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19 Days to go: NBG Mayors' Ride Excitement #5



 
 
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Old March 30th 05, 07:32 PM
Cycle America
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Default 19 Days to go: NBG Mayors' Ride Excitement #5

Well here we are at the Easter weekend and for me it still feels like
Christmas. Every time I open open my email box there is always new
wonder to be found. I am trying my best to keep up with all the neat
little surprises I find waiting for me And even those advisories that
begin with what could be bad news always end up becoming power strokes
that will take us to another whole new exciting level. Soon you will
see, for example how Concetta is turning her lemon in to lemonade. You
will also go back in time with us as we show how our riders will be
celebrating the rich biking tradition found on both coasts. As well you
will see how the state of Florida is flinging its doors wide open for us
for when we soon land in Miami come April 15!! Rock and Roll NBG, here
we come !!

Southeast Flank
A) Concetta to start in Miami with William Gum
B) Concetta to recruit in Florida
C) Concetta meets Power On Cycling, our Tampa sponsor
D) Miami Herald interviews me and Backsafer for feature about our ride
E) Tallahassee Mayorıs office home of ³Rolling in Greatness² author
F) Tallahassee Mayor John Marks to greet us at 10 AM

Northeast Flank
A) Larry Burns to ride his beloved fixed, Philly to Baltimore again
B) Larry Black to HiWheel Baltimore to DC again
C) Larry Black gets me in touch with Northeast
D) Belmont Wheel Works to put out for Northeast riders
E) Mass Bike Dorie to add to Boston fire
F) Boston Bicycle Club: First bike club in America 1878
G) How Robert Moese destroyed NY - How Jane Jacobs saved it

East to West
A) Ray Irvin, Mr Greenway also to write a book about Greenways
B) Oakland Bike Coordinator Wants to ride with us
C) Velo Sport comes on as Berkeley sponsor
D) About Lake Merritt from my novel "The NBG Manifesto, How America Can
Bike And Grow Rich"
E) Nick Hein rejoins DC to Pittsburgh, Arranging Group ride from
Morgantown NBG Day

Southwest Flank
A) LA Bike Coalition has our send off on their radar
B) Christopher Warnock to HiWheel SJ- PA- SF
C) Stanford: Top Bike Campus in the nation?
D) Stanford Community Day

Northwest Flank
A) Center for Appropriate Transport needs welder, w/trade for rider!

NBG General:
A) Vanage unlimited phone calls from my computer
B) Andrew Morton to create NBG bike spokes light show
C) Proclamation language
D) Bicycle Commuter Act
E) Repost: Use the OGO to stay in touch
F) Repost: NationalBicycleGreenway.com Blog Moderator wanted
D) Repost: 2005 riders order your FREE sunglasses from SlipNot Eyewear
H) Repost: Individual 2005 NBG Rider Business Cards now Available !!
I) Repost: 2005 riders order your FREE Copy of ³How to Bike America²
J) Repost: Find a Ride Partner - Place an ad at our classifieds


Southeast Flank
A) Heard from Concetta Curtis from what I thought was the scouting
expedition she was doing for the peace march. Not so! Seems Concetta and
her biking friends were making the event happy as they alerted people in
the towns along the way to the fact that the marchers were coming. No
longer the funeral procession some of the organizers thought their walk
to New York should be, the cyclists were all asked to leave.

Concetta was crushed by this unexpected turn of events. She had spent
the better part of the last year preparing for this effort. Not only had
she trained for it and sold a lot of personal posessions so she could
make it a reality, she had quit her job and put her whole life on hold
to make it happen. The ride she is doing for us was only going to be an
extension of her exploratory tour for the Stop the Bombs people.

Ever the optimist, she was up upbeat when she called to tell me that we
were now the #1 focus of her powerful energy. She wanted to know how
soon she could start riding for us. And with her infectious spirit, she
was able to get her friend Michael to come up from Texas to pick her and
her bike up so they could then do a vacation in Florida. Come April 15,
in Miami she will join William Gum as they both ride up to Tampa!

B) Articulate and excited, Concetta has already been busy as she trains
on her bike in Florida. So much so, that as she has been telling people
about our ride and the NBG, she ran out of NBG business cards and needed
me to send her the template so she could print more.

C) Concetta, who is touring Florida in, dare I admit, the car that
Michael Mongold rescued her with, popped in to see Tampa sponsor, Mark
Power, of Power On Cycling. She sent this assessment to me:

========================================
well everything that happens is meant to be. I met Mark Power
yesterday. He was a super cool guy with honey colored curls that mopped
out over his shoulders. His store was filled with recumbent bicycles,
not a one upright, not one! A shirt hung on the wall that he joked
about sending to me. There was an image of an upright riderıs backside,
bulky bike shorts and all. It read, 'that just ain't natural'..
Looking around at all those recumbent with their nice cozy seats drew my
attention to my own back and I questioned my reasoning as to why I
didn't take a recumbent when the Backsafer offer was extended. I guess
I have something to prove to myself that has a lot to do with making it
as hard as possible. One of my biggest personal reasons for doing this
ride is to cure myself of the continuous sensations I feel up and down
my spine. It is literally alive and trying to tell me something.
========================================

The Power On Web: http://www.poweroncycling.com/

D) Last week, when Desonta Holder, a marathon runner and reporter for
the Miami Herald showed up at Paul Lesterıs law office to interview him
about our ride, he decided to call me and make me part of a three way
phone call. For those of you new to this thread, Paul is one of the
partners for the Backsafer recumbent bicycle. They are our Miami sponsor
and it was Paulıs connections with the Miami Mayor that insures us that
not only will Mayor Manny Diaz be there to kick this yearıs ride off
but that the biggest paper in Florida will alert people to the fact that
this is so.

Desonta asked great questions and I know that the feature that will
result will indeed be a worthy one. A distance athlete herself, she runs
marathons, Desonta knows what Concetta and William and all of our riders
have ahead of themselves. Too exciting!

E) When I made initial phone contact with the city of Tallahassee, I
asked the woman who greeted me how she was doing. Expecting a brief
exchange of formalities, I was stopped in my tracks when I heard, ³Iım
rolling in greatness². I began to probe and soon discovered that I was
talking to one of the Tallahassee commissionerıs chief aides who also
happened to be the author of the book, ³Rolling in Greatness². I offered
to trade books to which she agreed. Iım still waiting for hers but
already she is taking mine with her on a tour she is doing. She wants to
hold it out as an example of overcoming adversity to do great things. I
canıt wait to get her book at which point I can tell you more about it!

F) We have Tallahassee Mayor John Marks confirmed for April 25. He will
greet us at 10 AM. Indeed, Floridians love their bicyclists. Of the
three cities we will be passing through in their state, two are already
confirmed to greet our cyclists. Hopefully Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio can
find time for us as well!! I will keep you posted!!

Northeast Flank
A) Larry Burns was excited to hear that we want him to ride from
Philadelphia to Baltimore for us again this year. A welder for Bilenky
Cycle Works, our Philadelphia sponsor, he tells me that last yearıs ride
was a lot of fun for him and that he wants to do the 120 mile ride on
the same bike he used last year. A bike with only one gear!

The Bilenky web: http://www.bilenky.com

B) Larry Black, of College Park and Mt Airy Bicycles tells us that he
wants to ride for us again this year. And like Larry Burns, he also
wants to do so again with one gear. Only the singe gear Larry Black will
be riding from Baltimore to Washington DC is the wheel itself. Blackıs
fixed gear is a Messicek HiWheel. If you want to see what his machine
looks like, go to the Kool Stop website. They are the only US importer:
http://koolstop.com/mesicek

The Mt Airy web: http://bike123.com

C) And talk about connected, when I told Larry Black that we still need
a rider to move our proclamation down from Boston to New York City, he
rattled off a slew of names for me to contact. Hopefully the calls I
made will soon bear fruit!!

D) One of the calls went out to Quint of Belmont Wheel Works. I put him
on our mailings and sent him our latest newsletter and he tells me he
will put out for riders.

E) Had a couple of purposeful phone exchanges with Dorie Clark, the
executive director of Mass Bike. She had just completed the Washington
DC Bike Summit and I talked to her on both coasts. The first call she
returned was from Logan Airport in Boston while the next time I heard
from her she
was here in San Francisco. We had hoped to meet when she got out here
but as fate would have it, her calendar for what was supposed to be a
vacation, got filled up.

Even though she wasnıt near any of her resources both times we talked,
like Larry Black she was still able to get me contacts and also like
Larry, she even knew some of the email addresses from memory. She also
told me that when she gets back to her office next Wednesday that she
will announce Boston NBG Day and our need for riders on their huge
mailing list!

And indeed Dorie is Big Power. Boston cyclists can expect her to carry
on the the rich cycling tradition that made Boston the home of Americaıs
first bike club. In fact, at one point in time there were more cyclists
on Boston roads than anywhere in the US. In carrying the two wheel torch
forward, Dorie, armed with a Masters in Theology from Harvard knows how
to get attention for a cause. She was the New Hampshire media
coordinator for the Howard Dean presidential campaign! Even tho Dean
didnıt win, it was the excitement that was created in the Northeast that
turned a virtual unknown into a serious contender and the force in
American politics that he is today!!

The Mass Bike Website: http://www.massbike.org

F) Boston Bicycle Club, the first bike club in America, was formed in
1878 by Albert Pope, the man who also brought us the League of American
Wheelman and a lions share of the HiWheel bicycles that filled Americaıs
roads and paths back in the 1880ıs.

G) Found a 7 part DVD series called, ³New York, a Documentary Film², the
last two DVDs of which I feel every bike activist and traffic planner
should watch. In it one sees how it was the example that one man, Robert
Moses, set that turned what was once a force for good into the very
agency of destruction it became for cities across America. One sees how
putting cars before people that even more traffic is created as in New
York, their roads and bridge and tunnels destroyed a working rail
system, countless historical landmarks, whole neighborhoods (Moses
displaced a quarter million New Yorkers) and played a part in almost
pushing New York itself to bankruptcy.**

It as least is heartening to see that it was a bespectacled housewife
named Jane Jacobs who finally was able to stop the Moses machine. Using
her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" as a guide, she
was able rally fellow New Yorkers to keep Moses from ramming yet another
expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village. It was her and her
groupıs actions that finally slowed Moses to a crawl. `

It was also good to see that planners and urbanists are beginning to
awaken to the damage that the Moses legacy left behind as we try to
rebuild the urban landscape. And it was Mosesıs love for the automobile,
tho he didnıt even drive but relied on chauffeurs, that also gave birth
to the historical building preservation movement that we know today.


The film on line: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0220924



East to West
A) Ray Irvin, Mr Greenway, of Indianapolis and the cutting edge Indy
Greenways organization, shot me an email to let me know that, following
my lead, he is also to writing a book about Greenways. His book will be
the result of the entire process he documented as he turned his city
into the recognized world leader in Greenway recreation and
transportation systems. And he tells me his book will be out well before
my 2007 Mayors' Ride/Author Tour. Write On Ray!!

Indy Grenways at http://www.indygreenways.org

B) Kathryn Hughes, Oaklandıs Alternative Transportation Director who is
also wearing the cityıs Bike Coordinator cap tells us that she wants to
ride Berkeley to Oakland with us. She wants to be able to join Oakland
and Berkeley council people, Nancy Nadel and Kriss Worthington
respectively as well as our HiWheelers and hopefully the Berkeley
Friendly Bike Coaltion people, as we make the short but fun ride. But
that is if she can get her boss, the Public Works director, to allow her
to spend time on our project.

C) In some of the research I am doing about Oakland bicycling for my
novel, I spoke with the legendary Peter Rich who still owns Velo Sport
in Berkeley. And while I had him on the phone, I was able sell him on
the idea of coming on as this yearıs sponsor for Berkeley. What an
honor! Back in the early 60ıs Velo Sport was the only shop in the entire
San Francisco East Bay selling high quality bicycles. One of the first
importers of European lightweights, his shop led the bike boom that
swept America in the early 70ıs.

The Velo Sport web: http://velosportbicycles.com

D) Here is an excerpt from the novel, "The NBG Manifesto, How America
Can Bike And Grow Rich", I am writing, It will be author touring with me
across the US in 2007:

========================================
³Yeah and how weıre gonna make it cool is weıre going to have a bike
museum there with these huge glass windows that will look into the dance
floor. It will have antique bikes on display. And also it will be a
place where you guys can show off your own creations. We can turn on the
lights during the breaks or weıll close the curtains and have an
attendant there who can show visitors the bikes you guys pick to best
represent your work. You can have bikes like modern day low riders and
double decker bikes there that you guys can show your friends. Theyıll
be alongside modern day touring bikes and fully faired racing bikes and
stuff like that!²

³Wow!² Jose said. ³Every cityıs gonna have this? Where you gonna get all
the bikes?²

³Well not every city but every region. Like for here in the San
Francisco Bay Area, we would have a Hub in each of our Mayors' Ride
cities. Or maybe since they are all so close weıd have just one San
Francisco Bay Hub to start out. And weıd locate all of them close to
mass transit so people can come in from for just the auditorium stuff
from far away.²

We could hear screaming as a car full of teenage girls passing in the
lane next to us slowed down next to me. ³We like your bike mister.²

Before I could reply they took off.

³Damn, I want one of those,² one of the kids riding near the front with
me and Jose exclaimed. ³Youıre getting all the looks with that bike.² By
now pretty much all of the younger riders were privy to the
visualization I was filling their minds with.

³Thatıs what I mean you guys, you donıt need a car to be cool. All of us
can return to the Gay 90ıs when it was cool to ride a bike. Back when
these bikes ruled the roads, bikes set the trends. They determined the
fashion of the day and people made dates just to go biking. And thereıs
no reason we canıt return to that happier more simple time. Part of our
NBG Hub strategy is to get everyone talking about bikes again.²

Up ahead we could see Lake Merritt. A sparkling jewel set in the middle
of Oakland it is, in what is a little known fact today, Americaıs first
National wildlife refuge protecting more than 90 species of migrating
waterfowl. In1869 when a tidal slough that drained into the Bay was
dammed up to create this 145-acre body of salt water, such a designation
was required to protect all the migratory birds from the hunters who saw
them as easy prey. Now home to innumerable herons, egrets, geese and
ducks, this true urban miracle is surrounded by parks, homes,
businesses, even a Childrenıs Fairyland.

Soon we were pedaling on the path. three and a half miles in length that
surrounded it.

³I remember when I was a kid in the 60ıs sitting over there and
watching drag boat races with my parents,² I said as I pointed to a
grassy area where the lake spread out below stately apartment buildings
that were fed my long staircases. ³The used to come once a year but by
197o or so, too many people were getting killed so they stopped em. I
canıt believe thatıs what it took. Man I canıt believe they ever allowed
that.² I shook my head in disgust as just then a giant white bird with
huge wings landed in the water right next to us.

³I agree, I wonder how those neighbors put up with the noise,² Don who
had joined us observed.

³Man weıve come a long way. As I think about it, there were drag boat
races everywhere back then. You know that estuary by Jack London square
where the Ferry let us off?² Not waiting for an answer, I continued,
³they used to have them in another little inlet about half a mile down
where it rejoined the Bay. Talk about unconscious, they also had this
major garbage dump there and they also were dredging the little mimi bay
for fill so they could build even more homes in Alameda. And then you
know that lake that we see when we cross over the freeway when we ride
from Berkeley to Oakland in the Mayors' Ride, that used to be a full on
water ski park, More noise and more oil and exhaust fumes and a lot of
it ending up in the water.²

³Well I donıt think people mean to be harmful, they just donıt know. And
as they learn they start making smarter choices. Thatıs kind of how I
see our ride this summer, weıre just reminding people there are
options,² said Don, as he slowly swept around the lake with his video
camera.

Looking out on calm, tranquil waters that were sparsely populated with
wind and human powered boats, it is this beautiful setting and resulting
peace that Oaklanders still use to escape the stress of city life. But
it wasnıt always this way. In fact, by 1890, in only the thirty years
after Mayor Samuel Merritt had ordered a dam be built at 12th street,
the lake that was soon ringed with large, gracious homes owned by many
of the city's wealthiest businessmen, had turned into a cesspool. By the
time the pollution from their mansions had caused them all to leave, the
talk of filing it and turning it in to a railroad station grew serious
when it was discovered that railroad baron and university founder,
Leland Stanford, owned the land that had been submerged. However, when
he talked his partner into their donating the land to the city so that
it could build a park on its shores, a new vitality was given to the
lake.

On weekends, the path we were riding on, marked by the occasional
business person out for a stroll, would normally be filled with walkers
and joggers. While if the sun was out, every kind of people powered
watercraft would be visible. While there were a few of them to be seen
today, if it had not been a work day, kayaks, canoes, windsurfers,
little sailboats, pedal boats and even Venetian gondolas would be
turning these waters into a shimmering playground that glistened under
the summer sun.

What a setting for a bike race I thought as I reflected back on the
Columbus Day races that used to encircle this epic setting. Put on by
the legendary Peter Rich who still owns Velo Sport in Berkeley, one of
the nations oldest and most revered bike shops, the bike contests ran
from 1956 to 1978. Barely noticed, they took place at a time when bike
racing in America did not have the benefit of television or corporate
sponsorship that it enjoys today.
========================================

F) Heard from Nick Hein here over the weekend. He will be joining Troy
Bogdan and Concetta Curtis and whoever else signs up to ride the
Washington DC to Pittsburgh relay leg. Power house that he is, Nick is
also arranging for Morgantown, WV officials to be a part of our ride and
Nick will be leaving the group at Ohiopyle to bike to Morgantown, West
Virginia. He will partake in an NBG Day ceremony there and then lead yet
another group ride to Pittsburgh.

In working with his councilman, he is asking that they celebrate:

- A year of operation for the Caperton trail
- 4 years of operation*for the Decker's Creek trail
- All of the tourism, quality of life and health benefits these
amenities have brought
- Extension*of the Caperton Trail to Connellsville, PA
- The beautiful bikeable roadways in Morgantown and surrounding areas

Nick Heinıs web:
http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/E.../Nick_Hein.php

Southwest Flank
A) Enjoyed a longish visit with the Los Angeles Bike Coalition director
on the phone a week and half ago. Kastle Lund, whose primary love is
rock climbing is a hard charging, know-how-to-get-things-done kind of
woman. Like all bike activist leaders, hers is also an overflowing plate
of exciting projects, that I know in her case will soon improve LA
cycling in a big way. And despite all the fires that she has burning
down there, she told me that we are on her radar and that by the time we
get down her way, July 18, she will have singled out one she wants us to
help her bring attention to when we meet with her Mayor!!

B) Palo Alto has a new HiWheel cyclist. The co-founder of ebrary.com,
Christopher Warnock recently purchased a HiWheel replica from Rideable
Replicas and will be biking with us in the San Jose to Palo Alto relay
as well as the Palo Alto to San Francisco and Berkeley to Oakland runs.
Soon he and I plan to ride together at which point I can tell you more
about this big cheery man. Soon, we will also have his bio on line so
you can look a little deeper into a great guy who just wants to make
people smile.

Rideable web: http://hiwheel.com

C) Palo Alto, one of Americaıs top bike cities, is also home to
arguably the top bike campus in the nation. Officials at Stanford
University estimate there are 15,000 bikes on its grounds. And
everywhere you ride, you can see that provision is made for your two
wheel efforts. Where stairs block your path there is always a ramp
nearby. Cutouts always fill the curbs at strategic places. And they let
you park your bike close to wherever it is that you need to be, so you
can keep an eye on your machine. If you can, try to imagine the biggest
campus in the US (at 8400 acres, it is the second biggest in the world)
filled with bikes and smooth, car-free bike pathways everywhere you
look! On sunny days, on some of the main arterials, the wall of bikes
coming toward you could almost make you feel like you are in China where
the only thing missing is the incessant ringing of bike bells.

Itıs obvious that the legacy of its founder, railroad baron, Leland
Stanford continues today. Mr Stanford, who named the school after his
son, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died while still a teen, pioneered
HiWheel cycling on the west coast when he bought his son a bike. Back
when only men of privilege could afford to bicycle, Leland Jr and his
friends rode all throughout this part of the San Francisco peninsula.
There are also stories about the rides that were made over the
challenging Coast Range to the nearby ocean by members of the Stanford
Cycling Club.

When Leland Stanford was shopping around for a location for his
college, it seems that he must have been looking from a bicyclistıs
perspective. What he found is a spot with possibly the best weather on
the planet. Not too hot or too cold, too rainy or too dry and with a
varied terrain of easy flat lands and rolling to steep hills and
mountains that separate it from the Pacific Ocean, this could be one of
the best places to ride a bike in the world.

There is even a bike shop located in an old building in the very dead
center of all of this. Unless youıre a student, thereıs a good chance
that you wouldnıt even know it existed but like everything else about
biking on the campus, called Campus Bikes, it too is open to the public.

Campus Bike web: http://www.campusbikeshop.com

D) If you want to see why Stanford comes very close to being Bicycle
Heaven, they are opening their doors to the public with their third
annual Stanford Community Day on April 10. The University grounds are
always open to people on foot or on bicycle, since it houses more than
90% of its students, but on Community Day, they open parking lots right
on campus for those in town who do not have the time to venture into
this learning center under their own power. Besides seeing this
beautiful college, April 10th visitors, from the family to the
individual, will all have a broad spectrum of fascinating exhibits,
tours, lectures and activities to choose from.

For those of us cyclists who train in the nearby hills, Stanford is a
crossroads, a safe haven where you can warm up for the climbing ahead or
warm down from it. And if you come to Community Day, you will also get
to see me and some of our other Mayors' Ride HiWheel riders, including
Mike Sutton, Marty Wilson, Ted MacDonald, Richard Katz and Greg and Adam
Barron in the fun HiWheel bike competitions!

Stanford Community Day:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/ne.../communityday/

Northwest Flank
A) The people at the Center for Appropriate Transport (CAT) might trade
us a rider for a welder. Check this out that I got from the amazing bike
builder Jan Vandertuin:

========================================
Martin,

Thank you. I wonder if I could get someone from here to do a leg.

On another subject. I am absolutely swamped and need to find an
experienced framebuilder to help me. Is there any way thru you that I
might get the word out?

Say hello to everyone for me.
========================================

To be able to sit at the feet of this true master and learn what he
knows about building bikes is a once in a lifetime opportunity. To be
able to say worked Jan Vandertuin will take you far in the bike world.
If interested, youıd also get to live in a the Bicycle Heaven of Eugene,
OR. Do send him an E!

Janıs email:
The CAT web:
http://www.efn.org/~cat


NBG General:
A) A lot of you are probably familiar with the new phone service
provider named Vonage. And are familiar with the fact that for one flat
fee you can make unlimited phone calls from your computer. Depending on
how much you make long distance calls Vonage can be a real bonanza. Even
though I had a cost effective long distance plan with SBC,I still picked
up Vonage because I could peel away some of the services Vonage gives me
for free and because of the flexibility. It has voice mail for example
that lets me know when I have calls by sending me an email. It gives me
an added number I can give out if I am working a certain area so that
calls returned to me are local. As well, you never lose your phone
number if you move. I have yet to unlock the full potential of this
service but I am excited. And the phone quality is very good!

B) Andrew Morton is going to send me a light show that I can run on my
HiWheel. What he has created can be found at

http://drewish.com/blogger/archives/...d_pov_toy.html

He calls his present creation a hack but you can get the idea for what
he wants to fine tune by visiting the above.

In sum, it is glow in the dark lettering that becomes legible when your
wheel rotates. He tells me he needs to figure out the math so that it
will work on my large 48 inch wheel (great for all the hill work I do
but I will have 52 inches by the time I get ready to go across the US in
2007). Taking him up on his offer, the message I asked him to create:

National Bicycle Greenway Connecting Cyclist to Cities


C) Here is the body of the proclamation text that the city of Boston
asked us to draw up for this year:

========================================
WHEREAS, the city of Boston honors its rich bicycle heritage, where, as
the home of America's first bike club, a greater number of cyclists once
traveled on its roads than anywhere in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the city of Boston has been chosen as the Northeastern starting
point on the National Bicycle Greenway's 50-city, Fourth Annual Mayors'
Ride relay that begins in all four corners of the United States and ends
in San Francisco; and

WHEREAS, the city of Boston recognizes that the more bike trips replace
car trips, the more the livability of a city is increased; and

WHEREAS, bicycling improves personal health and sense of well being
while teaching responsibility to our youth as it expands their horizons;
and

WHEREAS, the city of Boston recognizes the work of two of its nonprofit
advocacy organizations, Mass Bike and Bikes Not Bombs, to carry Boston's
cycling tradition forward; and

WHEREAS, the city of Boston recognizes the National Bicycle Greenway
mission to build our city into its nationwide network of bike friendly
roads and bicycle pathways;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that I, as Mayor of the City of Boston,
welcome the bicyclists to our beautiful City and do hereby declare
Tuesday, May 3, 2005, to be "National Bicycle Greenway Day" in the City
of Boston.
========================================

D) Faye Saunders found this in some of her reading:

========================================
BICYCLE COMMUTER ACT: Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Mark Foley
(R-FL) have reintroduced the Bicycle Commuter Act (H.R. 807).
The goal is to reduce traffic congestion, pollution, and wear and
tear on the roads. Under H.R. 807, employers could offer monthly
cash reimbursement of up to $100 to an employee who commutes to work
by bicycle, providing a tax benefit to the employer and helping
defray commuting expenses for the bicyclist.
========================================

It is hopeful to see that legislators are coming forward with tools to
help get people out of their cars.

E) In lieu of the Pocket Mail device our riders have been using since
1998 to stay in touch with us here at NBG Central, we have found a cost
effective replacement that is always on line. No more looking for the
fast disappearing phone booth to stay in touch with the on line world.
Or for that matter carrying a hard to keep charged cell phone to send
and receive Pocket Mail data. Or then use an antiquated technology to
attach the handpiece to the device. AT&T Wireless/Cingular has come out
with a product, one third smaller than a Pocket Mailer, that sends and
receives EMail in real time. Wirelessly!!

Called the OGO, I paid $79 for mine and there is an $18 a month connect
fee. It places your Yahoo email account in your pocket for instant
access, all the time, anywhere they have coverage (which looks pretty
strong along all the routes our Mayors' Ride will be covering). Be
forewarned, however, that its keys and its screen are tiny but I am
finding it is a serious tool that I have been having great success
with!! Iıve even written some of this newsletter with it. From the road!!

To find out out more about the OGO: http://ogo.com

F) Our blogs at NationalBicycleGreenway.com are not interactive because
we donıt have have anyone who can serve as an moderator for them. They
are a one way street because the spam artists take over when someone is
not watching. If you have a minimum of mail list experience, you can
greatly assist us by serving as a moderator for our blogs. Weıre talking
probably less than 10 or so minutes a day to approve or deny those
posts that are pending. Let us know you can help and weıll get you the
password and login. It would be great if we could increase the noise
level of Greenway discussions at our site!!

G) If you are riding with us this summer, shoot an email to the SlipNot
people c/o Kevin at . Send them the URL for the
schedule page with your name on it along with your physical mailing
address and they'll send you a really cool pair of sunglasses for your
ride!! I love mine! Here is the review we did for SlipNot:
http://www.bikeroute.com/Recumbents/...es/000068.html

H) If you are riding for us this summer, you also get handsome business
cards that you can start passing out NOW! Send me an email and Iıll
reply with a pdf of the handsome NBG Scout business card that Faye
Saunders will have created for you. It has the NBG logo, the graphic
Adam Krohn created for us for our Cycle America 2000 ride, your email
address and the URL for your NBG bio (which we will shorten to read
bikeroute.com/YOURNAME). If you want us to publish your cell phone
number, reply with that as well! Once you get the camera ready copy from
us as a pdf in your email box (make sure to include your physical
mailing address), all you have to do is buy some ink or laser jet
business card stock (we will spec out the product # when we send you
copy), about $13 at most office supply stores, stick it in your printer,
hit print, and presto you have NBG Scout calling cards.

I) If you are riding for us this summer, you also get ³How to Bike
America² (HTBA). The bulk of HTBA, an on-line book, was written over a
two year period for cyclists riding TransAm to Cycle America 2000 in
Washington DC. It continues to be updated and edited online and reflects
many contributions from the on line cycling community as we yearly cross
America with our Mayor's Rides. Send me an email for the login and
password.

J) If having a Ride Partner would make it easier for you to join us, try
placing an ad at our classifieds
http://www.bikeroute.com/ibrd_cgi/Cl...database=perso
nals.setup . We get a million + unique visitors a month at our site so
you may very well have good luck!

--
54% of New York City households do not own cars

M A R T I N K R I E G : "Awake Again" Author
http://www.bikeroute.com/AwakeAgain
Bent Since '83, Car Free Since '89, '79 & '86 TransAms********
Coma, Paralysis, Clinical Death Survivor*
Can You Change it with Love?*
N A T I O N A L B I C Y C L E G R E E N W A Y
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