Biking Bis - Bicycle Touring and More

Katy bike trail protected as Missouri saves old railroad bridge

Gene Bisbee — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:42:00 -0800

An 80-year-old railroad bridge that served as a missing link on the 225-mile Katy Trail across Missouri will be preserved for use by future pedestrians and bicycle travelers.

The bridge over the Missouri River at Boonville has been at the center of a debate for some 5 years. The owner of the 400-foot-long steel lift span, the Union Pacific, wanted to dismantle it and use it to build a bridge for trains crossing the Osage River.

Trail supporters -- such as Save the Katy Bridge coalition, BikeMoFed, and the Rail to Trail Conservancy -- said dismantling the bridge would not only remove an historic structure as part of the Katy Trail, but also threaten the "railbanked" status of the trail because of the broken segment.

Last Friday, however, Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state had brokered a deal for Union Pacific to give the bridge to the city of Boonville in return for Missouri allocating $23 million in federal stimulus funds to go toward building the new bridge over the Osage River ...

Rocking the rail-trail bike path into the Cascades

Gene Bisbee — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:28:00 -0800

Earlier this week, I pedaled my Rockhopper up the John Wayne Pioneer Trail east of North Bend in search of snow.

It's been warmer than normal in the Seattle area so far this winter, and I had to ride 12 to 13 miles up to Carter Creek Camp before I found any white stuff. I didn't have time to explore any further, so I don't know the conditions closer to the now-closed Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Along the way I came across this fallen boulder partially blocking the trail. It looked like a fairly recent fall. I rode my bike up this way in the autumn and don't remember it, and there's some fresh gouge marks in the trail where it looked like it hit.

Seeing this boulder on the trail, got me to thinking about how work crews for the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company -- aka The Milwaukee Road -- made this route .....

Mudslide blocks Burke-Gilman Trail

Gene Bisbee — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:17:00 -0800

(Update: Jan. 21 -- Trail cleared and reopened on Wednesday) A fallen tree blocks the Burke-Gilman Trail just north of Seattle. Cyclists were directed onto a sidestreet to detour the mudslide that brought the tree down.

Neighbors say this tree in Lake Forest came down about 5:30 Friday morning. The trail was also blocked further south. The area has undergone some precip just about everyday the past two weeks.

This narrow section of the Burke Gilman ...

Thinking outside the box to create Ohio bike trail

Gene Bisbee — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:55:00 -0800

Those of you trapped inside your homes by the winter storm back East might enjoy watching this video about the picturesque Moonville Rail Trail that meanders for 10 miles through the scenic hills of southeastern Ohio.

Aside from the pleasant scenery and the sounds of twittering birds and mountain bike wheels crunching over gravel, there's a good lesson here.

Those earnest volunteers who are trying to create trails out of abandoned railway rights-of-way might be interested to know that the Moonville Rail-Trail Association avoided using county money to build the trail that connects the small towns of Zaleski and Mineral.

Founder Neil Shaw says the whole effort was accomplished with volunteers, donations and grant money ....

Florida town reacts to bicycle tragedy by building bike trails

Gene Bisbee — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:29:00 -0800

When two girls, aged 11 and 10, on bicycles were struck and killed by a van driver in October 1987, the people of Davie resolved to make the small south Florida city safer for bicyclists.

By the end of the year the town council budgeted $150,000 for its first bike trail. Within six months work began on a 3-mile bike trail adjacent to the street where the girls were killed.

Twenty-two years later, Davie boasts a network of 135 miles of bike paths and horse trails that connect the two dozen parks in the town with a population of 90,000.

When you consider the reputation of Florida among bicyclists, the feat of building so many bike trails in the town is remarkable. ....

Five bike trails nominated for Street Views on Google Maps

Gene Bisbee — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:06:00 -0800

We can vote early and often for our favorite bike trails in this election.

A few weeks ago Google Maps sought nominations for off-road photographic visits by its Street Views trike.

After receiving 25,000 ideas, the Google Maps staff came up with 24 finalists (trails in blue on map). They're asking us to vote for our favorites; multiple times if we feel like it.

Five bike trails have been nominated for a visit by the Google Maps Street Views trike. They are the Centennial Trail in Washington, Capital Crescent Trail in the DC area, Schuylkill River Trail in Pennsylvania, Boulder Creek Trail in Colorado, and the Stevens Creek Trail in California...

Ride the City directs bike riders to safest routes

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:38:00 -0700

Bicyclists in Seattle should feel fortunate that the creators of Ride the City chose their town as the latest addition to the online bike-route mapping tool.

Since launching the website for New York City last year, Vaidila Kungys and Jordan Anderson have added Chicago, Austin, Louisville, San Diego and now Seattle to their mapping tool.

Don't blame these guys for the slow roll-out; Vaidila told me that they have full-time jobs and update the website during coffee breaks, lunches and after work.

Essentially, Ride the City is a mapping tool that finds the most direct route between two points, much like Google maps does for car travel [you can give it a test drive on the jump] ....

Green River Trail will be closed to bikes for 3 to 5 years

Gene Bisbee — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:30:00 -0700

Any plans you had for bicycling the Green River Trail in the next few years are being sandbagged.

Crews are racing to erect a 3- to 4-foot high sandbag wall along the trail to help contain expected floodwaters in Kent and Tukwila if heavy rains strike the area this winter.

The work stems from problems at the Corps of Engineer's Howard Hanson Dam upstream, where engineers are concerned about the structural integrity of the dam. They'll be releasing more water to reduce pressure on the dam, which could mean flooding downstream in the Green River Valley.

The Green River Trail could be closed to bicycles for up to five years, if it takes the Corps that long to figure out how to solve and repair the problem. With the sandbags in the middle of the trail that sits on top of the levee, there's not enough room for safe usage by bike riders and pedestrians.

The less scenic, but more direct, north-south Interurban Trail is slated to remain open. .....

Tell Google about your favorite bike trail for StreetView

Gene Bisbee — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:18:00 -0700

Google Maps is looking for help in selecting places to send its StreetView trike.

Noting that some of the most interesting and scenic locales are not accessible by car, Google is accepting suggestions on what else should be featured on StreetView.

Of course, I'm thinking of nominating the most-used or most picturesque bike trails in the Pacific Northwest.

The Olympic Discovery Trail on the Olympic Peninsula comes to mind first, as it winds along between the Strait de Juan de Fuca on the north and the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains on the south. That's a picture of the trail east of Port Angeles where it skirts the seawall ....

Google maps adding bike trails; directions are next

Gene Bisbee — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:17:00 -0700

Google keeps adding data to its maps to make them more detailed.

That's good news for bicyclists who want to find bike trail routes in their cities that might take them near their destinations.

As I found from tracing some bike trails in the Seattle area, some are labeled and some aren't. Some are mislabeled. Some vanish from sight in places then reappear later. But it's a start, and the information on the Google maps is only as good as the sources.

At its Google Lat Long blog, the company tells about some of the improvements and says "...cyclists will now find many more trails and paths to explore. Soon we even plan on providing you with biking directions to take advantage of this new data ...