Rider(s) Needed, Video, Maps, NBG Bios, Histories. 48 Days till Lift Off!!

1) Who will ride SF to Boston and get a video made of their ride this year?
2) Ride Reporter Needed for a Don Loomis type journal
3) Mayors' Ride questionnaire fixed
4) Randy Mitchell filed a bio with us!
5) Why Mark Lind is Hooked on our Mayors' Ride relays
6) Will pay $$ for Map Code Masher who can get our maps to run in Internet Explorer
7) Please input your utility, recreation and training routes to our maps
8) Karen Pardiek to get us Folsom River Ride lunch
9) The doorway to California - Emigrant Pass from my book
10) Mike Damon makes child's play of Emigrant Pass
11) Little Mexico bypass routed
12) Riders/Routes for Napa to Sac Needed
13) Where to find City Histories, NBG Biking Pages, etc at Schedule
14) Express interest in my book to help me get funding for 009
15) New photo for my book and home page communicates hope
16) HiWheel Light show by Michael's Light Toys
17) Tom Kabat to donate Dumpster Verathene
18) Interstate Subway map
19) 101 tear old Marathoner

1) We need one (could be a small group) coast to coast cyclist to carry the the NBG torch from San Francisco to Boston in this year's 6th Annual National Mayors' Ride. Your reward for doing a self supported tour for us as per the parameters laid out at our Get Started page will be much notoriety and a 20-30 minute on line slide show like this one that we did for Scott Campbell, our 2006 rider at:

http://revver.com/video/139587

Complete with sound track, your ride will be featured in the 2009 banner for all our  BikeRoute.com web pages as well as circulated at Revver.com, the usenet and by all those who want just to share a good thing. In addition, as yours to keep for a lifetime, it will be something you can:

- use in a resume
- entertain guests with
- use with presentations to bike groups, service clubs and school kids, etc
- help you get a book about your journey sold to a publisher
- offer to an employer, before you ride, as a way to get the time off
- establish you as a cycling authority
- etc

If interested, please reply accordingly to me at NBG@bikeroute.com or just fill out our Mayors' Ride questionnaire

2) Because Faye Saunders keeps finding herself more and more in demand at Apple Computer, we lost the word crafter we needed to keep the efforts of our coast to coast cyclist(s) in real time as well as archived. HERE is the ride series she created for Don Loomis three years ago.

We have been unable to replace Faye because the word has not been well enough out there for interested writers to know that this opportunity even exists. And it is a great way for someone trying to build a by line portfolio to get their writing skills known about. This, as such a person also gets to vicariously ride a bike across America from the comfort of their living room, or wherever their computer may happen to be.

All that is required is for such a word scribe to make regular phone contact with our rider every two or three days and find out how he or she has occupied their time. And then to to make a report however long or short they may feel is warranted..

3) Unbeknownst to us, the questionnaire that we use to get a feel for who is out there on the roads for us was broken. Seems our ISP made some software changes on their end that affected us. It's all fixed now. So if if you sent in a form and have not heard back from us, that is why. Please contact me directly at NBG@bikeroute.com if this was the case and do know that I apologize very genuinely for our oversight. The form is at - http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Forms/newriders.php

4) Legendary HiWheel cyclist, Randy Mitchell, now has a bio with us!! If you want to see a little bit more about this amazing, former professional stunt man, turned professor, go to http://www.bikeroute.com/RandyMitchell . You might also recognize one of the pictures that you see there. It comes from the BikeRoute.com home page....

     

5) Our Mayors' Ride relays have created a Monster. A Bike Monster that is. See Why Mark Lind, pictured below is smiling about the upcoming Palo Alto to San Francisco Mayors' Ride relay that he gets to ride in. HERE is is in his own words



6) Our cutting edge bike route maps are at as crossroads. Grey Lowell, the software consultant who built them for us, has fully run out of time. As many of you have seen, they work great in Firefox and Safari, but not in Internet Explorer where the lion's share of Internet activity takes place. Who can mash some code so that our maps also run on that platform? Grey will be happy to turn the keys over to someone so qualified. If you can't do it, please let us know if you know someone who can!! We can pay such a person on an ad commission basis.

7) Our maps are similar to the others that have begin to show up on the web. Many of the the features and ways in which you plot, zoom and undo at other map routing sites are all in place on ours.

So that we can seed them as a way to ultimately turn them into bike, and not car, centric maps, we encourage you to upload as many of the utility, training and/or recreational cycling routes that you can.

Once we have established a well travelled path to our maps, as well as a a large data base of such users we can begin our search for the funding that will make the next edition possible. Once underwritten, our plans call for a a site where bikeable roads and paths will stand out on the screen as the principal routes of travel and not freeways, expressways and boulevards.

When we bring our Phase Two level of service on line, cyclists will be able to plan door to door bike routes in the same way car drivers use the mapping sites that exist on the web today to locate the fastest way to get places in their motor vehicles. In time, Google and other map services will offer Bike Road coding for their maps based on those roads that our users will keep regularly identified as being acceptable for cycle travel. More

8) Since we will be helping them showcase the river playground that they have built their city around, the City of Folsom wants to make sure we are warmly received this year. Toward that end, Karen Pardieck, of Karen Pardieck & Associates, a consulting firm that acts as a steward to assure that when lands near and around the river are developed, they are done so wisely, has begun talks with the Mayor's office on our behalf. Do stay tuned!. Besides the 2008 Sacramento, Rancho Cordova and Folsom Mayoral proclamations, a plethora of picnic food and drink, possibly music and other festivities, will reward us for our exhilarating 26 mile water side ride from the state Capitol on Sunday, May 4. Too exciting!! You don't want to miss this!! Details at our Evite. Sign yourself up while you are there!!

9) If you want to lean a little bit about the history of the road Don Loomis and unicyclist, Patrick Thomas, pedaled for us in 2004 to get over the Sierras and that I will be biking (how much I will be walking remains to be seen) in 2009, go to:

http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide2008/Reno/EmigrantPass.php

You can also learn about Reno while your are there.....

10) The above is child's play to Mike Damon, outgoing Reno Wheelmen president. At 35 miles, Emigrant Pass, is just one of the many challenges that make up the 164 miles that Mike will be pedaling when he makes the RETURN trip from Folsom to Reno in ONE day! HERE is Mike's NBG bio.

11) Last Friday, I did some advance scouting work for our Palo Alto to San Francisco ride. I wanted to figure out a way around the stretch of Middlefield Rd where it enters Redwood City that many refer to as Little Mexico. It is here that one must take the lane, because even though they are slow speed, cars are still frequent. What I found is a wee bit out of they way but far more peaceful as well as pretty: HERE is that route!!

It is an alternate route within the Palo Alto San Francisco route

12) Our 2008 Mayors' Ride does not start until the end of April and yet that date is fast racing to the immediate. Despite all this, we still do not have a route for Napa to Sacramento. Or for that matter, a rider or group of riders to make the 65 mile relay. We'll be happy to get you a marquis presence at our schedule for your efforts. As well, we could use your map knowledge of this connection. If you can help with either please let me know at NBG@bikeroute.com . And/or fill out or Mayors' Ride questionnaire ..

13) Whether you know it or not, our 2008 Schedule is chock full of information. When you get there, those cities that are represented by an image, have an NBG Biking page. As works in progress. you will find everything from our NBG Biking Report Cards, to histories to things to see and do to the bike shops, bike routes and etc, for each of these cities. HERE is an overview of the NBG Biking cities we have on line. All of the population centers you see see there will be complete in time for my 2009 ride..

14) If you want to help me make my 2009 Author Tour real, please express interest in my new book. The sequel to "Awake Again", it is called “How America can Bike and Grow Rich, The National Bicycle Greenway Manifesto” . Here is the overview where you can use the link at the bottom to communicate your desire to buy the book when it comes out.

15) The picture below will be on the front cover of “How America can Bike and Grow Rich, The National Bicycle Greenway Manifesto” as well as make up the bulk of our BikeRoute.com home page, The caption it will bear is:


Fully Recovered from Catastrophic Head Injury. Next Up: National Bicycle Greenway .

There is a lot in this picture and in this choice of words. While the photo represents a feat that only the ablest of body can hope to master, in its simplicity it is stunning causing most who view it to want to know more. This is especially so when the word 'recovery' is associated with it. And as such, when people see how far I have come from having to learn how walk, talk and balance myself, etc, etc, all over again, the vision I now hold for the National Bicycle Greenway becomes far more believable. It also goes a long way toward the reason I feel I got better - to inspire people to know that we are only limited by how big we allow ourselves to think!!

16) If you find yourself riding at night, do give Michael's Light Toys some consideration. The Bicycle Light Show below (40 seconds) was made possible by MichaelsLightToys.com. A major supplier for Burning Man exhibitors, their lights work on all kinds of bikes. And with the EL light string variety especially, the AA batteries last a long time. HERE is the movie




17) Tom Kabat, the Palo Alto city engineer who shows people who want to know how to to build a bike in the worst possible way, how to do so at his web site http://woodenbikes.com tells us that he will likely be at our Mar 16 Spring Cleaning Party for the Busycle with a 1/2 gallon of the Liquid Verathane that he rescued from a dumpster. Keeping in the spirit of our 15-person car-bike where all of the components have been recycled from other uses, Tom reminds us that, if as environmentalists we need toxic stuff like this, that we should only put it to use if we find it otherwise headed for the landfill. THX Tom!!



18) Saw Don Loomis, our 2004 coast to coast rider on his way home from work at Apple Computer last week. He told me about the subway style map that had been made of the great interstate system.



Double click on the above to see a bigger image. When you get to http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/02/13/75-a-diagram-of-the-eisenhower-interstate-system , you will learn some interesting facts about the system of highways that Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law in 1956 to provide easy transport for military purposes.

19) The guy pictured below is 101 years old!! What's more is that he plans to run a marathon. Double click on the photo to read the story. And after you do, ask yourself what's keeping you off a bike or maybe even signing up to ride one of our relays..