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Friday, August 27, 2010

Good bye, Cortney, We Will Miss You

 This Friday for Breakfast on the Bridge we had a littlest biker to come.  This is Henry. He is a little camera shy.  And he was busy.  
He stopped long enough to have some juice and muffin and then he was off again.


This weeks Breakfast was saying Good bye to Cortney, our Beautiful, Biking Ballerina.

 She is leaving us to go to Eugene, Oregon to study transportation. Yay, a biker getting into transportation planning!!!  Yay, Cortney is following her passion, to the eventual benefit for us all!!!   Boo, Cortney has to leave us. Eugene's gain is definately our loss.
In Cortney's short time here she was a strong force in coelising the biking community here. She started the Brews Cruise
She planned and led the our Jane's Roll Event, 3 Hoods, 3 Rides.  She is repeating this event for the  ProWalk ProBike convention next month (we are getting a bit of reprieve when she returns to do this)
And of course, it was just seeing Cortney in her classy presence on a bike.

She was serious about bike riding (and you should see the hill she lived on.  In this city of hills, in the part of town that is called Hill City, she had a heck of a hill to go up.  I would show a picture, except going up that hill, I was never able to think of taking a picture.).

  Yes, we will miss her, and we are hoping for her return.  Best Wishes, Cortney.  Come back to lead us on more bike advenures!



Friday, August 20, 2010

A View of Chattanooga.

  I am always fascinated by the impressions that visitors have of Chattanooga, and the impression of cycling visitors is of special interest to me.  I have written before the visit of Laura and Russ of PathLessPedaled.  They are the couple who gave up life as they know it to live on the road-the road on bicycles that is.

   Laura wrote yesterday of their impressions of Chattanooga:



    We found Chattanooga to be a really wonderful city with a “small town” feel. It’s an active city, with a city-sponsored focus on how many amazing outdoor activities are nearby. And it’s fairly easy to get around on a bicycle, as there are a lot of low-traffic side streets and a beautiful greenway that runs for many miles out of the city.
     Of course, when people say that Chattanooga is a “working” town, they’re absolutely correct, and this distinction colors everything that happens in the city. You spend time in Chattanooga and you can feel the work ethic that runs through the veins of the city. Even with all the recent progressive changes, it’s a definite Southern, old-money, conservative place (with a long history as such). But it’s also a city that’s not afraid to get its hands dirty, and Chattanooga has put itself to work transforming itself from the most polluted city in American to a gem of an outdoor recreation destination (Chattanooga is host to the highly successful Head of the Hooch Regatta, which now rivals the Head of the Charles).

  It sounds like they got a good impression of Chattanooga and got the nail on the head. But she framed this impression around another impression that we are envious of Asheville.  That caught me by surprise, and by the talk around here, it caught a lot of us by surprise.  Asheville?  I can't say that we talk about Asheville often and as far as I know, it is all positive.  A getaway to Asheville is considered a nice thing indeed.  But wanting to BE Asheville.  I don't think so.  We do talk about become the Boulder of the East, but as far as I can tell, it has not been expressed that we are trying to be Asheville.  Jim Johnson posted a wonderful reply to that impression.  Mostly, I think we are fashioning ourselves with waht we have-a unique mixture of southern conservatism and progressiveness.  We are following our own path into the future.  We might take our clues at times from other cities but the expression is always our own.  So much so, I know that other cities come to study how Chattanooga has done what it has done and how to emulate it. 

  But over all, I think Laura and Russ enjoyed their time here and we enjoyed having them.  They are getting to a lot of towns and I am sure they have learned how to read them. I find reading about their observations and experiences immensely interesting. I am glad we were part of it.

    To read their compete post go here

Breakfast on the Bridge Friday



It was a beautiful day for Breakfast on the Bridge today.  The air had a hint of chill to it.  How long has it been since that has happened?  Is our long hot summer drawing to a close?  The beautiful weather brought out  lots of bikes and people to enjoy the walking bridge and breakfast.

   The view was exceptional this morning.  The reflection of the Market Street Bridge  was clear and sharp upon the smooth as glass  river .
     And there was an interesting cloud formation over Lookout Mountain. Keith, a breakfast attendee, identified it as a lenticular cloud formation.  Lenticular clouds are called that because they are shaped like a lens.  It is theorized that many UFOs  sightings are actually lenticular cloud formations. 

What a treat to be in a spot to take notice of such things.  Thanks, Keith, for pointing me into the direction of more information.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Moving Lisa by Bike


  When Q heard that Lisa needed to move to a new apartment, he was immediately inspired to offer to move her by bike.  But who could blame her for being dubious?  Q convinced her he could pull it off, but then he had to convince others to join his moving crew.  It was, as our Lady Jane friend called, a hard sell.  But I have written before how stubborn Q can be and eventually he had rounded up a crew of 5 movers, strong riders all with trailers.  These movers found that saying no to Q wasn't an option!

  So early Saturday morning, in the fruitless effort to avoid the heat, they gathered and  moved.  This was the ideal bike move-the distance between the two places was only about a mile and a half, there didn't seem to be any hills (but of course on a heavily loaded bicycle, the hills appeared!) and while there were big items, the over all amount was modest.  It took five movers three trips to do it all.

  Watch the slideshow to see the fun!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Breakfast on the Bridge Goes To the Dogs!

Last week the Walnut Street Bridge was opened to the dogs.  It has been opened before but the failure of dog owners to pick up after their dogs and to keep them under control resulted them getting banned.  But local dog lovers have been working hard in educating dog owners and working with city officials, so it was decided to give it a try again.
So for Breakfast on the Bridge we had several dog visitors.  Next week we will have doggie treats to hand out and bowls for water.  We don't want to leave anyone out!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Yelled At-By a Cop!

  I was riding to my weekly Pilates lesson out towards Lee Highway ( have writtean about this bike route here) and I was emerging from the Wilcox Blvd. Tunnel, I heard a "Get off the Road!"  A familiar enough, sad to say, yell.  But I looked over to the oncoming traffic lane to see who was yelling and discovered it was a police officer in his official police car.

  I am used to being yelled at but I was taken aback that a cop would do the yelling.  We have cops on bicycles, for goodness sakes!  But this was a little out of the city center and I was coming out of the Wilcox Tunnel.  As I have said before,  cyclists are a rare sight out there and the environment is not extremely bike friendly, but that is no excuse for the officer to yell at me.  I was totally within the law.
wil
   It is disappointing, when trying to advance  the acceptance of bikes, a city official acts in such a way.  I didn't get a chance to identify who he was, otherwise I would make a complaint.  Who knows if the other drivers  around heard him.  How many will be taking their cues from hearing that cop yelling at me to get off the road?