OK all you PBA mileage junkies and ride loggers, it’s time to set up some PBA teams to participate in the National Bike Challenge. This should be a cool and easy way to promote cycling in Plano and see how well the PBA competes with other north Texas clubs.

Ride your bike, challenge yourself, compete for your team, compete for Texas, save the planet!

BikeDFW is the regional host organization for The National Bike Challenge, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, the Bikes Belong Coalition, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, and powered by Endomondo. The Challenge is designed to inspire Americans to get up and ride bicycles more often.

Record your rides online and you’ll automatically see the miles you’ve ridden, the calories you’ve burned, and the gas money you’ve saved.  You can connect and share stories with other riders and follow The Challenge on the Facebook page.

You’ll be part of a social network of more than fifty thousand riders (we hope) logging over ten million miles across the nation, demonstrating the power of the bicycle to build healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy planet.

The National Bike Challenge – runs from May 1to August 31, 2012 and is a fun way to take your bicycling to the next level, get back into bicycling, or bike for the first time.

Participating is easy

• Go to the Challenge home page (http://www.nationalbikechallenge.org) to join and register.
• Once you register you can choose to 1) ride solo, 2) join an existing team (at your work place for instance), or 3) create a new team and become its captain.

Lots of ways to compete – on your own, as part of a team, on behalf of your company and community, and for Texas.

Enter your mileage – manually online or track it automatically via the free smartphone app. Miles and points accrue automatically to your individual account, your team, your employer, your community, and your state.

The Leaderboard – shows how you and your team are doing in real time.

Prizes – prizes for teams and individuals will be awarded monthly. The more Challenge points you earn, the better your chances of winning a prize. You become eligible for prize drawings after you’ve logged just three days on your bike.

Download the informational flyer

The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metroplex is in a tie with Houston for the second worst traffic congestion in the country according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) of the US Department of Transportation. Only the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metro area in California is worse. Here’s an excerpt from the recently released State Transportation Statistics Report (note: most recent data are from 2007).

DFW traffic congestion caused a delay of 32 hours a year per person for the entire population, not just drivers, at an estimated cost of $641 each or a total waste of $2.8 billion!

Even if we could afford to build more highways, the results of these massively expensive projects would be more cars, increased gas consumption, and increased air pollution with minimal impact on traffic congestion. Electric vehicles could reduce gas consumption and pollution, but they won’t help traffic congestion one bit.

Still think automobiles are the answer for a sustainable future? We don’t! That’s why BikeDFW wants to raise awareness of bicycling as part of the solution to our long-term transportation needs in North Texas. When coupled with public transit and multi-modal transportation (i.e., using the train and a bicycle on the same trip) bicycling can not only reduce gas consumption and pollution, but also reduce traffic congestion. (Not to mention that riding a bike is a lot more fun than sitting in rush-hour traffic.)

Our hope is that people will start using a bicycle for utility trips (especially for those less than three miles). Doesn’t it make sense to use a 20 pound vehicle and get some exercise instead of a 4,000 pound vehicle and a gallon of gas to make a quick trip to the store (or a restaurant, or a movie)?

Contact BikeDFW at webadmin@bikedfw.org if you’d like information about bike commuting or are interested in bike safety courses that can make you more comfortable riding in traffic.

The full BTS report can be downloaded and viewed at http://www.bts.gov/publications/state_transportation_statistics/state_transportation_statistics_2009/pdf/entire.pdf

PBA at EHCT

Here are some photos from the Easter Hill Country Tour. About twenty-five PBA members attended this classic Hill Country tour. Maybe we can get someone to write a short article about it?

• This will allow us to keep you informed of all the GREAT activities our club becomes involved in on a more timely basis. We won’t have to wait to accumulate stories and then publish them all at once since we will be able to publish throughout the month.
• We have several people who have contributed stories over the past (and really encourage them to continue to do so) and this will be an easier way for them to contribute on their own timeframe.
• My personal favorite: It will allow me and Marc to maintain our sanity.

Our promise is to continue to provide great pictures of the characters that make up our club and continue to have great stories that keep you entertained and informed (at least that’s our mission!) I know none of you are shy so please leave a comment and/or send an email to me at rkosanda@planobicycle.org and tell me what you think. Fair warning, though, if you’ve got a great idea I’m going to enlist your help.

With this edition you will see information about our web site, some helpful pointers from Natalie on signing up to become a member, clipping tips from Liz Francis, and Andrew is all about the numbers this month. Hope you enjoy… keep your eyes open for our next spotlight because that’s in the works.

Roxanne

Please leave a comment and let us know what you think. Just click on “Comments” at upper-right of this article.

The first thing we had to do was upgrade our platform. While it seems easy in concept there were a lot of issues to deal with and to be sure they have not all been resolved. We realize that people are having trouble logging in and that many of the navigation features are not currently working as expected. The membership features are not yet working as we have planned, although there are explicit temporary work-around links and messages on the home page for both new member subscriptions and renewals. The Board and some key volunteers recently gathered on a Sunday afternoon to prioritize fixes to the site and are working as fast as possible to get them resolved.

The board recognizes that the website is a primary value to our members, and we apologize for the inconvenience. The fact is that the club has outgrown the ability to sustain the site through volunteer efforts and going forward we will engage professional support to ensure the site meets our members’ expectations.

Liz is one of our key Ride Leaders who speaks with great knowledge on this subject. Not that she has issues herself, but she has led groups of varying degrees of experience. She has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly so learn from her tips!

When the light turns green, many cyclists may miss the pedal in the first revolution.  We’ve all been behind the cyclist who then looks down, trying to get the pedal flipped & figure out why s/he can’t get clipped in.  They finally manage it & pedal on, leaving us to sprint to catch up or dodge their wobble.

A more considerate way to handle the dilemma of the missed clip is to pedal thru the intersection, keeping pace with the group as best you can.  Once you’re up to cruising speed, then determine if you need to flip your pedal & clip in.

Another handy hint regarding clipping in & out:  practice with both feet.  Most of us have a dominant foot with which we usually clip in & out.  Ask any tandem rider - captain & stoker seem to ALWAYS use different feet, forcing one of the riders to adapt to the other’s style.  Tandeming is one reason to be ambidexterous, but for most of us, it’s just a safety issue to be nearly as good with both feet.  There will be a time when your leaning to the wrong side & need to unclip.  If both feet are equally good at getting out of the pedals, you’re less likely to crash.