Iowa Senate Passes Bike Safety Bill

This afternoon, the Iowa Senate passed the bike safety bill (formerly known as the "Bicycle Bill of Rights"). The best quorte of the debate came from, I think, Senator Quirmbach from Story County. He actually borrowed the quote from the character Sancho Panza in the musical Man of La Mancha, "Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone it's going to be bad for the pitcher." Special thanks to local Senators Joe Bolkcom and Bob Dvorsky for their support. The bill will face some challenges in the Iowa House, so let your representative know you support the safety of cyclists and they should too!

A portion of the debate focused on bicyclist fatalities. It made me think of my old friend and cycling companion, Kevin Joyce. Kevin was killed by a motorist in June of 1995 while riding to West Branch. RIP Kevin.

Senate File 34 Introduced

From the IBC:

Iowa Senators Joe Bolkcom, William Dotzler, and Matt McCoy introduced the Iowa Bike Safety Bill. Senate File 34 is a bill for an act relating to the operation of bicycles on a street or highway, providing requirements for motor vehicle operators encountering other vehicles or bicycles, and providing penalties.

The legislation changes the Code of Iowa to reflect basic changes in bicycle operation, like using your right arm pointing right for a right turn signal and stopping the requirement to honk at pedestrians. The bill also clarifies bicycle access by prohibiting locals laws that dangerously force cyclists onto the sidewalks and if a cyclists uses a crosswalk motorists are required to yield. The bill amends Iowa Code to require a five foot passing distance, safe following distance for bicycles. Additional laws require drivers to check for conflicts before opening a door in a traffic lane and drivers cannot interfere with bikes taking the lane if the lane is too narrow for safe passing.

Senate File 34 was assigned to the Transportation Committee. Within the Senate Transportation Committee, the bill was assigned to the subcommittee:

Senator Matt McCoy
Senate District 31
Des Moines
matt.mccoy@legis.state.ia.us

Senator Kim Reynolds
Senate District 48
Osceola
kim.reynolds@legis.state.ia.us

Senator Daryl Beall
Senate District 25
Fort Dodge
daryl.beall@legis.state.ia.us

Find your legislator and contact them.

Personal letters are always appreciated. Remember to stick to only one or two issues at a time, provide real-life personal examples, and be polite. Also, don't forget to carefully proofread your letter. Send your letter, addressed simply to: "Dear Rep." (fill in the name) or "Dear Sen." (fill in the name), Iowa Senate or Iowa House of Representatives, State Capitol Building, Des Moines, IA 50319.

Every lawmaker now has an e-mail address and many even prefer this method of communication. Keep in mind, however, that most legislators prefer to use e-mail for quick and simple messages. If you have a detailed message, it's probably best to send it via regular mail.

When speed is of the essence, you can always phone a quick message in to your legislator by calling 515-281-3371 (Senate) or 515-281-3221 (House).

Back At It!!! BL Resumes Retail Hours

We will be open again for retail this Saturday, January 24th - 10am - 1pm. If you're looking for a bicycle, now is the time to get one. There are quite a few to choose from and no long lines!

Winter Bike to Work Day

Bike for Patriotism with Chicago's Winter Bike to Work Day

Heather Sperling, Chicago, IL

Mon Jan 19 10:00:00 EST 2009

Getty Images

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Bicycles | Biking | Chicago | Commuting | Eco-Friendly Travel | Electric Bicycles | Planet Green | Transportation

Do you love America? Then you’ll bike to work on January 20th. And if you’re in Chicago, you won’t be alone. On Tuesday the 20th—Election Day, mind you—Chicago’s Active Transportation Alliance is sponsoring its annual celebration of trading four wheels for two, and cutting out CO2 emissions in the process. A car with a solo driver releases over a pound of CO2 per mile. An SUV releases over 1.6 pounds. A bike releases zero—and with the recent increase in carbon emissions, that’s what our country needs right now. Ft. Collins, Colorado hosts a winter bike day of their own. Last year participants rode 1,654 miles—that’s nearly two tons of CO2 that didn’t get shot into the air that day.

Most major cities across the country host a bike to work day in May, National Bike Month (google “your city + bike to work day” for more information). San Francisco is gearing up, if you will, for a May 14th ride, and Washington DC’s should be around the same time. But Chicago, Ft. Collins and Boulder up the ante with their winter date. And since Chicago’s been loaded with snow, it may call for some snow tires.

The Active Trans Alliance will be thanking participants with coffee and hot cocoa from 6:30-9am at Chicago’s Daley Plaza on Dearborn and Washington. And while you’re there, give them some thanks as well—their mission is right-on: “…to make bicycling, walking and public transit so safe, convenient and fun that we will achieve a significant shift from environmentally harmful, sedentary travel to clean, active travel.”

To quote a green-savvy high schooler, “…green is so simple; it’s not a radical concept. It’s just a simple switch to make a huge difference.” Braving the cold for the greater good of your country? It’s a simple sacrifice that makes a difference. And that is patriotic.

Notice of Agenda: JCCOG Regional Trails and Bicycling Committee

The Regional Bike/Trails committee will be reviewing the metro bike plan this Tuesday. I have to say that this plan, if implemented, would be a significant step forward for cyclists. Link to meeting agenda and draft plan details is listed below. (Check out the recommendation for Washington St. through downtown IC!)


The next meeting of the Johnson County Council of Governments (JCCOG) Regional Trails and Bicycling Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

The agenda is available at www.jccog.org/resources/agendas.asp

Momentum Magazine at the BL

Copies of Momentum Magazine are now available for sale at the Bike Library.  Momentum magazine is dedicated to providing urban cyclists with a practical and fun resource to read about cycling life and culture. Some of the articles in the most recent issue (#37) include "Boston's Bikes Not Bombs," "How to Tame Motorists and Restrict Car Use," and "A Match Made in Bike Heaven: Bike Wedding Stories." The magazine is a great mix of advocacy, information, and entertainment.

Copies cost $1 each.

For more information about Momentum, check out their website.

Metro Bicycle Master Plan

Bikes Now!

There is a bike story blog out there called Veloquent. I don't write anything for it and neither does Mark Parman. But he should, this is from Silent Sports.

Bicycling with Mark Parman

Winter riding is better now than when I was a kid

One December Sunday morning when I was a kid delivering the Des Moines Register, my bike slid out on an ice-covered corner. A dusting of new fallen snow hid the ice on the road so when my tires slid across the slippery surface then caught the pavement, I high-sided and tumbled.

The crash dumped over half of the thick Sunday papers in my steel baskets, and when they caught the northwest wind, they scattered down the block. That summer when mowing a lawn for a widow in town, I discovered a front page from one of those Registers entangled in one of her bushes.

My customers, the ones that didn't get that Sunday paper, weren't happy. I remember thinking that my crash probably ruined my chances for Christmas gifts from my route customers. No chocolate-covered peanuts for me. One of my customers was so mad when I came to collect a few days later that he threw the money at me as I stood in his front door. A quarter thrown with enough velocity does indeed sting.

Back then, I had two choices for delivering papers: walk or ride. On Sunday, I usually rode because stuffing the papers in the rear baskets loaded the bike down instead of me. The Sunday papers, with their extra sections plus the thick, glossy Christmas ads, really bit into my shoulder. So I rode, even though my bike – a coaster-brake Sears and Roebuck with skinny bald tires – wasn't much for winter riding.

Today, 30-some years later, I have a much better bike for winter riding, which is good because my body doesn't react as well as a teenager's to a fall on concrete. These days, we have much better technology to combat winter's severe conditions, so much better that I now have little excuse not to ride through the long dark arctic months. The mountain bike, although it wasn't specifically designed with winter riding in mind, has made riding year-round practical. Its wide, knobby tires, along with its longer wheelbase and lower gears, make it a much better bike than the one I crashed on delivering the Sunday paper.

This winter I'm pedaling an old Gary Fisher Mt. Tam, a 29'er I've slowly built over the years into my winter commuter. In the snow and slush, I prefer the bike's bigger wheels. It may just be psychological but the taller tires seem to go through snow and slush more efficiently than a 26-inch wheel. For winter, I mounted 29-by-2.2 knobbies, going with the widest tires in my stash. These tires have no problem with snow, even when I have to bash through the crusted snowbanks piled up along the sides of the road. I have yet to put on studded tires for the one or two days that I need them.

If the roads are particularly icy, like they are after a freezing rain, I drive my four-wheel drive truck, joining the tin can commuters and feel much safer encased in 2 tons of steel and plastic than I do on an exposed bicycle. My wife razzes me about caving and driving on icy days and says I should walk instead.

Since my commute uses some of the busiest roads in Wausau, Wisconsin, I'd rather be safe than stupid on the few really slippery winter days. It's not that I fear falling or sliding into a telephone pole. I simply don't trust the other drivers, some of whom feel that four-wheel drive, ABS brakes and air bags have rendered them invincible. If my bicycle was my only means of transportation, however, I would definitely look into studded tires.

Last year, I simplified my Fisher, installing a rigid fork and a singlespeed crank so I could run 1-by-9 gearing. The salt and crud coming off the roads wreaks havoc on the bike's drivetrain and rusts the chains and cables. So I went with a single chain ring up front and one less derailleur. I considered putting on disk brakes but decided against it since having that much stopping power on ice and snow would perhaps be a liability rather than an asset. My bike also has removable fenders and bright lights, which are imperative for riding in the winter when the dark nights start late afternoon.

But changes in technology haven't applied only to my bikes. Clothing and accessories have evolved dramatically, too. I already mentioned lights. Old-school lights were either the handlebar-mounted kind that ran weakly for a few hours on AA batteries or the generator types that used a drive wheel that rubbed against the front tire, eating away at the sidewall. After a few rides, the cords in the casing might be exposed from all of the friction.

As a kid, I didn't have Gore-Tex boots, flannel-lined jeans, lobster claw mittens and a balaclava. Or, for that matter, a bicycle helmet. I never thought to wear my Cleveland Browns' football helmet when cycling. I rode in the clothes that I had on, which in winter meant a green Army parka and Sorel boots. Because I was usually cold when I rode, I mostly gave up riding and walked. Once in a while when I was late for school in cold weather, I'd hop on my bike and pedal madly to the schoolhouse. I can still hear the crank arm clanking against the kick stand on every revolution and feel the sting of the cold though my jeans and burning my thighs. I have plenty of good memories from those days, but I don't miss the old technology.

With gas prices dropping precipitously in the past month (it's $2.32 a gallon as I write this), some commuters might be tempted to hang up their bikes in the garage for the winter, the cold and ice and darkness looming larger and more menacing than the price of gasoline. When the temperature drops into the single digits or lower, it's seductively easy to jump in the car and drive. No one would blame us.

For me, though, winter bike commuting isn't entirely about saving money or reducing my carbon output, although those are reasons enough to keep riding all year. Winter riding is also about facing the elements and winning, not letting Old Man Winter win. Maybe that's a macho Jack Londonesque way of approaching the world. Regardless, riding at this time of year makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like a kid again. A kid pedaling a much better bike.

Mark Parman lives in Wausau, Wisconsin, where he teaches English and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County. He bought his first serious bike, a Raleigh Competition, in 1982 and hasn't stopped riding since.

WINTER BREAK

The Bike Library is closed for Winter Break until January 24, 2009.

If you are a patron who needs to return a bike during that time, please email us at iowacitybikelibrary at gmail.com to make arrangements.

Open House and Party

IC BIKE LIBRARY OPEN HOUSE
11.21.08
4:00pm-6:00pm
(short program at 5:15)
408 E College Street

BIKE LIBRARY CELEBRATION
Following the open house
Old Capital Brew Works, 525 S Gilbert St.
6:00pm until completion
Please join us in celebrating the volunteers that have made this project such a great success! Free pizza and conversation!

RSVP: delholland@aol.com