Colorado Bike Month continues with the Fort Collins Gear & Bike Swap this Saturday, and our 28th annual Bike to Work day on Wednesday. (See details below.)
Also, July events are starting to come into focus. If you know of a July event that I haven’t included here yet, please let me know — meg@urbanfortcollins.com.
If you haven’t signed up for the National Bike Challenge yet, I’d like to encourage you to do that.
(Sorry about the weird formatting here. :-\ )
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Events – Road and Trail Closures – Bike News and Views
– June Events –
The Fort Collins Gear & Bike Swap – Saturday, June 20, 11am – 5pm, 119 E. Mountain Avenue
The Gearage invites you to the third Annual Fort Collins Gear Swap & Bike Swap. Buy, Sell, Trade all thing Bike and Outdoor Gear related. The Bike Swap will take place in the heart of old town Fort Collins, on the south side of Mountain Ave between College and Remington, right in front of The Gearage, 119 E. Mountain Ave. Come check out the great deal on outdoor gear and bikes.
28th Annual Bike to Work Day – Wednesday, June 24, 6:30 – 9:30am.
Since 1988, the City of Fort Collins has hosted an Annual Summer Bike to Work Day. In celebration of the 28th Annual event, over 40 breakfast stations will be located all over town to encourage community members to get out and ride their bikes. Participants are encouraged to take a post event survey. To check out a map of station or see a list of station hosts, please visit fcgov.com/bikemonth… or jump straight to the pdf.
– July Events –
Bike Fort Collins Art Show – Friday, July 3, Downtown Artery Café during 1st Friday Gallery Walk
As part of the First Friday Gallery Walk, Bike Fort Collins is hosting a Bike Art Show at the Downtown Artery Café. Beer and wine will be available for sale. (25% of sales will go to BFC.) Visual art/dance performance. Band. More info to come.
Adult Learn to Ride Class – July 9 & 16, 6 – 7:30pm
Regardless of your age, it’s not too late to learn to ride a bicycle! Adult Learn to Ride is a free class by the City of Fort Collins for adults (+14 years) interested in learning how to ride. Through a safe, easy, and effective method, Students learn how to balance, pedal, start, stop and steer a bike. You will also learn how to properly fit a helmet. Many learn to ride a bicycle while taking this class, and we’re confident you will too! You will leave with a new set of skills and access to resources to continue to improve.
If you do not have a bike or helmet we can provide them for use during the class. Contact jgaskill-fox@fcgov.com or 970-221-6987 if you need a bike and/or helmet.
Register for Adult Learn 2 Ride through the Recreator
Family Bike Ride to the Watson Fish Hatchery – Saturday, July 11, 10am – 1pm
All ages are welcome to join this family, fun-filled guided bike ride on the Poudre Trail hosted by FC Bikes. We will ride 10-miles round trip. Pack a lunch to enjoy at the half-way point at the Watson Fish Hatchery. Please be sure children are will and able to ride all 10 miles, either with their own bike or with a tag-a-long or trailer. Bike and helmets are required. Cost $12
Register through the City of Fort Collins Recreator (Recreator Program Number 309992-01)
Traffic Safety 101 – Saturday, July 18, 8:15am – 4pm, Westbridge Medical Suites
Traffic Skills 101 is a course for beginners, returning and seasoned cyclists alike that will give you the confidence to ride safely and legally in traffic or on the trail. You will learn how to conduct bicycle safety checks, on-bike skills and crash avoidance techniques. We recommended this class for adults and youth above age 14. Participants should be prepared to ride their bicycle as there is a riding portion to this class. A helmet and bicycle in good working condition are required. A water bottle is recommended.
FoCo Cafe’s 2015 Bike-In Music Festival at Shire CSA – July 19, 3 – 7pm, 713 E. Prospect
Bicycle-in for great music, food, and beer on beautiful Shire CSA. Experience the best of Fort Collins in one Sunday afternoon! Gates open at 2:30pm, music begins at 3:00pm and the event will happen Sunday, July 19, rain or shine! Only 300 tickets will be sold, so this will be an intimate experience! Get all the details on the event page on Facebook.
Adult Learn to Ride Class – August 6 & 13, 6-7:30pm.
USA Pro Challenge Celebration – Wednesday, August 19, 5:30 – 8:30 pm, 1601 W. Drake Rd.
Join FC Bikes for a fun-filled, family-friendly evening to celebrate the 2015 USA Pro Challenge. The evening will feature a bicycle rodeo, helmet giveaways, food and more!
USA Pro Challenge – Stage 6 – August 22 — Loveland to Fort Collins (I know. This is a race, not a transportation event. But it’s also a celebration of bikes event. So I’m including it here.)
Tour de Fat – September 5th
Open Streets – Sunday, September 20, probably on Remington between Mountain and Lake.
Traffic Safety 101 – September 26, 8:30am – 4pm.
Traffic Safety 101 – November 14, 8:30am – 4pm.
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– Road and Trail Closures –
Poudre Trail: There are (at least) 2 closures along the trail. (There may be more due to flooding. I’ll hopefully add that type of info in the future, but right now I’m not sure how accurate the online data is. So I’m just not gonna go there.)
The Mulberry underpass will be closed until around November 2015. If you’re traveling southbound, follow the detour and hop back on to the trail on the west side of Shields. But if you’re traveling northbound, you have two options. You can get off the trail on the east side of Shields, then either take the sidewalk or take the lane north on Shields. You’ll have to cross both Mulberry and Shields (follow the detour signs) to hop back on the trail. OR you can stay on the trail, travel under Shields, then ride the wrong way northbound on the Shields sidewalk. This way you’ll only have to cross one street instead of two, but it does mean you’ll be traveling the wrong way on the sidewalk.
Tafthill Road to Lee Martinez Park is still closed due to the work the county is doing on the N. Shields bridge. There are detour signs posted, but this closure is for such a long distance, and the detour roads are rather sub-optimal, that you might be best off checking in with either the City bike map or Google (Bike) Maps to find a better route.
Poudre Trail to W. Vine Spur has been put on hold. The water flood mitigation work has been completed, but the bike trail spur has seen funding shift to other projects on the south and east ends of town that were able to leverage grant monies to complete large projects.
Horsetooth and Timberline Intersection: The section of Horsetooth west of Timberline will be closed starting Monday, June 1. It is estimated to remain closed until July 25.
The project will add four new turn lanes to the intersection, bicycle and pedestrian improvements and landscaped medians. The project is funded by a federal grant (congestion mitigation) and the Building on Basics (BOB) quarter cent sales tax. The construction of the turn lanes, pork chop islands and reconfigured medians will improve the safety and signal timing of the intersection. To find out more, check out the “Horsetooth and Timberline Intersection Improvement” page on the city’s website.
Mountain Avenue between Shields and Washington: Eastbound Mountain is shut down while new water pipes are installed.
Shields and W. Vine Intersection: The planned round-about is listed online as starting mid-June. “Vine and Shields Roundabout Improvement.” More on these improvements in Monday’s upcoming post.
North College Improvements: We’re mid-project on this one and we can finally see some progress getting made. Woo hoo! To find out more about the project, or to see occasionally updated photos of the work, check out the “North College Improvements” page.
Timberline at Prospect Improvements: This project will be starting some time this summer. “Timberline Road Improvements.”
Laurel between Remington and Mason: Work begins soon to restripe Laurel street. The changes will include a protected bike lane and a few other bicycle facilities that are being tested out. And I should emphasize that point. This is a chance to test ideas around a particularly difficult intersection. If they work well there, they might be useful in other places as well. If not… well, at least we tried it out.
The Remington Greenway: I’ve written about the changes to Remington already, but here’s a brief synopsis. There will soon be a mini-round-a-about at the intersection of Laurel and Remington. And the stop lights where both Pitkin and Elizabeth cross Remington are being changed to 4-way stops.
Taft Hill Road – between Mulberry and Elizabeth: Taft is closed for repaving. They’ve right-sized the section between Mulberry and Laporte. Check it out and let me know what you think! Hopefully they’ll do that to the rest of the road as well.
– Bike News and Views –
San José Avenue Pilot Leads to a 651% Increase in Biking, by Chema Hernández Gil on the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition website (June 15, 2015).
New Belgium, bicyclists oppose bike lane limits, by Mark Barrett of the Asheville Citizen-Times (June 17, 2015). This article is a great example of how some government officials just don’t get it. The roads that are the most congested are the ones that most need alternative forms of transportation on them to reduce that congestion.
A Case Study in Bike-Friendly Suburban Planning: It’s not just possible, it’s happening in Houten, by Eric Jaffe of Citylab (June 17, 2015) shows that even suburban areas can be designed to be bike and pedestrian friendly. He points out that many college towns have a small version of this with campuses that are very bicycle and pedestrian friendly and car traffic being largely relegated around the edges of the campus.