baltimorespokes

No matter where I travel, I always see some unique “bike thing” that maybe I can bring home to B’more.  Out of town this weekend, I got to do some mountain biking on some very technical & well designed trails.   While these two trail systems were in very different terrain, they both exhibited fun challenges with resistance to rain & wear.

There’s a common misconception that mountain bikers just want to shred and ignore environmental impact; but in reality it is the mountain bike community who have promoted trails that last when designed properly.  IMBA (International Mountain Bicycling Association) encourages environmental standards through their Sustainable Trail Design Guidelines and through local affiliates that do much of the trail maintenance.

My first ride started with a road climb up to the ridge of The Western Slope of Massanutten where rocky trails drop over a 1000′ to the adjacent valley.  The Shenandoah Valley Bicycling Coalition works with public & private land owners to construct and maintain an intricate network of trails here.  Local rocks were used to construct tabletops, rolling grade dips, trail armoring, and stream crossings which divert rainwater and provide riders with opportunities to catch some air.  On my climb up the Pink Trail, I passed Tim, a local maintainer, who indicated this trail was only a year old and was so well designed that it didn’t need any maintenance.  That’s quite a challenge considering the amount of bike traffic I saw.  Not to mention, the black bear traffic I saw using the trails.

Heading back towards Baltimore, I stopped at Wakefield Park in Fairfax County, VA.  Utilizing the rolling terrain and power line easement, MORE (Mid-Atlantic Off Road Enthusiasts) worked with the county and utility companies to design world class trails as several mountain bike races are held here annually.  (MORE also maintains many local trails like Loch Raven and Patapsco.) After the long climbs of Massanutten, Wakefield was no problem and down-right fun.  Here I enjoyed a series of insloped turns, boardwalks and jumps.

If you would like to join a group ride or help maintain area trails, visit MORE’s website and check the calendar.

Last year, we posted a piece about a couple of shock jocks in Detroit who thought it was funny to talk about throwing things at bicyclists.

This year, the hateful talk is coming over the airwaves from Pittsburgh.

Streetsblog Network member blog Reimagine an Urban Paradise has been following the story of a Pittsburgh DJ, Mike Pintek of KDKA, who made some ugly remarks about being “tempted” to hit people on bikes with his car. The audio has been taken down, but here’s a partial transcript of what Pintek said from Reimagine’s author, Lolly:

“There are some bicyclists who are just these arrogant little dorks that think they can do anything they want because they’re on a bicycle and ‘we’re being green and environmentally friendly’…

“I have been thoroughly tempted — I haven’t done it ’cause I’m not going to do it — I’m not that kind of person…but I have been so tempted to just bump ‘em.

“I have been so tempted to pull up behind them when they’re doing this — you know spread out across the road — put my car in neutral, jam the accelerator down, race the engine and scare the living crap out of them.

“They’ve got to stop being so arrogant about what they’re doing. They’ve got to obey the rules. They have to do the right thing or else they’re going to get killed.”

This all is playing out in a city where several bicyclists have been attacked in recent weeks by gangs of kids, as reported by Bike PGH.

Reimagine’s Lolly has this to say about what she thinks the consequences should be for the DJ:

Driver’s licenses are a privilege, not a right and if a person announces their desire to use their vehicle as a weapon, they should lose their license. If they use their job to incite others to commit violence, they should lose that job.

She also notes that in the case of a San Francisco driver who allegedly did target people on bikes and used his vehicle as a weapon, the charges are felony attempted murder.

PGH Is a City and WWVB have more. Apparently Pintek is going to talk about what he said on his show today. We’ll keep an eye on it.

On another note entirely, we’d like to thank the folks at the Top Online Engineering Degree blog for including Streetsblog.net on their list of Top 50 Blogs for Civil Engineers to Read. It’s a terrific list that we’re looking forward to digging into. You should definitely check it out. And we’re honored to be included.