A New Bike Rack to Me and some Bicycle Advocacy.

Last week we had a meeting of the minds with a small group of local bicycle advocates.  We do this about once a month at various locations (that serve beer) around town.  For this particular meeting Chapel Tavern was chosen.  While the meeting itself was based on evaluating the Truckee River bike path and the bicycle boulevard (Riverside Dr.), a few things besides this did catch my attention.

First up was this:

A nice hanging bike rack at Chapel Tavern.  I've never noticed it before....I just always locked up on the patio to the metal railing.  However, this rack is a great use of space....as long as you have a cable lock rather than just a U-lock!

The second surprise at the meeting was that we had a few new faces.  Two fine gentlemen joined us for a beverage and expressed some new ideas.  The first friendly face took on a challenge that I'm afraid can't be accomplished without some extra bodies....mainly mapping out the condition of the Truckee River path along it's entire length.  He very kindly took the length of path between Wells St. and the Lake St. off my hands for an analysis similar to one I posted last week.  The second gent, had some great ideas of biking and walking in the form of "Bike Trains"...or groups of kids and adult supervisors that meet up each morning and form a "train" of kids making their way to school. 

We'll have to touch on this topic in more detail in another post, but I'd like to thank both guys for joining us and adding to the growing group of people who represent our bicycle community!

Bike lock cable is a bike rack!?

I was wandering on my monday morning commute today.  I suppose because it was monday and I didn't really want to get to work.  So as I was tooling around through downtown, enjoying the morning, I made a slightly awesome discovery.

Just outside ComRow (climbing gym), I discovered a new bike rack.

I didn't stop to take more pictures....but I should have.  The end on the far side is shaped like a combination roller (you know the cheap kid version of a bike chain).  It's a neat art rack installation.  the only real problem is it's installed too close to the building.  All in all I'm calling it a win!

I didn't even notice until I looked at the picture, but this rack comes with it's own video security camera too!  So if anyone does get ideas about a nice "new" bike they'll be on ComRow security footage!