Columbus Rages, Odwalla Storage, Virtual Petition, Carbon Fiber Bent, etc!!

Our 2nd Annual National Mayors' Ride leaves from Washington DC in *only* 18 days! See
http://www.bikeroute.com/NationalMayorsRide for details.....

A) J Matt gets Odwalla to donate storage for Outdoor Bike Church
B) Quentin's Trike Hauler built from all old bike parts - Too Kewl!
C) Jim Redd Works his Magic on NBG Virtual Petition
D) Calfee Design's Freddy Markham shows me new carbon fiber bent that will be at Fest
E) Lodging Coordinator Needed Now (big title - easy job)
F) De Clarke's Bike Swap Idea! At Fest?
G) Slip Not Eyewear Wants a booth again <http://www.slipnoteyewear.com/>
H) Fred Kirchner to ride Cols to Indy
I) Example of Pocket Mail blog that Andrew Morton is creating
J) Getting Mayors' Ride photos on line
K) Andrew to create photo gallery for NBG images
L) Andrew to create back up system for NationalBicycleGreenway.com
M) Why do I promote bike racing ?
N) East Coast Greenway to be officially inaugurated
O) Human Powered Bus Fun!!

P) JMatt, long an NBG supporter, always on the alert for ways to pitch in with his resources,
stepped up to the plate with an offer to help us get our bikes and bike parts stored for the
Outdoor Bike Church part of next summer's festival. And he found the space at, of all places,
Odwalla Juice Co <http://Odwalla.com>, where he works here in Santa Cruz. Over the years, he has
always made sure that the many events <http://www.bikeroute.com/NBGAccomplishments.html> we have
put put on have included this delicious beverage. J Matt has even found NBG riders coming to
Santa Cruz on the outlying roads with the truck he delivers from and made sure they were
refreshed out there as well. He even picked up and returned the huge sound system we needed for
our Year 2000 send off party from the Lighthouse <http://www.bikeroute.com/NBGLighthouseParty>.

And if making sure that we have storage for what he thinks is room for the equivalent of 50 bikes is
not enough, he thought that since the people at Ped Ex <http://www.pedalexpress.com/santacruz>
already come by to pick up juice for the deliveries they make for local stores, that we may be able
to work something out with them. The added perfection in all of this is the fact that PedEx is
located in the same building as the Bike Church. And what JMatt has suggested was that PedEx
regularly trailer over those bike goods that the Bike Church collects for us when PedEx comes to
pick up juice (once or twice a week). Brilliant!!

Q) Bike Church Quentin uses the trike seen at this link:
http://www.BikeRoute.com/BentImagesFolder/QuentinTrikeCharlesPNGR3-03.jp g to haul really big
loads around town. Here he is pictured with Charles Hannah and his lady pal Emily on my Penninger
trike as he shuttles a couch and digital imaging equipment around for the documentary, "The
Secret Wars of Desert Storm" that he projected on to the parking lot wall outside of the Bike
Church on Friday night. A truly ingenious design, made with only recycled parts, get a load of
this seat: http://www.BikeRoute.com/BentImagesFolder/QuentinTrikeSeat.jpg The rim that you see
underneath the fishing net (the seat) serves as a power assist. It adds arm strength to the leg
steered turning mechanism by being connected to the bike chain that is wrapped around the steer
tube. Here's a close up look:
<http://www.BikeRoute.com/BentImagesFolder/QuentinTrikeSteerg3-03.jpg>.

It is bikes like this that truly show what can be done with what other people consider expendable.
And it is bikes like this that plant the seed for what our NBG Bike Fest attendees can create with
some of the stock we will have on hand as a part of our Outdoor Bike Church!

R) Jim Redd and Joe Zaleski have been in my e-mail box a lot this weekend as we've been road resting
the state-of-the-art interactive data base that Jim has created for us. Almost like pulling a
rabbit out a hat, by actualizing Jody Fitch'es vision of a data base that will let us alert
members when an NBG rider is passing thru their area (among other things, we can use such
inter-activity to help our riders find lodging in friendly homes along the way) or that there is
an NBG regional project that needs their attention, Jim is creating pages that will allow us to
use the strength of our numbers to effect a difference for cyclists. Unlike a lot of the
petitions we see passed around on the web and in email, Jim has also built a way for us to get
actual hard copy signatures, those recognized by government, on to his form. It directs those who
sign on to those NBG business members in their area that have an actual petition that needs their
signed presence.

Once Jim's cutting edge work is complete, we see how we may be able to help other good causes that
want to take advantage of this amazing technology. It can be used to help advance other work that
needs such a people show of force (virtual petitions). I hope you can see the power here -- this is
too exciting!!

S) Lodging coordinator wanted. We need someone to get us a roster of the various lodging
opportunities that exist here in Santa Cruz. Basically what is required is a little phone work
and results tabulation. Who has a few hours to call local hotels and determine the exact rates
that these lodging purveyors will be charging when our bike riders, festival attendees and
exhibitors will have arrived come August 17? We will need Saturday nite rates, weekend prices and
any package deals they might like to make to encourage that our people stay at their facility.
Besides price, address, contact and phone for the hotels, we also need contact and location
information for any of the nearby camping that you turn up. To make your job easy, the Santa Cruz
Visitors Bureau has most all the hotels on line at
<http://www.santacruzca.org/lodg_dine/accsearch.cfm>. Anyone who steps forward to help us out in
this way will be listed at our NBG Donors page <http://www.bikeroute.com/NBGDonors.html> and at
the powerful festival web page that Jim Redd is also creating.

T) Just rode the future of cycling. And it was without question one of the sweetest, fastest
experiences i have ever had on a bicycle. And it took place on a recumbent bicycle built by the
revered carbon fiber giant, Calfee Design of right here in Santa Cruz, CA. And if the fact that
their bikes have won the Tour de France and count themselves among Greg Lemond's favorite such
machines doesn't impress you, maybe Fast Freddy Markham's involvement will.

Fast Freddy <http://www.santa-cruz.com/archive/2001/December/08/sport/stories/01spor
U.htm>, the first man to top 65 miles an hour on a bike and the holder of too many speed records to
list, is the reason this bike even exists. Back in 1994 when Craig Calfee got his very first web
site on line with me, I was asking him to build a carbon fiber recumbent. And yet over the years
he has always said he couldn't do such a bike because he lacked an understanding of the finer
points of how those machines were engineered. Enter Freddy Markham. When Freddy, also local to
Santa Cruz, left Easy Racers, he and Craig started talking. And as such the Calfee Stiletto has
Freddy's signature stamped all over it. I mean this bike is so quick, I was easily going probably
30 miles an hour before I even knew it. And with SPD"s that didn't match the pedals on the bike
(in a hurry, I didn't feel like taking the time to switch). And on a machine under which the bumps
and chuckholes and any road debris I found melted into nothing. Whoaaaa.......

Essentially this bike is a carbon fiber Easy Racer Gold Rush rebuilt according to all the changes
that Freddy has always wanted to make with the machine he has set innumerable records on. Here is a
picture of the prototype <http://www.BikeRoute.com/BentImagesFolder/CalfeeStiletto3-03.jpg> and here
is a photo of the steering configuration
<http://www.BikeRoute.com/BentImagesFolder/CalfeeProtoSteer3-03.jpg> and yet if you want to see for
yourself all the tiny little tweaks he has made as well as talk to Fast (as they call him at Calfee)
about the bike, you've got to come to our Festival. Both the all new Calfeee Stiletto and Freddy
Markham will be at the the August 17 Santa Cruz NBG Bike Fest !!

V) De Clark, from the local Santa Cruz Bikes mail list tuned in with the following idea when she saw
my request for storage space for the Outdoor Bike Church that we will be holding at our Festival:

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speaking of good causes and bike parts, I'd like to revive the notion of a "Bike Community Swap
Meet". last year I was travelling on business a lot during spring, summer, and early Fall and could
not put any time into this idea. but this year I'm pretty much staying in town.

a swap meet could be

W) just a regular swap meet (any old kind of stuff for sale) except that it is organised through
this list, bike stores, and the Hub, and is meant as a social/community event for local cyclists
as well as a swap meet.

X) a specifically bike-related swap meet to which you can only bring bike parts, accessories, tools,
used bikes, etc.

Y) either of the above, for charity (i.e. attendees pay a fee for a booth/space and this fee
benefits e.g. the Hub or Bike Church -- or some/all proceed go to e.g. the Hub or Bike Church)

in any case, I think the one hard and fast rule should be that everything has to arrive by bike (or
bike+trailer)! this would be a great illustration of what you can haul using bikes -- I can imagine
some photo-ops for the local papers -- and besides it's just too disheartening to imagine a "bike
swap meet" where everyone drives their cars to attend!
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Already bicycle Renaissance Man, Jim Langley <http://jimlangley.net> has tuned in to say that he
thinks such a swap could be a real winner and pointed to the fact that Velo Swap
<http://www.veloswap.com> has had so much success in Colorado that they are soon coming to
California. As well, he has stated that he'd be interested in helping in some capacity. As this
"goes to press", we have not heard from De since she made her original post, but I will notify you
if any of the above bears fruit!!

Z) Kevin Johnson, entrepreneurial inventor of the Slip Not <http://www.slipnoteyewear.com> brand of
sunglasses says he's looking forward to having a booth again at our next summer's festival. And I
wear his sunglasses every day, rain or shine. What I love about them is that no matter how fast I
turn my head or bump up and down on bad road surfaces or the occasional dirt path I may find
myself on, they still feel like my eyes, they always stay in position. And every few months, if
at all I'm reminded that I have glasses on, I snug them up with the little drawstring that keeps
them affixed to my head. I also use the miniature buckle on the drawstring to fasten them to my
fairing mount (like the handlebars of a regular bike) or purse handles should I need a place to
store them when I am out on the road. Too Kewl!

Z) Jeff Stephens is going to really put Columbus on the map this year. Not only is he going to be
riding there with Car Free cyclist, David Huggins-Danes and a lot of Jeff's cyclist friends, but
he found us another Columbus bike activist who will carry the torch to Indianapolis. Fred
Kirchner, a member of the Central Ohio Bicycle Advocacy Coalition and Columbus Outdoor Pursuits.
<www.outdoor-pursuits.org>, replied with the following message when I asked him if I could
announce that we had a Columbus to Indianapolis rider:

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You may indeed announce that I will be riding the Columbus to Indianapolis leg of the Mayor's Ride!
I'm very excited to be included in this massive undertaking! [..........]
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Wow, now with all this fire power in Columbus added to everyone who is coming back from last year,
and it looks like they'll all be there from <http://www.bikeroute.com/SCNBGFest/ColumbusRecep.html>,
now we gotta see if Indianapolis has a bicycle there there. Maybe Mike McDowell has some trix up his
sleeve. We've gotta work extra hard on Indianapolis because they will all be car crazy up there with
their Indy 500 motor speedway races held right at the time we will have arrived .

Z) If you go to <http://www.travelingdan.com>, you can see the web blog that Andrew Morton has up
for his friend Dan Miller who is riding his bike down the Pacific Coast on his way to Burning
Man <http://www.burningman.com> in Nevada and then to Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado before
returning to Portland. Dan is using his Pocket Mailer to let his mailing list of people know
what he is doing. The reports you will see there were input directly from the road and that is
what Andrew is setting up for our riders!! If you want to see some of the build up Dan did for
this ride, including his becoming Car Free, take a look at the archives you see listed in the
right panel.

Z) Also in the right panel at Dan's blog above is a gallery of photos. Many of these are in fairly
real time as they were taken from the road by Dan with his digital camera. Andrew tells me that
we can put the pictures our riders take on line if they have a digital camera and an extra memory
card that they want to to send to us that has the pictures on it. We can also get them on line
once their relay leg is complete if they want to send them to us as e-mail attachments or for
that matter from the road if they have a friend with a computer who wants to download the the
little piece of software that is needed. If you want to see the awesome web blog Andrew has at
his own site <http://drewish.com/blogger>, click on any of the photo captions you see in the
right panel.

Z) Andrew Morton and I talked Sunday morning. Among the many great things we talked about, he told
me that he will create a photo gallery at NationalBicycleGreenway.com that I can use to catalog
all of the NBG people and other images I have scattered all over my computer since we got on line
in 1993!! This is exciting because the web gallery he will create like the one he did for Dan
Miller above and will do for our Mayors' Ride will not require any hand work besides uploading
the image. Images won't have to be resized or other wise futzed around with. I've never done this
before because of the time such an undertaking would require. Wow what a great shortcut!!

Z) Andrew also said that he is going to see if he can get us some kind of back up system so that all
the great work that is being done at NationalBicycleGreenway.com is not lost. He felt addr.com
might be doing their own back ups but in order to make sure there are not any holes........

Z) In here, you have seen mew talk about bike racing. Why am I promoting bike racing when I am
trying to make cycling safe for transportation? Well, over and beyond the simple fact that
anything about bicycles merits my attention, a lot is involved before a bike race ever hits the
city streets. The permit process itself requires a lot of close work with city officials as well
as law enforcement. And it doesn't stop once the papers are filed and then accepted. This
relationship doesn't end until the last lap is completed and all of the racing infrastructure
(the trucks, barricades, loudspeakers, and signs, etc) goes away until the planning process
begins for the next year and the year after, etc. All of this has the effect of education whereby
local government learns about our special needs and we learn about theirs. And in such a way,
both a rapport and a mutual respect for one another's efforts is made all the more greater.

Z)  The East Coast Greenway will be officially inaugurated in a gala event on the National Mall in
Washington, DC this June 5. Invited participants will include Members of Congress, Cabinet
Secretaries, and hopefully the President himself. See http://www.greenway.org

Z) Check out this bike powered bus that Andrew Morton found on the web:

http://www.ds.arch.tue.nl/General/Staff/sverker/HPbus/HPbus.htm

Wow, what a fun way to speak to our fuel dependency.

If youi want to know what the signs say, NBG volunteer, Marielle Stoelinga, from Holland, offers
this explanation:

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It says: "9th lustrum of the WSV simon stevin"

* lustrum is a latin word (and also exists in English) for a 5 year period; thus, these guys are
celebrating the 45th anniversary of WSV.

* WSV stands for (I had to click on the link) werktuigkundige studie vereniging that is association
for students in mechanical engineering.

* Simon Stevin is a famous dutch mathematician and mechanical engineer who lived 1548 - 1620, see
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Stevin.html

It is a cool picture! The university is actually in my home town!

cheers, Marielle
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Onward NBGmeisters -- Can U feel the power!

Yahooooo!!!!

To see the News on line, go to:

http://www.BikeRoute.com/MayorFestNews/4-14-03.html

THX 4 U!!

MARTIN KRIEG: "Awake Again" Author c/o BikeRoute.com 79 & 86 TransAms, nonprofit Nat. Bicycle
Greenway CEO

Ever wanted anything so bad U were willing to die for it? Really die? By moving thru clinical death
and reversing paralysis, *I saw God* when I answered that question.