The award winning documentary Bicycle Dreams will be showing at the Big Dog Theater in Cleveland Heights on Thursday, January 26th at 7 p.m.  According to USA Today, “Bicycle Dreams is a beautiful film that probes deeply into the sport’s heart of darkness, offering an inspiring glimpse at the high price of glory.”  The “glory” that USA Today is referring to is the completion of the Race Across America, or RAAM.

The Race Across America is an epic, 3000-mile bicycle race from the Pacific to the Atlantic. First held in 1982, RAAM is considered the most challenging sporting event in the world. Top riders finish in under 10 days, riding over 300 miles per day and sleeping only a few hours per night. Amid the sleepless grind, riders must endure the searing heat of the Mojave Desert, the agonizing climbs and descents of the Rockies, the driving winds of the Great Plains, and the twisting switchbacks of the Appalachians before the final sprint to the finish line in Atlantic City. With little prize money at stake, the fundamental goal of the race is simply to finish, a challenge half of all riders fail to meet.

Filmmaker Stephen Auerbach and his crew worked around the clock to capture the highs and lows of the Race Across America. With 18 cameras in the field, the team found innovative ways to document this massive event. To uncover the inner workings of the race, embedded camera operators traveled inside the riders’ crew vehicles, gaining unprecedented access to the cyclists and their teams. Their footage captured emotional and physical breakdowns, late-night strategy sessions, and great moments of personal triumph, all in intimate detail. Auerbach then took on the enormous task of editing hundreds of hours of material into a powerful, inspiring look inside the most difficult race on Earth.  Watch the trailer here.

Local RAAM participants Jim Karlovec and Sara Harper will participate in a Q & A session after the event and will share stories of their respective experiences with this grueling event.  Jim rides for Team Give a Wave, who campaigns to overcome negative issues and stereotypes by encouraging cyclists to act responsibly and to thank drives that do the same.  Sara rides for The Team Hope, which is a passionate group of endurance athletes going the distance to inspire help for those without safe drinking water.

Advance sale tickets are $10 (plus $1 processing fee) and can be purchased here.  Be sure to choose the Cleveland screening.  Day of Event tickets will be $15.  All attendees will receive one free raffle ticket and a chance to win prizes donated by local businesses.  Additional raffle tickets will be sold for $1.  This event is sponsored by HubBub Custom Bicycles.  Proceeds will benefit the youth programs of the Cleveland Heights Bicycle Coalition and Bike Cleveland.

The Big Dog Theater is located at 2781 Euclid Heights Boulevard in the Coventry Village district of Cleveland Heights.

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The Heights Bicycle Coalition Wishes Everyone a Happy New Year!!!

In our efforts to provide good and relevant service to the cyclists community in Cleveland Heights and University Heights we hope that you’ll find some time to help us focus our projects and advocacy efforts for this new year.
As part of Sustainable Heights’ No Impact Week, the bicycle coalition co-sponsored Transportation Night on October 18 at Forest Hill Church. After learning a few facts about our streets from Cleveland Height‘s City Manager Robert Downey and Public Works Director Alex Mannarino, and watching videos about what other cities are doing to promote no/low impact transportation, we formed into groups to discuss steps that could be helpful for our cities. We want to know which steps are most important to you: Please visit the following link to vote on the programs or efforts that you find most relevant.

http://stadttraeumerin.net/HBCSurvey/hbcsurvey.html

Thank you so much for your input. We hope to see you in the new year for the “Bicycle Dreams” screening in Cleveland Heights on January 26th!

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We hope you already know that 100% of RTA buses have bike racks.  To get on board, all you have to do is signal the bus driver before boarding and load your bike onto the rack on the front of the bus. And for the rapid transit, just roll your bike on and stand with it.

But did you know that RTA also has sheltered bicycle parking at some stations?  The list includes Shaker Square, Southgate, West 117th Street, East 55th Street and two at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Center near Cleveland State University.  Another option, for your convenience.

Sheltered bicycle parking at Shaker Square

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Although the bulk of our advocacy work is focused on the east sides inner ring suburbs, we realize the importance of the West Shoreway project for our region.  To that end, we wanted to make you all aware of the trip to Columbus that is being organized by Neighborhood Progress Inc., Ohio City Inc., The Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization and Cudell Improvement.

On Thursday,   December 15th a group of Greater Clevelanders will be traveling to Columbus advocate for phase II funding of the West Shoreway Project by the TRAC  Committee of the Ohio Department of Transportation.  Interested Participants should RSVP by calling Angela at the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization at 216-961-4242 ext. 225.    Details about the trip can be found at the top of this post.

I would be remiss not to mention that there is another group planning to ride their bikes to Columbus for the meeting, organized by the Joy Machines Bike Shop.  Kudos to those hearty souls that are making that ride!

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If we were to decrease car trips by just 50%, we could save more than 1100 lives, thousands of hospital admissions, and about $7 billion dollars in health care costs (NPR Health). All just from simply not driving on trips that are within short distances (2 miles). This was one of the “take home messages” of a lecture that was given by Dr. Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, Professor & Director of Global Environmental Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
this past Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at the Natural History Museum. As a lead author for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he offered insights into the connection between climate change, its consequences and how an environmental friendly behavior can benefit the health of each individual.

Climate change and it’s associated dangers such as more extreme weather patterns including increased flooding and hotter and longer heat waves, increased crop failure, and the re-emergence of certain diseases we thought we had conquered (such as Malaria and Tuberculosis) are a scary and an ever more present reality . In Cleveland, we are not in a ‘danger’ area, yet we have seen a past year of record rain fall, as it flooded our outdated storm water/sewer infrastructure and poured dangerous bacteria into our lake. Climate Change doesn’t necesarilly mean hotter temperatures, but rather more extreme weather conditions which will stress our already existing infrastructure.

Dr. Patz, though, stressed the opportunities available for a bleak future. Always, climate change is described by it’s detrimental effects, but also the stress on society and the economy any kind of regulations might have. But, we have yet to look at the public health benefits of changing our habits and improving our environments. After Dr. Patz had brought us together to see our collective depressing future, he showed an uplifting plan, to both combat climate change and also change ourselves in the process from the land of the obese, to the land of the clean skys and clean lungs.

There are a few simple things we can do in our daily life to combat climate change, and also increase the livablity of our environments. The idea of the 2 Mile Challenge has been gaining attention in recent years (that trips under 2 miles should be made by bike, or foot, or public transportation). This simple change in our daily lives would help to combat not only obesity and improve personal health, but it would also improve the air quality and lessen green house gas emmisions in our cities.

So as biker’s probably we already try to make short trips by bike or by walking. What else can we do? Encourage city officials to implement complete streets, which will help biker’s and pedestrians feel safer in their travels and will help to make car drivers more aware of other forms of transportation. And you can attend Bike Coalition Events to help create a strong, vibrant community of bikers. Even if we just make bike trips in the summer months, we can still dramatically increase our own health benefits, and our fellow citizens health. Also, check out our list of maps to aid you in your local bike trips

More lectures on climate change being curated by ‘Green City Blue Lake’ for the Natural History Museum in the upcoming weeks.

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 Think like a cyclist, not a motorist

Riding a bike on car dominated streets like Cedar or Mayfield can be annoying and dangerous for cyclists. Being able to avoid busy streets and instead ride through the beautiful neighborhood side-streets makes cycling more enjoyable and safe. We hope you’ll find the newly created Cleveland Heights and University Heights Bicycle Map to be an important and irreplaceable resource for your riding experience. It is downloadable here.

Local Bike Map 2011 (pdf, 403 KB)

How to use this map

Look for bike routes that take you to your destination. When planning to use your bike for transportation, do not assume that you will use the same route for your bike trips that you would use for your car trips. Bike routes are less direct and more scenic. This map assists you to find the routes through Cleveland Heights and University Heights that fit your skills. It also helps to remember some important safety concerns:

• Same Road, Same Rules: according to the Ohio Revised Code, bicycles are considered vehicles and for the most part must adhere to the same laws as motor vehicles.
• When riding in a narrow lane, stay far enough away from the right edge to discourage vehicles from passing dangerously close in the same lane.
• When riding past parked cars, stay wide of the door zone to prevent being hit by a car door.Be aware of challenging road surfaces, especially water, potholes and sand, that are hazardous when turning.
• Be predictable, do not weave in/out and in general try not to surprise drivers. Always signal.
• Use a light when driving at night. It is required by community ordinance.

About the map

The core of this map information came from the Northeast Ohio Areawide coordinating Agency (NOACA) Cuyahoga County Bicycle Transportation Map. NOACA generously gave the Cleveland Heights Bicycle Coalition the map file and a subcommittee of the CHBC added more detail to the map to create a Cleveland Heights-University Heights Bicycle Transportation Map. The CHBC wishes to thank NOACA for their leadership in bicycle transportation planning and for the use of the map file. Thank you also to April Hirsch for preparing the map and to Sustainable Heights Network for their support, encouragement and the financial contribution to have this map printed. Furthermore, the No Impact Week 2011 was the catalyst for the creation of the map.

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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin recently published a new study demonstrating that the health benefits of using a bicycle for “short trips” could have a profound economic impact. The study concluded that if half of our short trips around town were made using a bicycle instead of an automobile 1,100 deaths would be avoided and $7 billion in health care costs would be saved in the Midwest. The researchers used the 11 largest Metropolitan Statistic Areas in the Midwest for their research, which includes Greater Cleveland and three other Ohio cities. A short trip was defined as less than four kilometers (approx. 2.5 miles) each way. The study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives and can be found here.

There were a couple of nice articles written on this study in The Huffington Post and on National Public Radio’s Website.

Jonathon Patz, who is the director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author of the study made this simple yet profound statement to the Huffington Post, “We need to make our cities not just built for automobiles, but built for people.”

Indeed, we do.

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As many members of the CHBC may know, there is a version of the “3- foot passing law,” (SB 910) on the desk of California Governor Jerry Brown (click here to read the text SB 910).  If passed, the bill would make Californian the 20th state to have such a law (Ohio does not currently have a 3-foot law on the books).  If you are interested in bike advocacy at the Ohio statehouse, check out the Ohio Bicycle Federation’s legislation page (where a 3-foot passing law is not mentioned).  This legislation in California is important to us in Ohio for a couple of reasons.  First, there are lessons that we can learn from the proposed bill in California, such as what the Governor’s office and California Highway Patrol say about the proposed legislation.  Second, we need to consider if a 3 foot law is something we need in Ohio, and in turn in Cleveland Heights.

Regarding California’s proposed legislation, the 3-foot passing law specifies that motorists must give a cyclist at least 3-feet of clearance when overtaking.  It also specifies that motorists may cross over a double-yellow when safe in order to make the pass with the specified 3 feet.  In addition, the bill states that the 3 feet of clearance is waived when the overtaking vehicle is traveling slower than 15 mph.  The California Bicycle Coalition has a page explaining the bill.

On the surface, the bill sounds wonderful for cyclists.  One has to wonder if this would truly be the case, however.  Enforcement of current legislation that gives cyclists the right to the road tends to be an issue.  In most, if not all states there are laws on the books that dictate “safe passage” requirements for vehicles when overtaking cyclists.  While they may not be as friendly to cyclists as the 3-foot law one has to ask, are the current laws ever enforced?  Should advocacy organizations spend resources to advocate for 3-foot passing laws when enforcement is the real issue?

I believe so, and I believe that with the passage of the law comes an important piece of public education.  Cyclists NEED 3 feet when passing because their path of travel can be unpredictable.  Wind, debris, potholes, equipment malfunction and numerous other situations can cause a cyclist to suddenly need a couple of feet to manuvure their bicycle.  This information is enforced to the public with a 3-foot passing law.  Even though enforcement may be the big issue, for safety cyclists NEED 3 feet and the public needs to know this.

Governor Brown, as of today, has four days left in California’s legislative calendar to sign or veto SB 910.  It will be interesting to see if California, so often viewed as the leading progressive state in our union, takes a leadership road on road safety for cyclists.  Interestingly, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) opposes the bill, arguing that there is already a law on the books known as “move over, slow down” that can cover cyclists.  There are many problems with this line of thinking, but for the sake of time I will not make that argument on this blog.  What I would like to do is leave you with a direct quote from a letter composed to Governor Brown from a former Califoria Highway Patrol officer who is also a cyclist.  I have taken the following passage from Slowtwitch.com editor Dan Empfield’s article and posted it here.  I think Mr. Pedeferri’s comments need to be read in statehouses all across the country.

“I have the unique position of being a former CHP officer for 12 years and an avid cyclist for the last 20+ years. On December 19, 2007, while working as a CHP officer on a traffic stop, I was struck by a passing vehicle. The collision nearly killed me and has left me a quadriplegic, completely paralyzed from my upper chest down. Prior to the accident, I raced at the highest level of amateur cycling and also competed as an elite level triathlete with 10 Ironman finishes. Now as a quadriplegic, I continue to compete at the highest level of cycling as a member of the US National Paralympic Cycling team, with the goal of making it to the 2012 Olympics in London. In order to reach that goal, I continue to ride nearly 20 hours a week on the same roads and routes that I used to patrol as an officer.

“With regard to SB910, I feel the main purpose and reason to pass the law is to create more awareness when motorists encounter cyclists. I feel SB910 closely resembles SB159, the “Move over, slow down” law when approaching stationary emergency vehicles on the highway. In my opinion, enforcement and penalties associated with either bill are not the purpose, but rather making motorists aware of their requirements when encountering either situation. I understand there are laws that require motorists to safely pass, but adding a specific law regarding cyclists would definitely help. As a former CHP Officer I applauded the passing of SB159, and I hope to have the same appreciation as a cyclist when SB910 is passed.

“I hope the governor passes this bill with the idea of increased safety for cyclists. A delay of a few seconds while waiting to pass a cyclist is an extremely transient amount of time compared to a lifetime of tragedy dealing with the aftermath of a motorist striking a bicycle. My daughters want to “be like dad” and ride their bikes on the road, but I don’t let them at their current age. The passing of this law wouldn’t magically make riding a bicycle completely safe, but it is a necessary step in creating a safer environment on the roads.”

Thank you,

Anthony Pedeferri
Retired CHP Officer #14507

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