Bike to Work Week Fall 2011 is almost here! If you have participated in this event before, you know how much fun it can be; if you haven’t, then this is your chance to get involved.
 
This year’s Fall Bike to Work Week runs from October 31st to November 6th, and here are some of the things that will be going on:
 
Log your commutes for the chance to win great prizes
 
• Go to http://www.biketoworkmetrovan.ca/

Everyone who logs even one commute during BTWW is entered into a draw to win fantastic prizes, including a brand-new bike.
 
Visit a commuter station
 
There will be commuter stations set up on popular bike routes across the city. Stop by for coffee, breakfast, giveaways, and a chance to get a tuneup from a bike mechanic. More details here:
 
http://www.biketoworkmetrovan.ca/commuter-stations-map
 
And more....
 
“Halloween Commute” on the 31st. Dress up your bike and yourself to win prizes!  Watch this space for more information.
 
Questions? Pedal Pushers have tons of experience riding all year round. Ask us about staying visible and keeping warm and dry.
 
Phil Hall
Bike to Work Week Team Leader
On behalf of the Pedal Pushers

Kay and Jodi in the starting corral

Following on from Jodi’s successful completion of the 2010 RBC GranFondo Whistler, she and fellow Pedal Pusher Kay Cahill set out on a beautiful sunny Saturday in the Okanagan to ride in the inaugural RBC GranFondo Kelowna. The 115km route wound its way along the shore of Okanagan Lake, up the punishing climb to Predator Ridge, through Vernon and then back through the rolling hills of Lake Country to the finish line in Kelowna. Kay and Jodi both completed the ride successfully, and are now preparing for their next long-distance ride to Whistler in September.

A full description of the ride with accompanying photos is available at Kay’s blog.

Anyone who is interested in joining Jodi and Kay for training rides can contact them at kay dot cahill at vpl.ca or jodi dot caddick at vpl.ca. Not all of them are 115km long.

Phil with his trusty Brompton

Some of you may have heard that I’m going to Denmark and Germany in a few days to participate in the Cycling for Libraries Unconference: a bicycle ride from Copenhagen to Berlin.

Cycling for libraries is a politically and economically independent international unconference and a bicycle tour from Copenhagen, Denmark to Berlin, Germany. The purpose of the Cycling for Libraries mobile conference is to gather a group of 100 library professionals from all around the world together to cycle a total of approximately 650 kilometers and to discuss the strategic issues of the library field in seminars along the route.

What you might not know is that I’m going to take a folding bicycle in my luggage and ride that bicycle for the whole ride. This is a fact that surprises a lot of people when I tell them. Frankly, some people are more than surprised, they are alarmed. I guess they feel I would be jeopardizing my chances of enjoying myself if I don’t have the best bike possible. I think this is a common reaction to cycling in
Vancouver. We are conditioned to think that we have to have the best bike possible or we can’t do it.

The brompton is light, comfortable, and reliable. I’ve had it for 14 years and ridden many miles on it. It’s quite familiar. Those are all things that count more than just whether it’s the lightest, fastest, or latest style of bike.

The ride is quite flat. Its highest point is barely higher than my house which I ride to everyday. The ride is also well supported, so I don’t have to carry my luggage, and it’s well designed with easy early stages so we can all ease into it.

Essentially, there’s no reason to expect that, if I can’t do it on this bike, I can do it on some other bike. The irony is that I have a very high-quality racing bike that I ride on Sundays. It’s call a Litespeed Tuscany and is made out of light-weight titanium. It has a 10-speed rear derailleur and is a joy to ride. However, now that I’m training for distances on the Brompton, I’m timing my rides and it’s turning out that the Brompton is only about 10% slower than the Litespeed. I think I’m learning a lesson that I’ve learned before and that we all tend to forget; Riding is mostly about attitude, and only a little bit about the bike. Even though I enjoy dressing up in “Roadie” riding gear and riding my fast racy bike, I’m really only gaining a marginal advantage over suitable (but ordinary) clothes and riding a regular bike.

So, I’m sure I’m going to have great fun riding my folding bike and talking about libraries, and I won’t miss my racing bike at all.

Phil Hall

Some related links:

• Phil’s Blog: Phil Hall.ca: Information, Libraries & the Web
• From the Cycling for Libraries website: Phil’s homework: starting now to imagine the library in 100 years

The Pedal Pushers cycling committee is pleased to announce that Phil Hall will be participating in the first ever Cycling For Libraries Unconference. Cycling for Libraries is an international and independent “unconference” in the shape of a bicycle tour starting from Copenhagen and ending in Berlin (650 km) May 28 – June 6, 2011. The purpose is to gather a group of library professionals from around the world and cycle approximately 650 km, and on the way, discuss strategic issues in the library field. The ride starts at the Danish National Library courtyard in Copenhagen, and it ends at the 100th Deutsche Bibliothekartag! (The German Library Conference in Berlin). It is a unique and exciting opportunity to enhance the visibility of libraries while participating in a professional conference.

Some of the themes for the unconference are: communicating to customers; extending knowledge and skills, what the library can offer to the community; library as a public place; mobile libraries, library lovers’ best practices, how to communicate with library users; open your data; the future of libraries; and much more.

In order to support Phil’s participation in this exciting event, the Pedal Pushers are fundraising to help out with his expenses.

Interested VPL staff and management can support our Cycling for Libraries emissary by:

• Attending our bake sale/info session at Central in the staff lounge on Tuesday, May 10th from 12 to 2—come and eat delicious homemade treats and ask Phil all about the unconference.
• Buying a 50/50 ticket. At Central, ticket sales will begin on the evening of May 6th at Cabaret 391, and sales will be ongoing with spontaneous workroom visits by Pedal Pushers until noon on Tuesday, May 24th when we will draw a winner! If you work in any of the branches, members of the Pedal Pushers will be cycling to all of the branches in an epic bike ride to sell 50/50 tickets on Saturday, May 21st. Tickets will be $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00.

If you miss any of these opportunities, please feel free to email Dana.Putnam (at) vpl.ca to buy your 50/50 tickets (after May 6th but before noon on May 24th!).

The Pedal Pushers are excited about Phil’s participation in the inaugural Cycling for Libraries unconference as it is sure to be a very fruitful international library conference for library lovers who also happen to love to ride bikes. We all wish we could go too!

~ The Pedal Pushers
pedalpushers (at) vpl.ca

Great strides have been made to our cycling infrastructure in the past year:

• In addition to the separated bicycle lanes on the Burrard Bridge, there are now separated lanes that create a connected route through the Downtown core along Dunsmuir Street and Hornby Street.
• To improve comfort and safety the City has also installed some trial bike-permeable barriers on popular cycling routes such as on 41st Avenue at the Ontario Bikeway and on King Edward Avenue at the Heather Bikeway.
• New bike routes include the Valley Bikeway (from Trafalgar Street at Cornwall Avenue to Valley Drive at 33rd Avenue) and the 29th Avenue Bikeway (Pacific Spirit Park to Midlothian Avenue at Ontario Street). New bike lanes include Kerr Street (E 49th Avenue to E Kent Avenue) and E 22nd Avenue (Nanaimo Street to Renfrew Street).

To stay up-to-date on these and other bicycle-related developments in Vancouver, check out the Bike Vancouver website.

A pocket-sized map showing the bicycle routes in the city is available at City Hall, by calling the Bicycle Hotline at 311 or by email at . Maps are also available at Vancouver libraries, community centres and some bicycle stores. Download the map here (PDF document 6.69 MB).

Velo-City Conference Series
In 2012, the City of Vancouver will host the the Velo-City Conference Series, an international cycling planning conference. This four-day event (June 24-29, 2012) is designed to encourage cycling as part of daily transport and recreation. The Velo-city Global 2012 Conference Blog will post articles, have informal short polls and announce contests for conference registrants who visit the blog. This is a good place for information while the official conference website is still under development.

“Velo-city conferences bring together those in involved in policy, promotion and provision of cycling facilities and programs.  Engineers, planners, architects, social marketers, academic researchers, environmentalists and industry representatives join forces with government at all levels ranging from municipal politicians, policy makers and educators in knowledge sharing and building effective trans-national partnerships to deliver benefits worldwide.” From the Velo-City Global 2012 Conference Blog

Upcoming Events
We’re excited about the upcoming cycling season and getting a head start on some of these events. Some of the websites have yet to update their pages from last year, so check back as their respective dates approach for more up-to-date information:

• Bike the Blossoms - Saturday, April 16 - 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m - presented by the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival and Velopalooza
• Bike to Work Week (BTWW) - May 30-June 5, 2011 - sign up and track your commutes for chances to win prizes and compete against other teams. Visit a celebration station during the week and get free refreshments, free mechanical services, and enter draws for prizes!
• June is Bike Month - BIKE MONTH is about fun, activity, and getting out and riding! Check out the staggering number of fun BIKE MONTH events and cycling tips on this website. 
• Velopalooza 2011 - June 3 to June 19, 2011 - Velopalooza is 17 days of bike fun. With 32 events, most organized by individuals, bikers of all persuasions are likely to find many events of interest. Nearly all events are free.

We simply can’t list all the great rides in Vancouver and British Columbia. Here is a site that lists a number of rides around B.C.:

• Bike Events in British Columbia (Canada Trails)