Fresno County Bicycle Coalition

So you wanna be a team captain?

It’s 2010. It will be Spring as soon as this rain stops. And Bike Month is just weeks away! The 2010 Corporate Challenge is scheduled for Bike to Work Day, Wednesday May 19th 2010. It’s time to activate your team!

The Corporate Challenge organizers want to show you some love, so plan to join us at the equally-as-awesome-as-you annual Corporate Challenge Team Captain’s Meeting, which is a go for Wednesday, April 28th at Veni Vidi Vici from 5:30 to 6:30pm.

RSVP at Upcoming.

SFPD Chief sees the streets of San Francisco by bike. Read more, and imagine Chief Dyer on a bike ride with the FCBC!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Bryan, Richard, and Justin, who completed Traffic Skills 101 and earned their certificate. Justin is a bicycle commuter in Clovis who will be able to apply this principles he learned immediately; Bryan and Richard work for the City of Fresno Public Works. Not only are they now more confident vehicular cyclists, but they can authentically represent the needs of cyclists as road users as they design and develop the road infrastructure in the city of Fresno.

---

This will be our second class of the year. Traffic Skills 101 is a course taught be League Cycling Instructors that gives cyclists the confidence they need to ride safely and legally in traffic or on the trail. The course covers bicycle safety checks, fixing a flat, on-bike skills and crash avoidance techniques and includes a student manual. Recommended for adults and children above age fourteen, this fast-paced, nine-hour course prepares cyclists for a full understanding of vehicular cycling.

For more information and instructions on how to sign up, see the League Web site.

Grab your bike and go with Google Maps! Google announced what we’ve been clamoring for for ever so long. You can now specifiy Bicycling as the mode of travel when you search for directions on Google Maps. The map will even show bicycle lanes!

Update:

Congratulations to Dan, Becca, Pete, Michael, Bruce, and Brenda. They all took the Traffic Skills 101 course this past week. They all did a fantastic job in the discussion and the practical components of the class.

Brenda recently began using her bicycle to get to work, and before taking this class, she was nervous riding in the roads, and preferred the sidewalks. Now she understands that she is safer on the street, that bikes belong in traffic, and she has the skills she needs to safely interact with other traffic and to negotiate her route to work with confidence.

TRAFFIC SKILLS 101 – SAFE BIKING IN CALIFORNIA’S GREAT CENTRAL VALLEY

Date: Monday and Wednesday, March 8th and 10th: 1:00 to 5:30pm
Instructor: Louise Colbert-Mar
Location: Fresno, CA 93702
Fee: 25.00

Description: As the League says, “You may know how to ride your bike, but do you know how to drive it?” This course will give you some really good information about how to ride safely in traffic and some practice with bike handling skills. If you just want to improve your cycling skills or you want to take this class as a prerequisite to taking the League Cycling Instructor (LCI) seminar, this is the class for you. It’s fun! It’s informative! It’ll make you a better rider.

For more information and how to sign up, to go the Bike League Web site.

Here’s another great video from Seattle, featuring their mayor commuting to work by bike! Check out the tip at 1:20… even without the white T on the pavement, you can see how to position your bike to trip the red light.

Fresno has many at-grade railroad crossings that present some challenges to area cyclists. Crossing railroad tracks on a bicycle can be dangerous, and I’ve seen cyclists crash. Usually this happens when you do not approach the rails head-on at a 90 degree angle. Your front wheel will slip out from under you and you will go down. Check out this video from Seattle on how they are handling a particularly tricky railroad crossing, and you can learn how to safely cross the Fresno railway crossings.

The monthly general meeting of the Fresno County Bicycle Coalition will take place this Thursday, January 21st. We hope you can join us. Topics of conversation will include:

• Report of Statewide bicycle advocacy at CABO from Nick.
• Report of recent training and Tour de Fresno 2010 plans from the TdF sub-committee.
• Bike to work Month 2010 planning
• Other items

Details of the meeting are as follows:

• When: Thurs, 21st, at 6:30 PM
• Where: Steve & Nancy’s
• What: FCBC Monthly General Meeting
• Why: It’s what we do!
• How: Plenty of bicycle parking inside
• Send email to info at fresnobike.org to RSVP and request location