Madison Bikes

Cranksgiving at the Capitol

As many of us gather with family and reflect on the things for which we give thanks, we want to take a moment to thank YOU for supporting us. We are an all-volunteer organization, so we depend on your members and friends to do the work we do: contact elected officials, write blog posts and on Facebook, help us with events, show up at meetings, and yes, donate to us as well. We couldn’t do it without you!

The past week

The Cap City Trail is back open after some upgrades and repair work. Flooding took a toll on the trail, especially where it crosses streams and passes through storm water areas. You will notice some dramatic changes in a couple of places, but the trail should hold up better in the future.

The Cranksgiving ride collected tons of food to donate the Goodman Community Center for the Thanksgiving baskets they make for families that can’t afford a good dinner. I ran into the ride up at the Capitol, and I was very proud of our dedicated bike community. But the Goodman Center is still taking additional donations through Monday, so it you can help, I’m sure they would be grateful.

The BCycles have gone into hibernation for the winter. They will be back March 15.

Correction: BCycles will still be around until December 14. They will then return March 15. Apologies for the mistake.

E-bikes are officially legal in Wisconsin, although municipalities can ban them from paths. If you have strong feelings, feel free to contact your alder.

This week

There isn’t much going on this week, given Thanksgiving on Thursday and all. We had a little reprieve from our early winter this past week, and lots of people were out biking. But true winter is on the way, and while we still don’t know what the predicted winter storm will bring, but it looks like it will be messy and nasty. If you are biking to a yummy dinner (or driving, walking, or taking the bus), be careful out there.

Monday

The Madison Bikes Community Meeting will meet at 6:00 pm at Bendy Works, 106 E Doty St, 2^nd floor. This is the meeting where we invite all our volunteers, or those who are just interested in helping, to meet with us and discuss upcoming projects. We will be talking about what types of activities we want to hold this winter and various advocacy issues.

Also on Monday, Bike Fitchburg hold its monthly meeting, 6:30 pm at the Fitchburg Public Library, 5530 Lacy Rd.

You can learn more about Madison Freewheel on the WORT Access Hour at 7:00 pm. Tune in to the Access Hour in the Madison area on 89.9 FM, or livestream anywhere in the world via http://www.wortfm.org. Learn more about the Madison Bike Center soon to open in the Judge Doyle Square Building downtown. You can also learn about Freewheel’s charitable work and how to use their facilities and support their mission of free bike access for everyone.

Saturday

Celebrate the release of the Trek Midwest Beer. Joy the fun with a 24 mile bike ride around Madison to celebrate the great Cross season. Bring your friends! Ride will LEAVE Cafe Domestique at 9 am, ending at Working Draft for the tapping of Trek Midwest Beer. Route: https://www.strava.com/routes/22276945 (Seminole Trails will not happen if the trails are closed). Cafe Domestique will graciously be providing pre-ride coffee and doughnuts!

Path Clearing under Verona Road. (Photo by City of Madison Engineering.)

At Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, the Council adopted an Operating Budget that funds snow and ice clearing for Madison’s arterial shared use paths within 12 hours of a winter weather event! Previously there were only funds to keep the paths cleared on weekdays and non-holidays. This is a major victory for biking and walking in Madison. It will prevent some of the major issues with clearing paths on Monday after a Friday snow where a weekend’s worth of walking and biking compacts snow and creates dangerous, icy patches that cannot easily be removed. This will also help keep the paths clear for commuters whose job schedules don’t revolve around a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule.

Also in the budget: $350K towards the implementation of Vision Zero/Traffic Safety. Introduced as an amendment by Alder Grant Foster, all council members signed on as co-sponsors and the amendment passed unanimously. The money will be available to do safety enhancements to some of our city’s most dangerous intersections and corridors in the coming year. Vision Zero, which aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries, will be a larger process, but it’s great that we have some money available to kickstart it.

Thanks to everyone who emailed their alder in support of this vital path maintenance!

The Monona Terrace Bike Elevator is down! @MononaTerrace reported on Tuesday that the Bike Elevator has suffered a breakdown. At this time it is believed the bike elevator will be operational some time this week after substantial repairs are made.

This Week

Monday, November 18,

The monthly Madison Bikes Board Meeting will be held at 6:00 PM in the first floor conference room of Madison’s Central Library.

Tuesday, November 19,

At 7:00 PM in the Discovery Building on the corner of Randall and University, the Crossroads of Ideas: How Can We Move Forward on Wisconsin Transportation? lecture will discuss the future of transportation in Wisconsin. The lecture will be in the H. F. Deluca Forum. The lecture will be held by several local transportation officials including Madison Bikes Board Member Robbie Webber and City of Madison Traffic Engineer Yang Tao. This event is free to attend, but registration is requested. Learn more about this event on the Facebook Events page.

Wednesday, November 20,

The Transportation Commission is meeting at 5:00 PM in Room 215 of the Madison Municipal Building at 215 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. The Transportation Commission will be reviewing the Third Quarter Traffic Safety Report by Madison Police and the City Engineering’s 2020 Projects among other items. You can read the full agenda here.

At 6:45 PM Slow Roll Cycles at 4118 Monona Drive, near the intersection with Buckeye Road, will be hosting a Suspension 101 class. The class will cover basic suspension theory and basic set up and maintenance. You can read more about this class on their Facebook Events page.

Saturday, November 23,

Join Revolution Cycles and Trek at the Trek HQ in Waterloo at 9:00 AM for the 2019 Wisconsin State Cyclocross Championships! Learn more about the event on their Facebook Events page.

Sunday, November 24,

At 10:00 AM join Bombay Bicycle Club for the Bombay Freezaroo Ride. The ride is 26 miles round trip with a coffee stop at the half-way point in Cross Plains. The ride starts at Garner Park on Madison’s west side. The event has a Facebook Events page you can follow..

As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.

Just before it got really, really cold, the 9th edition of the Winter Bike Fashion Show took place on November 2. With record attendance of 125 people, we had a successful event. An edutainment event in the best sense, twelve people from the community who already bike in the winter, shared their knowledge and showed off their outfits to those who aren’t yet riding in the winter. Our awesome photography crew — Dan Stout and Mark Renner — produced these great shots of the event. Still to come: video of the Q&A for those who couldn’t make it.

Thanks to our models, event volunteers, Natalie Kuehn for designing the flyer, the High Noon Saloon for hosting us, Teddywedgers for feeding us pasties, and the local businesses who donated door prizes: Bloom Bake Shop, Cafe Domestique, The Cargo Bike Shop, EVP Coffee, Fitchburg Cycles, Planet Bike, Slow Roll Cycles, and Saris.

For lots more pictures, check out Dan’s or Mark’s full albums.

Brittingham Boats and Planet Bike let us borrow their bike racks. Subtle hint to the High Noon Saloon: You need more racks! (Photo: Dan Stout)

Gina, one of our great volunteers at the event (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our board member Baltazar introducing the MC. He had also led a group ride to the Show from Monona Terrace.

Our MC for the night, Luis LuckyVoy Martinez, and our board member Liz (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our first model, Eric, who works at Freewheel Community Bike Shop and will soon hold his own winter biking workshop there. When it’s really cold, he resorts to wearing a motorcycle helmet (Photo: Dan Stout)

Terry is in her 60s and has been car-free for many years. She bikes year-round. (Photo: Dan Stout)

We were super excited to have Yang Tao as a model. When he’s not on stage as a model, he’s Madison City Traffic Engineer. He’s been winter-biking in Madison for 16 years! (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our board member Elysha and her daughter Abby are veterans of the Winter Bike Fashion Show. Watch out for them when they ride around all winter in their family cargo bike or on their own single bikes.

Tim–uh, I mean “Yukon Cornelius” riding in on his sled! (Photo: Mark Renner)

Alder Grant Foster (District 15) and our board member Pete informing attendees about a city budget amendment that would expand snow and ice clearing from 5 to 7 days a week. (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our photo booth had great accessories: Snotcicles, ice beard, foggy glasses (Photo: Dan Stout)

Photo: Dan Stout

Beth and her winter commuter bike. She bikes from the east side to her job on the west side, and she “refuses to let weather determine my happiness” (Photo: Dan Stout)

Caleb’s secret weapon for winter biking: Electric gloves! (Photo: Dan Stout)

One model, Nick, failed to wear his winter biking outfit! Or did he? No, in his velomobile he is protected from the elements and can get away with just wearing a sweater. (Photo: Dan Stout)

Winter biking can (but doesn’t have to be) expensive. Carlton talks about how as a grad student on a limited budget he slowly accumulated and refined his gear over time.

Heather and her three kids (who were slightly distracted by the velomobile…)

When Andy isn’t busy running his bike shop in Lake Mills or Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison, he does recreational rides, no matter the season.

Michael has been doing the winter bike thing since the 1990s. Not only does he ride for transportation; he also has participated in exploits like the Triple-D, a 70-mile offroad bike race in Iowa in the depths of winter.

Q&A with the models. I believe the question was how to deal with snot…

Renowned local artists Jenn and Nicole had painted bike-themed winter scenes that helped us raise over $300 in the silent auction.

Let’s end with some pics of the audience and more volunteers:

Happy Winter Biking!

Last Week

The Capital City Trail paving wrapped up but the bridge at Longford Terrace is still out.

Winter Bike Fashion Show was a success! We are very thankful to everyone who helped make it happen, the volunteers, models, and everyone who came to watch. Check out the wonderful coverage we were given by Channel 3.

This Week

Monday

Blair Street Public Information Meeting – Blair Street is scheduled for reconstruction from John Nolen Drive to East Washington in 2022. The City of Madison is working jointly with the State Department of Transportation on design and construction of the project. The project will include safety improvements at the Wilson Street/Williamson Street intersection as well as pavement replacement of Blair St from Wilson/Williamson to East Washington and E Washington from Blair Street to Blount Street. The public is invited a public information meeting scheduled for 6:30-8:30 p.m., Nov. 4, Madison Municipal Building Room 153, 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Madison. At this meeting, engineers and project managers will talk about the details and plans for the intersection and pavement replacement projects. A more specific timeline of work will also be shared. There will be an opportunity to ask the project managers and engineers questions about the project, and the public is encouraged to attend.

Wednesday

Yoga for Cyclists will be at Trek on the West side from 6 pm to 7 pm. If you can pedal, you can Padmasana. Join yoga instructor Hope Henley for an evening focused on cycling-specific stretches and mind/body wellness. There will be a $10 fee to join the class, and they’ll cap the class at 40 people, so be sure to sign up in advance. This class is BYOM, so bring your own mat. Namaste!

Madison Area Transportation Planning Board Meeting 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. There will be a discussion of Transportation Alternatives Program Priorities and Downtown BRT Routing Introduction . An overview of the options is available here. The whole agenda can be found here.

Saturday

As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.

Our board member Pepe and two of our volunteer models for the Winter Bike Fashion made an appearance on local radio station WORT this morning. If you missed it, you can listen to the segment here (if the embedded player doesn’t appear, try this link:

We hope to see you and your friends this Saturday at the High Noon Saloon! You can get a preview of some of our models on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MadisonBikes/posts/

This past week

The county has been repaving the Cap City Trail from Seminole Highway to Fish Hatchery Rd, and one of the more dramatic changes will be smoothing out the S-curve just west of Fish Hatchery. The steep hill and S-curve at the bottom has caught more than one bicyclist off guard. There is a lot of tree loss, but the path should be safer for everyone.

In case you missed our post on Saturday, we went through some of the frequently asked questions about the wheel tax. Check it out here.

Even though the Council will not formally take up the city budget until Nov 12, there are other meetings and decisions that precede the Council meeting(s). The Finance Committee met this past week to decide which alder amendments to the budget should be forwarded to the full council. There were three besides the wheel tax that we were watching. Funding for weekend maintenance of the paths during the winter passed. Additional funding for crosswalk painting also passed. However, funding to make improvements at several intersections with high crash rates did not get the OK from the Finance Committee.

The week ahead

Plenty of detours to keep track of. The Campus Dr Path east of the Vet School is supposed to close soon and stay closed until March, although it was still open as of Friday. A part of the SW Path northeast of Midvale is supposed to be closed starting Monday morning. Also, work on the Yahara River Path under Johnson is supposed to start on Oct 30. East Mifflin by Lapham school is closed, but should be open on Tuesday. There are more outside of downtown.

The good news on campus is that the work near Limnology — between the Lakeshore Path and Memorial Union is done! Less conflict with pedestrians now.

The best way to keep up with what’s going on is to subscribe to the city’s Friday update from Bike Madison.

Monday

Madison Bikes Community Meeting for all committees at 6:00 pm at Bendy Works, 106 E Doty St, 2nd floor. In case you haven’t noticed, we are no longer posting individual committee meetings. Instead, we are having a “community board meeting” on the fourth Monday of each month. Everyone is welcome, and this is where we will talk about what we need to do in the areas of advocacy, communications, events, and volunteer opportunities. If you want to be involved, but don’t know exactly what area you want to help, this is a great opportunity to find out where you can fit in.

This Monday, we will probably be talking about all the things we need to do — and for which we need help — to out on the Winter Bike Fashion Show on Saturday, Nov 2. If you can help out on Saturday, we still need some volunteers, from demonstrating the bike racks on the bus parked outside to greeting people at the door. Email Liz if you can help out.

Also on Monday is the monthly Bike Fitchburg meeting, 6:30-8:30 pm at the Fitchburg library, 5530 Lacy Rd, Fitchburg.

Tuesday

The city council will hold a special meeting to discuss and vote on the above-mentioned wheel tax. The meeting will be early — 4:30 pm in Room 201 of the City County Building — to allow alders to also attend other committee meetings that evening. A reminder that your voice is important, and you can contact the entire council or just your alder to voice your opinion. Don’t know who your alder is or need contact information? Go to the Council webpage to find that information. You can also attend any council or committee meeting in person to speak or just to fill out a comment card (if you don’t want to stay.) Yes, they do pay attention to constituent comments!

If you are interested in what’s going on with BRT, you can hear about the options for the downtown portion of the routes. City staff are trying to decide whether the BRT should go around the Square, the outer loop, or some other route. The BRT public information session is 6:30-8:00 pm at the Madison Senior Center, 330 W Mifflin.

Thursday

Although there aren’t any big issues of interest to bicyclists on the Transportation Commission agenda, it’s always a good idea to keep track of what is up with the overall transportation discussion. You can watch the meeting or check out the agenda here. Or attend in person: 5:00 pm in Room 215 of the Madison Municipal Bldg.

Saturday

As you must know by now, if you’ve been reading any of our communication, is the Winter Bike Fashion Show at the High Noon Saloon from 1:00-4:00 pm. It’s free, family-friendly, very fun, and very informative.

Before the WBFS, you can also drop by the Mayor’s Neighborhood Roundtable at the Central Library from 9:00 am-Noon. This is a great place to find out what’s going on across the city, meet up with neighborhood organizers, and find out more about what resources are available to improve your part of the city.

Sunday

Bombay Bicycle Club Fall Meeting and Potluck at the Lussier Center at 5:00 pm. You must be a member of Bombay and RSVP to attend. More information can be found here.

2019 Battle of Waterloo cyclocross races at Waterloo Fireman’s Park 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. Bring your bike and join in on the fun, or come out to cheer on the riders as they compete in the fast and furious sport known as cyclocross! Food and beverage available for purchase – Cowbells encouraged!