Thursday, February 9

Thursday Night Bike Polo
5:00 PM, Metz Park, 2407 Canterbury St
The Austin Bike Polo Club’s holds 3 hardcourt matches a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, at Metz Park. All bikes and skill levels are welcome and spare mallets and balls are available if you don’t have any. Check out our article on bike polo for more info.

Thursday Night Social Ride
7:30 PM, Plaza Saltillo, East 5th & Comal
“This week we’ll end up at Valhalla on Red River for a FREEEEEEEEE keg. Most likely Firemans 4, but don’t hold me to that (unless it is, in which case i’ll take two thanks.) Theme: If you want you can wear red or pink to celebrate that it’s Thursday.” Meet up at 7:30, ride at 8:00. Read our article on the weekly ride. Join the Social Cycling Facebook Group.

Friday, February 10

The Soup Peddler 10th Anniversary
4- 7 PM, The Soup Peddler, 2801A South Lamar Blvd.
One of Austin’s first bicycle based businesses celebrates 10 years in business. Live music, games and prizes, free soup, free beer!

Saturday, February 11

Mellow Johnny’s Scout-A-Ride: Sweetheart Ride & Major Taylor Meetup
9:30 AM, Mellow Johnny’s, 400 Nueces St
Saturday mornings spent exploring City of Austin bike routes finding new neighborhoods and ways to get around on your bike. This week’s theme: Sweetheart Ride & Major Taylor Meetup. Join Major Taylor Austin and the Scout-A-Route crew for a beginner-friendly and very social ride to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The distance will be about 10 miles and the pace will be easy to accommodate those just getting back on the bike. A longer route will be offered for those looking for a few extra miles before our food stop. Major Taylor Meetup Rides are a call out to cyclists of color to come network and help shape the Major Taylor Austin club in anticipation of a weekend of launch events in late February. Join us for a pre-ride coffee or snack at 9:00 at Juan Pelota Cafe. Helmets required. If driving to the shop, please park in the street.Contact:Stephanie at Stephanie@mellowjohnnys.com.

Ride for Refuge
10 AM, Fiesta Gardens, 2101 Jesse E Segovia St.
The AustinRide for Refuges being put on by volunteers for Refugee Services of Texas – Austin branch as a fundraiser for services for refugees, immigrants, and victims of human trafficking. We are in search of riders, and people interested in starting teams and fundraising. Riders of all stripes are invited to attend, and we are even recruiting refugee riders to participate, one of whom is a professional racer from his home country. There is a 38 mile and a 10 mile option

Sunday, February 12

AFWC Ladies Ride
9:00 AM, Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, 400 Nueces St.
Join the women of the Austin Flyers Women’s Cycling Club every Sunday for an intermediate, ladies-only ride. This friendly, 2.5-3 hour ride averages 15-16 mph, with routes varying each week. It is a great opportunity for women looking to continue their fitness, learn new routes and meet new riding partners. Beginner women are encouraged to check out the Saturday Scout-a-Route ride for a shorter, more casual route.

Essentials of Road Riding Clinic by Bicycle Sport Shop
1 PM, Bicycle Sport Shop, 517 S. Lamar Blvd
Bike? Check. Helmet? Check. Now what? Join us for our first Essentials of Road Riding Clinic. It’s an hour’s worth of free advice from Cycle Camp USA coaches, including a lesson in flat repair and checklists of preferred cycling gear, from the brightest lights to the toughest tires. It’s the kind of advice usually reserved for Cycle Camp clients, so take advantage of the opportunity. RSVP requested.

Capture The Flag: ON BIKES!
12:30 PM, 4508 Avenue H
This is an experiment and the rules have been borrowed from Minneapolis Bike Love. We will stay around Hyde Park, since it’s a territorial game.

Tuesday, February 14

Austin Bike Chix Beginner Ride
6:30 PM, Northwest District Park, 7000 Ardath St.
There is a new series of bike rides in town for those new to cycling or for those that just need to dust off that bike. Austin Bike Chix will be offering a series of rides to Austin Area adults. The rides will start at Northwest Park on March 22 at 6:30 PM and will continue on Tuesdays for 6 weeks. The series of rides will be more like mini clinics (with topics ranging from chains to hills) to give new riders knowledge about the bike and confidence to be able to do the shorter distances on some of the local charity rides and beginner rides in town. These rides are perfect for those wanting to do ride in the Tour de Cure or are a first time triathlete. We will be riding on the road, all bikes are welcome. All rides are free.

Social Cycling Austin’s Yoga Ride
6:30 PM PM, Doug Sahm Hill, Butler Park
Bikes + yoga = fun! This yoga class itself is designed specifically for cyclists and appropriate for all levels including beginners. 6:30pm Meet on Spiral Hill, hang out, meet your fellow yogis, drink some hydrating beverages, etc. 7:00pm Ride to a mystery spot where we will have an hour of yoga. 8:15pm – 8:30pm Ride bikes even more! 10 miles or so. More if you’re up for it . Moderate pace, no drops.

Wednesday, February 15

Social Cycling Austin’ Hump Day Nooner Ride
11:45 AM, Lamar Blvd Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge, Lady Bird Lake
We meet on the ped. bridge at 11:45am, get to know your fellow riders, ride out at 12:15pm. Ride up a hill or two and head to get a refreshing beverage and ride to get lunch. Rides are between 10 and 20 miles. The route is determined on the fly.

Austin Cycling Association presents Beyond Bike Lanes
6:30 PM, The Peddler Bike Shop, 5015 Duval Street
Austin Cycling Association is hosting a series of neighborhood gatherings throughout the Austin area in an effort to facilitate an interactive discussion on personal barriers to cycling, intimidation factors, and practical guidance on issues such as route planning and basic safety practices. These social gatherings are intended to alleviate the common hesitation and fears that new or potential riders may feel, and will help anyone take the next step towards approaching the subject of cycling in daily life.

Social Cycling Austin’s The Heavy Breather Ride
7 PM, Doug Sahm Hill, Butler Park
If you’ve got some speed in your legs, come meet at that hill that everyone has a different name for and get in some good hard miles in the Austin night. A note on the pace of this ride: this is meant to be a Fun Fast ride, meaning we don’t go slow, but we’re not necessarily racing each other. The route is designed to have a minimum of turns to allow for long stretches of full-on blazing speed, but those turning points are also meant to be natural regroup spots. So, if you get ‘dropped’ somewhere along the route, we’ll be waiting for you at the next turn. This mix of speed and patience has been working pretty well, so let’s keep it up! So bring yourself, your good reliable and speedy bike, your lock, and LIGHTS!!!

Restorative Yoga for Cyclists
7:30 PM, Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, 400 Nueces St
Spend your winter keeping the body warmed and relaxed with Restorative Yoga for Cyclists at Mellow’s Johnny’s. Long miles accompanied by yoga will help you release tension, stay injury-free and set you up for a blazing Spring. Our class is great for non-cyclists, beginners and elite athletes. Join us after a ride, run or long day at work or school. Every Wednesday 7:30-8:30pm (downstairs) Suggested donation of $10 or $5 if you bike ride to class. Mat provided by MJ’s.

There’s a feeling of magic in the air. I audibly exhale as I revel in the fact that I made the train with seconds to spare. The alternative of missing the train would have been an hour bike ride across town with a slight incline the entire route. The train will get me half way to my destination in 7 minutes.

The morning commuter train is full, and the long frame of my cargo bicycle is the last to board and fits snugly. I feel blissful at the ease of my morning despite starting out late.

I stand next to my bicycle, in case I need to  move it out of the way of exiting passengers at the next stop. Standing next to me in the entrance way is a female police officer. Two weeks ago on the train I met an off-duty officer who was wearing his uniform and had his personal bicycle too. He was friendly and explained that he used the park-and-ride in combination with his bicycle on the train to get from his suburban home to the downtown police station where he worked. I asked him if he got heckled often. “Yes,” he responded. I encouraged him to keep riding and commuting with his bicycle. I told him it made him seem more like a person with his bicycle, and less like a stereotype.

However, the female police officer this morning on the train doesn’t have a bicycle with her. Sixty seconds after the train doors closed my mind calms from the adrenaline rush and I take in the neon-yellow shirt of the Cap Metro security guard. With a dead-pan face he asks me if I have a ticket. A ticket? Didn’t he just witness the magic that happened as I over came time, traffic, and pedestrians to embark on the train as it was pulling out of the station. “Can I get a ticket at the Crestview station when I get off?” I ask. He simply nods toward the police officer. “Can I see your ID?” she says.

I get off at the Crestview station and go ahead and purchase the $1 ticket for a one-way, one-zone train ticket (I had planned to ride my bike the entirety of my return trip). In my other hand I have a newly acquired Theft of Service citation ticket for $100.

Thus, I have inadvertently become a small scale bike rental. When a friend needs a bike or a friend’s friend comes into town to visit for ACL, or when an acquaintance is making a road trip to New Mexico to mountain bike on the dusty hills of the southwest…there is minimal hesitation in them to request a bike to borrow from me.

No monetary amounts are exchanged, so instead of rental company, I am an on going bicycle library.

I am open to the idea of letting friends and associates borrow my bicycles because I like the idea of paying-it-forward. I think about the multitude of times in my life when kindness for the sake of kindness itself was shown to me. I want to make a bicycle track of kindness that wanders through the streets of Austin and beyond.

Photo by Abe Dashner of Nuthouse Bicycles.

This sentiment reminds me of the art project called Pink. It was a courier service originally conceived by artist Jaclyn Pryor in Austin, Texas. The community was invited to write messages of affection to friends, lovers, coworkers, secret admirers, or strangers anywhere in the city of Austin. Pink bottled the notes and delivered them by bike all over the city. Notes of love and affection written by Austinites were distributed across the city on pink paper inserted into small bottles with monogrammed tags via bicycle couriers dressed in pink.

And with this sentiment sometimes my home-based bicycle library has over extended itself .To keep my fleet’s numbers up to meet supply and demand I have thought about renting bicycles myself. One such instance occurred when a friend requested to a borrow a bicycle for two weeks to use on her road trip to Sunnyville, Florida. Two weeks seemed like a lengthy amount of time, but I could make due with one bike down for half a month.

I loaded the bicycle onto the car’s bicycle rack and made sure my friend had a bicycle lock. Within five minutes of pulling out and way from my drive way, I received a text message from a friend from Alaska who was coming to town. She was trading the black ice and mounds of snow of the Yukon for the blue skies and warm roads of central Texas. I couldn’t deny her request for two bicycles to cruise around town on.

This leaves me down to one bicycle for myself. And that one bike happens to have a blue banana seat. The seat is comfy enough in itself, but the seat post got jammed in the seat tube and is stuck. I can’t raise the seat. As such, I’m pedaling with my knees in my chest. Each ride out on the blue banana-seat-beauty feels like a heavy breather ride as the muscles of my diaphragm are scrunched in an alternating pattern as I pedal. As I hyperventilate around town, I imagine all the good bike karma I am accruing and I’m happy to be paying-it-forward.

Since theBoy got his balance bike last Christmas, I have been waiting for him to make the transition to a pedal bike.  Kids have a funny way of shattering your patience and doing things when they feel like it.  Danger has never been theBoy’s middle name, he is quite comfortable doing things he has mastered.  Upon opening his Balance bike last Christmas, he put it to the side and played with other toys.  It wasn’t until his cousin discovered the bike a day later and started ripping around the house did he decide that he might like to try riding it.

The riding started of slowly, but pretty quickly theBoy was zipping down the sidewalk as we walked to the pool in the heat of the summer.  We now take that bike everywhere.  TheBoy would ride it down hills, in kiddy races (cyclocross season), and pretty much anywhere we would let him go.  He had his first crash on the balance bike, and although he was a little shaken up, got right back on (even though he was pretty scrapped up) and finished the ride.  Making the jump to the pedal bike always seemed right around the corner….but it never came.  I tried hinting, bribery, encouragement, reasoning, and pretty much every other strategy (and I have a bunch because my job involves motivating kids) but nothing could get him to give the pedal bike a try.

Last weekend, we visited friends in Houston, and as always we brought the balance bike along.  TheBoy spent the weekend tearing around the neighborhood with his “best friend.”  As we were getting ready to head home, Mrs. B told theBoy to put his bike by the car so we wouldn’t forget it.  Instead he put the bike back in the house, and we left without packing it in the car.  Nobody noticed the missing bike until we returned home.  Thankfully since it was theBoy’s fault the bike didn’t get loaded, we were presented with a window to try the pedal bike.  Over the past year, I have attempted to help theBoy ride the pedal bike, but we both have a tendency to get upset at each other in very short order and accomplish nothing.  Enter Mrs. B, former kindergarten teacher, with her very patient encouraging demeanor.  She got out the bike, and within 15 minutes has theBoy zipping around the driveway.  The balancing and pedaling skills were already there from previous experience, and all it took was somebody with a little patience to combine them.  As with the balance bike, once he mastered pedaling he doesn’t want to do anything else.  He even asked if he could ride his bike at a bike race (I couldn’t be prouder).  The Twinkies have showed a renewed interest in riding bikes now that brother is zipping around….and so we have started the cycle all over again.

Bikeshare by 2013? Updates at the January Bicycle Advisory Council meeting included next steps on the creation of the recently funded Austin bikeshare program.

There has been a gradual transition in the Bike/Ped department from not just infrastructure creation but also working to make cycling more appealing to the general public. City staff gave the following updates on these kinds upcoming programs in Austin:

Expansion of Bicycle Ambassador Program: The City of Austin started a Bicycle Ambassador a few years ago, mainly as a volunteer squad of deputized cyclists who could give out warning tickets to motorists who park illegally in bike lanes (only City staff and APD can give tickets with fines for this.) Now, there is an expansion planned for the program to put a friendlier face on cycling and encourage cycling as an option. City staff are looking for volunteers to help staff cycling information booths at events and to present on commuting by bicycle to employees at businesses that are interested in promoting cycling. Those interested in becoming a Bicycle Ambassador should contact Sara Krause at 974-7182 or Sara.Krause@ci.austin.tx.us.

Bikeshare is coming: In December, CAMPO approved an initial grant to launch a public bikeshare program in Austin. The $2.5 million fund, $500,000 of which came from matching money provided by local businesses like Mellow Johnny’s, Whole Foods, and GSD&M, will go to create a service with 30-50 station in the urban core. The City is shooting to officially accept the money in March with a goal of having a non-profit organization set up to run the program by the end of the spring. The goal is to launch the service by SXSW 2013.

Preview of next month: The Austin Police Department will present on enforcement of cycling ordinances and update on APD training on bike related laws. The report will include the number of tickets to cyclists and to motorists who have violated the 3-foot passing ordinance. Bicycle Advisory Council are held on the 3rd Thursday of each month at 6:30 PM at City Hall in the staff bullpen (behind City Council chambers). Meetings are open to the public.

The Rabbit meets Alice in Austin Bike Zoo's 2009 2 wheeled production of Alice in Wonderland

Back in 2009, Austin Bike Zoo produced a 2 wheeled version of Alice in Wonderland that was a highlight of that year’s Bike Month activities. They are now putting their creative juices back to work to take on Shakespeare by bike with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To make this happen, they are looking for financial help from the cycling and art community via a Kickstarter campaign. They need to raise $3500 by March 16. Please visit the page and make a contribution if you want to see something really cool later this year.

I recently shared that I had a visit to the Bike Mecca of North America last week. There’s something about a physical change in location that makes my life feel like a spot light is shining and highlighting the mundane into ethereal.

One such mundane-to-ethereal transformation was the art of bike racks. Mundane: I use them every day when commuting around Austin: the library, the grocery store, and the credit union all host mirror images of the same solid, muted grey standard issue bike rack.

Yet in the cardinal neighborhoods of Portland, the grey edition of the bike rack existed, but it was in competition with the plethora of art-inspired versions of the bike rack. Bike racks in the shape of bicycles, racks with metal flowers and vines flowing, and racks inside of buildings; indoor with air-conditioning, heaters, and protection from the rain and sun.

With all of the speciality organized bicycles rides around Portland, I wonder if Austin’s version of the Moonlight Tower bike ride could be replicated with a special tour of the wondrous bike racks that line the streets of Stumptown.

This idea spawned the thought: “Hey, why doesn’t Austin have inspirational bike racks?” We could have racks that inspire cyclists to ride to racks, not only to use them, but to admire them for there inherent artistic nature.

After all, Austin has had art installations including gargantuan guitars; and the recent cow herd of “Austin Art Cows” scattered around town was auctioned off to raise $1 million dollars for an endowment fund for patients and families of the Children’s Blood and Cancer Center of central Texas.

If cows and guitars can do it, bikes can too. Scanning my mind for art racks around town, a few places emerge: the new Hyde Park location of Birds’ Barber shop on the corner of Red River and 41st street has one of the funkiest bike racks I’ve seen in town. The exaggerated sized bicycle as a rack looks illustrative like a cartoon and the bright blue color of the rack catches the eye from a distance. The national franchisee Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has racks with silhouettes of joyful children and adults in metal outlines that seem to be celebrating the bicycle as you tether it to the rack. And at Daily Juice off of 45th Street, the classic grey rack has been substituted with curving metal work that softens the look of the rack. Plus, if you arrive by bicycle, Daily Juice gives a discount.

These are some highlights of bike racks in my hood. What are bike racks like in your neighborhood?

One thing all these above mentioned racks have in common is that they are located at places of business in Austin. I’d like to see more independent art on the streets, and more bike racks as permanent art installations.

How about a bicycle art kickstarter campaign to make it happen?

I hate falling when I am going fast.

I hate falling when I am going slow.

I hate falling when it is quite obviously my fault.

I especially hate falling when it is somebody else’s fault.

Image by Constance Winters

pain of dealing with the aftermath.  If you are injured you have to deal with insurance companies (their’s and your’s), often your bike has sustained damage (more insurance hoop jumping), and in extreme cases, you have to wade in the very murky waters of the legal system.  Maybe MURKY isn’t the right word, but without some proper guidance, a person could quickly find themselves drowning in paperwork, or worse.

Similar to road rage, there is a feeling of aggressiveness that surges up at times when on the road on a bicycle seat. Naming this feeling “Bike Rage” (like Road Rage when in a car)  is not quite right. I rather like to think of it as Bike Pet Peeves. *Note: Multiple occurrences of Bike Pet Peeves in one day could steer any cyclists down the road of Bicycle Rage.

I had such an incidence today of a Bike Pet Peeve that came close to Bike Rage – a car cutting me off while I was on a bicycle.

One of the reasons that cars cutting off bicycles borderlines from  Bike Pet Peeve to Bike Rage is because of the frequency of occurrences. It has happened over and over and over again.

Which got me to thinking that some serious schooling needed to occur on this issue.

I don’t get the logic that is occurring in a motorists mind, that if they accelerate the car and make a sharp turn in front of a bicycle that it is ok. Ever.

I just returned from a week trip to the urban bicycling capital of the U.S. of A. – also know as Portlandia. There is one law that is enacted as a civil action between motorists and cyclists. Oregon Revised Statute 811.050 requires motor vehicles to yield to bicycles in bike lanes.  It blows my mind each time I cycle the bike ways. Note this act of motor vehicles yielding to bicycles occurs outside of bike lanes too, like some North Western common courtesy.  Bike ways, entire streets dedicated to the bicycle as the dominant form of transportation,  in which bicycles and motorists share the road, motorists still actively choose to give bicycles the right of way. It feels like the incidental diametric opposite of being cut off by a car in Austin, Texas.

When I get cut off by a car some primal adrenaline takes over. When the primal response occurs, I have consciously chosen not to use the flying bird signal anymore as my first means of communication. When it comes to fight or flight, my innate action is fight, thus the middle finger gesture.The effect of giving the bird when used is: animosity breeds more animosity. So I opt not to use it. Although at times I do feel like displaying a strong and solid thumbs down hand signal, held high in the air, is an effective way to communicate disdain.

Communication sign language aside, my intrigue is not hand gesturing  to drivers on the roadway alone.  I would rather supercede the Central Texas common uncourtesy that exists as the majority norm between motor vehicles and bicycles, and replace it with courtesy for amongst all, motorists and cyclists alike.

At this point in my ride, I’ve just pedaled underneath IH 35, headed east on 4th street. I head north on Chicon Street. There is a stark contrast between east and west 6th Street at the intersection of 6th and Chicon. The traffic has lulled enough for it to feel inviting, so I head further East on 6th street.

I pass the familiar sites, the Sixth Street Cool corner store with Bob Marley’s portrait smiling back at me. I think of him as an urban Mona Lisa, his smile following me at a diagonal as I turn the corner.

Next comes the bright blue and gold of Bike Texas Headquarters. I had been inside Bike Texas during the annual Bike-to-Work breakfast stop last year. Today, though, it was what was outside of Bike Texas that had me concerned.

I stopped pedaling and let the wheels cruise along the street. In my memory of the event, the parking lot was empty. Lights off, nobody home inside Bike Texas. There was one sole bicycle on the rack at Bike Texas, and next to the bicycle was a man with what looked like a file in his hand while he fiddled with the lock. My gut instinct was that this bike is being stolen. Right here and right now in broad daylight and I’m watching it occur. I yelled out from my bike on the other side of the street, “You stealing a bike?”

I had a beanie hat covering my ears, and a helmet on on top of that, and I couldn’t make out exact words of the man’s response, but the body language and tone of voice was gruff and terse. And the nature of his response confirmed what my stomach was telling me.

I am a little ashamed to say it, but my first though was, “Oh well, it’s none of my business.” And then my mind followed up that thought with, “There’s no way I’m stopping to approach that man by myself.” The momentum of the motion of the bicycle kept my wheels rolling away from the scene. “If someone saw my bike being stolen, I would want them to intervene.” Calling the police was out of the question for me. I didn’t want anyone being arrested and going to jail for petty theft. Behind bars would be a horrible way to spend Christmas Eve.

The light bulb went off in my head: I knew someone who works at Bike Texas. I’d call her instead of the law enforcement. Fortunately, she answered the call, and to my chagrin she said she was inside the closed Bike Texas Headquarters at that exact moment. I quickly gave her the low down on what I saw outside Bike Texas. She thanked me and said she would check on the scene out front.

A few minutes later, she texted me back. She recognized the man I saw out front as a known bike thief in Austin. However, she stated there was no bicycle on the rack for him to steal. I gulped! I was too late! The bike was already re-located, gone, vamoosh! – into thin air it seemed. Five minutes couldn’t have passed since first site of the bike theft to this text message.

Within those five minutes I had traveled half a mile away from the scene, and I now questioned the events that happened. “Was the bicycle a mirage of sorts?” I asked myself. Did I imagine it being there? Or if I had stayed at the scene would the bike still be there tethered to the rack with it’s lock?

Who knows? It’s an unsolved bike theft mystery. However, for now I make it a point to take the same route along east 6th street when headed to and from downtown to see if the mirage of the blue cruiser bicycle ever shows up again.