmets, riding single file," noted Fertig. The press reports of the UCSB rally, however, missed the bicycling aspect, and concentrated on counter-protesting students.

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Coalition elections coming this July

• Our Bicycle Coalition election for officers and board members is held every two years, and it’s coming up this July. Nominations for the four officers and five board members will be accepted at our May 6th meeting, and by mail/email by May 20th. Ballots will be published in June Quick Release.
• Please consider nominating yourself or others for these important positions. Our future depends on what you all do.

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CycleSmart bicyclist education news

• Every other month, we offer our Street Skills for Cyclists classes. If you missed earlier opportunities to hone your bicycling knowledge and skills for biking confidently in traffic, you catch our next class: Street Skills for Cyclists Class
• Thursday, May 15, 5:30-8:30 PM
• Saturday, May 17, 8:30 AM-3:30 PM
• Granada Garage, Santa Barbara
• The class is open to anybody 16 years of age or older. You can bring your child who is 14 or 15, with your supervision. The class costs $30, however some scholarships are available. Just ask us. We are grateful to the City of Santa Barbara for their sponsorship of these classes.
• Learn details about the class structure and what it has to offer you and others on our website www.sbbike.org/CycleSmart/apply.html. If you have questions, phone Dru van Hengel at 564-5544 or email her at CycleSmart@sbbike.org. And be sure to tell others about it.

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Wet Willy Sez
by Wilson Hubbell

• Dear Wet Willy: I’ve been thinking about putting a rear view mirror on my bike but I recently tried riding a friend’s bike with a handlebar-end mirror and found it to be basically useless. Are these things way over-hyped or is it just me? — Stephen
• Dear Stephen: Although they may not be useless, Wet Willy isn't a fan of handlebar mounted mirrors because they have a fixed mount on the bars that doesn’t allow "gazing" across a broad area the way helmet and eyeglass mounted mirrors do. In other words, helmet/eyeglass mirrors allow you to move your head and see behind in all sorts of directions but handlebar movement is much more limited.
• Wet Willy recommends that you try a helmet mounted or eyeglass mounted rearview mirror. I wear one all the time and (heresy alert!) would rather ride without a helmet than be without a mirror.
• A mirror allows you to quickly and frequently monitor what is going on behind you—much more quickly and frequently than turning your head to look to the rear can. This is especially important in high traffic situations where knowing what is approaching you from behind will influence the decisions you make regarding turning movements and your position on the roadway.
• Wet Willy uses a CycleAware ViewPoint mirror www.cycleaware.com that mounts on the inside of the left eyeglass lens. It’s effective, unobtrusive, nearly undetectable and cheap. Other inexpensive eyeglass or helmet mounted mirrors are available from companies like Blackburn, Third Eye and Take-A-Look. Try one and let me know what you think.

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Coalition participates in our 17th Earth Day



Our volunteer bike mechanics Geoff Grow, Robert Rainwater and Wilson Hubbell perform check-ups on Earth Day bicycles. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• Since 1992, our Bicycle Coalition has participated in the South Coast Earth Day, and this year’s event at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse was the best ever.
• People picked up over 900 pieces of literature—a record number—from our information booth on the Courthouse lawn and from our table outside the Bikestation across Anacapa street. With gas prices rising, a concern over inactivity, and an awareness of the global effects of CO2 emissions, people are hopefully realizing that the basic bicycle can solve them all.
• This year, our free and popular bike check-ups were inside the Bikestation. Although the location was new, 65 bicyclists still found us, enough to keep our dedicated mechanics Wilson Hubbell, Robert Rainwater and Geoff Grow busy all day helping others bike better.
• New this year was a "TravelPass" program where any visitor could obtain a printed pass, visit seven alternative transportation booths where it was stamped, then enter into a raffle for prizes. We partnered with Traffic Solutions, COAST, Santa Barbara Car Free, the Bikestation, Community Environmental Council, and MTD for our mutual benefit. This brought hundreds of extra people to all our booths. The raffle prizes from us were:
• $40 Hazard’s Cyclesport gift certificate from Bruce Davis
• Two-hour Pedal and Paddle certificate for a walking, bike or kayak tour from Judy Keim
• A Kelty daypack from Ralph Fertig.
• The TravelPass program gave a great boost to the Santa Barbara Bikestation. Most who went there were surprised that it existed at all, let alone by the neat bike accommodations.
  
  
  
  With his child secured in an up-front seat, a bicyclist leaves the Bikestation. Photo by Ralph Fertig.
  
  
  
  Sarah Grant sports a bicycle balloon hat at the Bikestation table. Photo by Ralph Fertig.
  
  
• Valet bike parking was offered by Bici Centro who parked over 300 bicycles. In prior years, we only had room for 50 bikes in our self-serve bike parking area, and it frequently overflowed, so this was a welcome improvement.
• The Community Environmental Council gave out two special awards to us and Bici Centro for our work in improving community transportation. On behalf of our organizations, Ralph Fertig and Ed France accepted the awards on the stage.
• Finally, our sincere thanks to our other volunteers who helped make Earth Day a success for bicyclists: Pierre Delong, Judy Keim, Bob Burgess, Ralph Fertig, Ed France, Thomas Matthias, Drew Hunter, Don Lubach, and Rodrigo Soria.

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Earth Day survey

• At our information booth at the South Coast Earth Day event, we asked visitors to vote for the best ways to fund bicycling improvements. We gave them "Bike Bucks" that they could "vote" with by putting them into any combination of six labeled boxes as listed in the graph.
• The voting results show that people want more bike lanes on city streets more than anything. Law enforcement is a low priority, and three other categories are half as important as the bike lanes are.

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New Santa Maria BMX

• A handful of Santa Maria volunteers are working hard to open the new Santa Maria BMX track by late spring. Since the Valley BMX track in Buellton closed several years ago, it’s been a hardship to travel to the Santa Barbara BMX track to train and race.
• The Santa Maria track is taking shape at the Elks/Unocal Event Center along Highway 101 south of town. Mike Porter has been the driving force behind the project, with help from Supervisor Joe Centeno and Ted Scott with the Elks. The one-acre project will have lights, announcer stand and moto board. The existing center’s snack bar, restrooms and parking are nearby. BMX is just about ready for action!

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Donated bike racks dedicated at UCSB
by Don Lubach



Associate Vice Chancellor Marc Fisher addresses the dedication group on April 10. Photo by Don Lubach.

• UCSB freshman Melissa Wiggins was out of class and soon to be on her way to meet her visiting grandparents. However, after digging her new bicycle out of a pile beside her campus residence hall, she found a damaged bike. Her grandparents, Larry and Sandra Wiggins saw the shortage of bike racks and knew that something had to be done.
• Although Larry passed away soon afterwards, Sandra Wiggins decided to improve bike parking at UCSB as a tribute to her late husband. So she funded the installation of special bicycle parking racks manufactured in San Luis Obispo by Peak Racks.
• A dedication ceremony took place on April 10th. Joined by her mother, Helen Eslinger, and her two granddaughters Melissa and Vanessa, Mrs. Wiggins was pleased with the installation of new racks at the bus loop near the campus center.
• Associate Vice Chancellor Marc Fisher, along with many members of the campus community joined to thank the family. Brass plaques on the racks now say, "Bicycle Parking provided by: Sandra & Larry Wiggins to sustain UC Santa Barbara Cyclists."

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A better love affair

• "We always go on and on about how Americans have a love affair with their cars, but I’ve always felt they also have a love affair with the quickest, easiest, cheapest, most convenient way to get around. And if we make that something other than the car, Americans will love that just as much."
• — Andy Clarke, executive director, League of American Bicyclists

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Lois Capps joins bike rodeo at Monte Vista



Ed France, right, instructs Monte Vista students on bicycling safety.

• Our Congressional Representative Lois Capps accepted an invitation to participate in a bike rodeo at Monte Vista School in Santa Barbara on April 18th. According to Bob Zimels who extended the invitation to Capps, she gave a terrific talk about the health advantages of cycling to school, as well as its benefits to the environment, while at the same time cautioning them to ride safely.
• There was good participation of over 30 fourth-graders who rode their bikes to school that day. Capps helped others on the rodeo circuit by managing the car door prop to demonstrates how to avoid getting doored while biking.
• We are indeed fortunate to have a compassionate and articulate bicycling advocate as our local Representative. Our thanks to her, to Zimels who initiated the invitation, and to others who helped out.

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April Coalition meeting topics

• Our April 1st monthly Bicycle Coalition was an evening meeting at Rusty’s Pizza, attracting 15 people to discuss these topics:
• Ralph Fertig described the University’s Long Range Development Plan that includes major changes in campus bike travel.
• Drew Hunter described the City’s Parks and Recreation recognition of volunteer work by the Amgen Tour of California’s Santa Barbara Local Organizing Committee, especially the coordinator Barney Berglund.
• We discussed upcoming Earth Day possibilities, like new locations for bike parking and check-ups, and ways to attract more people to our booth.
• We met Courtney Dietz, the new Walk Santa Barbara director who appreciates our common interests.
• The Bici Centro community bike program welcomes everybody to a grand opening of their new workshop space on April 5th.
• Ralph Fertig outlined our activities for Bike Week on May 17-25th. There is a possibility of bringing a "Bike Arch" from Ventura. Judy Keim described her Bike Art contest. There may be a Bike Film Night at the Mercury Lounge.
• We were updated on the Measure A transportation tax process. Passage is currently looking promising.

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Bici Centro's open shop



All day long, visitors came by for Bici Centro’s new shop opening on April 5th. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• Bici Centro introduced its new shop space to the public with a grand opening on April 5th. Coming by among others were Santa Barbara City Councilmembers Das Williams and Helene Schneider. The 1200-square foot space now allows Bici to hold regular shop hours and classes for students.
• Come by to volunteer or work on bikes at 601 East Montecito Street, Santa Barbara during either of the open shop times:
• Thursdays 4:00-8:00 PM
• Saturdays 1:00-7:00 PM.
• More information at www.bicicentro.org.

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We thank our active members

• Please thank and support the following Bicycle Coalition business members:
• Bicycle Bob’s, Santa Barbara
• Nett & Champion Insurance Services, Santa Barbara
• Open Air Bicycles, Santa Barbara
• Pedal Power Bicycles, Santa Maria
• Santa Barbara Electric Bicycle Company, Santa Barbara
• Chris King Precision Components, Portland OR
• Run Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara.
• We thank those who joined us: Brian Herdrich, Michelle Gooden, Stephanie Mortensen, Chris Sobell, Kevin Contreras, Paul Bergevin, Ann Dundon, Tim Pettit, Cynthia Holm, Trevor Plum and Brandy Vickers.
• And we greatly appreciate those who renewed their memberships: Don Bullick, Michael Chiacos, Michael Brown, Burt Romotsky, David, Karen & Zachary Wheeler, Mike Abbott, David Lawson, Diane Wondolowski, Thomas Matthias, Keith Coffman-Grey and Eric Schwartz.

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Island View Classic had something for all



The third annual Cruiser Race encouraged wild costumes for the three-lap race. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• The UCSB Cycling team put on a local race on April 12 that attracted not only collegiate and professional cyclists, but also locals residents who participated in a Cruiser Race. The race on a closed circuit in Isla Vista involved a lot of organizing for the UCSB Cycling team. Crowds watched the races all day long, cheering on the participants on a sunny day near the ocean.

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