Re/Creating Tampa » biking

Pinellas Continues to Expand Bike Trails

dave — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:34:59 +0000

At the St. Pete Times Mariana Minaya reports -

“Pinellas County plans to add about 125 miles of bike paths to make the county safer and more economical for cyclists.”

When they’re done, sometime in the next decade, there will be about 200 miles of bike trails in Pinellas County.

Cop Attacks Critical Mass Rider in NYC

dave — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:13:51 +0000

This NYC cop decides to tackle a cyclist riding in a Critical Mass event. Tourist captures it on digital video, posts it for all to see.

There was a Critical Mass event the same night in Tampa.

Bicycling for Burritos

dave — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:47:15 +0000

This Saturday, July 19, the Seminole Heights Bicycle Club will be riding 16 miles to Chipotle for a free burrito. (Actually, it’s 8 miles there and 8 miles back).

“It’s part of Chipotle’s “Le Burrito” promotion because Chipotle has a professional cycling team in the Tour de France this month. We will leave at 10AM from the Garden Center on Central Avenue on July 19.”

See their site for more details.

Green Bike Initiative

dave — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:39:20 +0000

The USF Biking Blog is jealous of St. Pete’s Green Bike Initiative (check your volume at work, some videos launch without prompting).

The Green Bike Initiative about page calls for a Public Utility Bike program, but doesn’t really explain what that means. It’s more clearly explained in this St. Pete Times article.

The article notes -

“Sound familiar? It’s been done in Tampa Bay before. The Tampa Downtown partnership put 50 orange bikes on the street in 1997 and they vanished within a week. Eckerd College has a similar program with their yellow bikes on campus. Most ended up destroyed, abandoned or locked away behind a fence, though the bikes seem to be enjoying more success lately.”

It was also tried as USF a few years ago, though for a class and not through the administration.

The problem, obviously, is that the bikes get stolen. GBI is planning on losing 1,000 a month. But, really, why not just give away a thousand bikes a month and allow the new owners to lock them up?