Moving Planet Bike Rides, Saturday, Sept. 24th

Lots of rides are lining up this weekend.  On Saturday, I've signed up for  a 78-mile Moving Planet ride from the N.C. Art Museum to Durham and back... Sounds fun. Details below. If you're wondering about the Moving Planet day itself, it's billed as "a worldwide climate solutions rally taking place on September 24th — a single day to move beyond fossil fuels." More information on the Moving Planet site. Clearly the perfect day to ride a bike and leave the fossil-fueled vehicle in the driveway....

Ride with us from Durham, Chapel Hill or Raleigh to Durham Central Park!

Our routes are in, and we are really excited about our bike rides coming up on September 24th. We (the East Coast Greenway Alliance) have partnered with the Triangle Commuter Bike Initiative and will lead three rides from South Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh/Cary to the 350.org Moving Planet event which will be held from 2-5 PM under the Pavillion at Durham Central Park (where the Farmer’s Market is held).


ALL rides are FREE!! Please RSVP to info@greenway.org and let us know what ride you’re doing so we know how many people to expect.
Here are the ride details:

Family Friendly / ATT Ride – meet us at our rest stop (Bull City Running Company) at the South Durham ATT trailhead, ride ~7 miles to Durham Central Park, and back,total of 14 miles. This ride will be almost entirely on trail, with a short on-road segment from downtown Durham ATT trailhead to Durham Central Park.

Time: Meet at 1:30, we’ll return back to the location by 5.

Location: Bull City Running Company store by Kroger, will be along the ATT, email Debbie at info@greenway.org for info.

NOTE: Will include short segment on public roads. Children must be accompanied by parents. 
Chapel Hill – meet us at University Mall, ride 16.6 miles to Durham Central Park, and back, total of 33 miles.Time: Meet at noon, ride at 12:30. We’ll return to University Mall around 5:45 or 6.

Location: University Mall, on Estes Dr. SW corner (near Wachovia/Wells Fargo).
There may be two feeder rides from Carrboro and UNC that will meet earlier and ride to join us at University Mall. Stay tuned for details on those!

NOTE: The CH route goes on several roadways, including 751. We will make this as safe as possible, but this ride is not recommended for children or riders inexperienced in riding on public roads. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/fullscreen/48632298/
Raleigh – meet us at the NC Museum of Art, ride 39 miles to Durham Central Park, and back, total of 78 miles.

Time: Meet at 10:15, leave at 10:30. We’ll return to Raleigh around 7, bring lights for the ride home unless you plan to take transit back.
Location: NC Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC. Meet in the back of the upper parking lot.

Cary Option – for a shorter ride, meet us in Cary at Bond Park, ride 25 miles to Durham Central park, and back, total of 50 miles.

Time: Meet at 11:30, leave when Raleigh ride comes through (11:30 – 11:45). We’ll return to Cary around 6, bring lights for the dusk ride home.

Location: Meet us at Bond Park in Cary, 801 High House Rd. in Cary, NC. Meet at the Boathouse / Buehler Shelter, which is at the end of Bond Park Dr.
The Raleigh/Cary ride will be ~80% on greenway trails! Please note that several miles of the Southern portion of the ATT is on hard packed crushed gravel, fine for most bikes, may not be great for some road bikes.http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/fullscreen/44110500/
NOTE: These rides will only be minimally supported – the CH ride will have a brief rest stop with water/light snacks at approximately 9 miles. The Raleigh ride will have a stop at Bond Park for water/restrooms and a brief rest stop with water/light snacks at mile 32 (mile 18 if you start in Cary). There will be some snacks at the ECGA table at the 350.org event.

We hope to see you there! Please RSVP to info@greenway.org so we know how many to expect!

Urban biking: south Raleigh

Over on NewRaleigh.com the question was posed,

"When you’re perched above two wheels and coasting through the crisp fall air, what path, official or unofficial, do you find yourself drawn to?"

When I lived in Raleigh, like many cyclists, i reveled in the night ride home from downtown, which was a bit off-route, as i worked in an office over by Cary. On a good winter night, I'd warm up climbing Glenwood fixed, turn R on Hillsborough, L on Boylan. Enjoying the view from the railroad bridge--even more with the extra lights leading toward Christmas--while a freight banged and groaned through the "wye", below. Then on into Boylan Heights where odd stickers and obscure stencilings festoon the back sides of the stop signs. After a tip of the hat at the Mayor's home, turn R onto Cabarrus and down past the yard with the perennials, then the one with the urban chickens--if i'd had enough beer, i might crow like a rooster--past the glasswerks studio and through the narrow under the high trestle where the Amtrak from Richmond crosses in the early evening, and a few yards on the foot path.

If the state was killing a man that midnight, then one needed be ready to brake for a small handful of solemn vigil-ers huddled around candles against the chill, on the path just outside prison grounds, closely watched and kept at a safe distance, lest their prayers comfort the condemned. Nowadays, they do executions at 4am, because midnight wasn't cold enough to discourage prayers, i guess. Flash them a peace sign and cross Western Blvd. Only on execution nights will there be a chain stretched across the dark entrance--in case the post-middle-aged pray-ers charge the empty soccer field at midnight?

The quiet, straight run through darkness between the cold steel RR tracks and empty soccer fields was a great place to sprint, or enjoy the cool widespread glow of a full moon on the empty landscape at the edge of the old, but not yet entirely abandoned, Dorthea Dix mental hospital. L on campus, crossing high over the vines and RR tracks, then R, and along the edge of grassy "nut hill" while down below giant boilers howl up their stacks and huge white steam clouds erupted into the dry black winter sky, carrying the starchy aroma of sanitized linens. R under the thick boughs of the hospital's old oaks, and L before the hill bottom to exit campus past the unmanned fuel depot and the closed for the night drug rehab facility where, at noontime, students stretch their legs and reflected on program material over a smoke on their daily lunch walk to and from burger king. This cross-campus cut avoids traffic and also avoids the hill near the north end of Lake Wheeler Rd where one of the businesses (laundry?) seems to often vent enough ammonia to make one's eyes almost cry.

R, back into traffic on Lake Wheeler Rd, crossing and finally saying "good-night" to the RR tracks--them pointing to Rocky Mount and Richmond, and me headed home--past the fenced yard were a thousand gray cement lawn statues stand silently beneath a dull sodium lamp, their fantastic array of forms--angels, deer, women and dragons--made all but invisible by the camouflage of a uniform dull gray color, past the bright digital marquee of the now silent farmer's market the road dips slightly crossing the damp, ill-defined flood plain of tiny Walnut Creek, where they air is always ten degrees cooler--a welcome treat in the summer, and a grit your teeth and pedal plunge in the winter, then the steep climb up over I-40, with its own red and white light show. Lake Wheeler Rd narrows after the interstate and the NASCAR-mad "American Owned" convenience store where the clerk with the .38 on his hip sells Hugo Chavez's gasoline.

R on Sierra, into residential, past the 1960s-era single-family homes--each of unique architecture, unlike the new cookie cutters just ahead in my neighborhood--a cyclist through here earlier in the evening would smell a variety of suppers cooking in family-sized batches. Some nights now the windows and storm doors of these homes rattle violently with the joyous thunder of Salvation Music booming from the new Pentecostal mega-Church someone built just outside of this usually quiet neighborhood, or at least they often did in the first months after church construction--I imagine the parties involved must've discussed noise ordinances by now. R on Lineberry, spin downhill past the scads of new apartments where the woods used to be--dwellings attracting convenient city transit buses now, instead of wild deer. Up the last and biggest climb to turn left at the HOA-maintained sign on Isabella and carry me home on a trusty pair of stainless-steel spoked twenty-seven inch wheels.

—Adrian "la Paralysie" Hands

Bicycles in the (local) news

First the sad news:

Edwin Flythe, a Raleigh businessman who started a business that became a third-generation bicycle shop, died last week. He was 94.

Read the full story here.

Now the depressing news:

In the past two weeks, one cyclist was killed in Raleigh when a pickup truck demolished her bike. Another lies in intensive care at Duke Hospital, also from a driver's negligence in an accident May 4.

The women in the second accident is the wife of Cliff, a fellow Gyro rider. Read the full story here.

Boston Article on Winter Riding

I saw this article while poking around this morning. Here's a quote:

The bicycle is a clever invention. It's both a transportation machine and a way of interacting with the world. Pumping madly over the Longfellow Bridge, I feel part of the urban hum. In winter, biking brings me closer to the city.

And the author's resolutions:

My New Year's resolution: Be less judgmental of car owners, and check my self-righteousness at my basement door before I strap on my helmet, snap up my jacket, and carry my bike through the snow.

My resolution for my fellow bikers: Buy a bike light, wear a helmet, and please stop running red lights. Respect the rules of the road and drivers will respect us.

Also, an article on a new free bike program in the Boston area.

Soul Cycling....

The riding choices today were a hammerfest with my Gyro friends, or a leisurely coffee-shop-stopping, greenway-cruising, platitude-spouting, around-town social.

Guess which ride I picked?

The Gyro lung busters are good for the cardiovascular. The city loops with riding buddy Dan are good for the soul. There’s a place for both in my cycling schedule. A soul ride features lots of generalities and the occasional pastry.


It’s hard to get in a spiritual frame of mind astride a carbon fiber wonder-bike. The better choice is this 1965 Schwinn Paramount, lovingly restored by Karl Edwards, a cycling buddy in the Northwest.


Karl is an artist on and off the bike. He worked his magic on this one, taking a rusted frame with a dented downtube and turning into the sharpest ride in my collection. This beauty doesn’t get out of the barn much, which makes its ride that much sweeter.

Dan and I did a big loop around the older areas of Raleigh, cruising the greenways that trace Crabtree Creek, then turning into Oakwood, the historic district near the heart of downtown.


Feeling the need for speed, we stopped in for caffeine at the Morning News, which in my humble opinion makes the finest latte in Raleigh.

The city’s heart is a boomtown. Lots of cranes, new condos, a new convention center, a new hotel. The downtown is being transformed right before our eyes.



Next stop: Dorothy Dix, the sprawling hilltop where the old mental hospital was situated. That’s where the next development fight looms. The developers want to slice it up like a mince meat pie. A local coalition wants to preserve it as 400 acres of park, akin to NYC’s Central Park. I'm pulling for the developers as I have to drive an unreasonable 4 miles to the closest Super Target.



We came by Central Prison (that’ll make a good Target one day) and into Boylan Heights. I'm pretty sure the neighborhood is named after the Connell’s landmark record.




From there it was an easy cruise to Cyclelogic, my buddy Ed’s bike shop. Always fun to stick the head in and see what’s up. What’s up is Fixed Gear. His delightful co-worker has a tricked-out Fuji with horn handlebars. Meantime, Ed’s selling a Raleigh fixed gear with a flip flop hub, a Brooks leather seat and leather bar tap, fenders and Vittoria Randonneur Cross tires. What's old is new again. Guess I'm not the only one doing a little soul searching.

Next up was Cameron Heights, another of Raleigh’s majestic historic neighborhoods with greenspace between the homes and lots of fun alleys to duck down. You can’t swing a cat in there without hitting a liberal. My kind of neighborhood. For the record, I'm opposed to swinging cats or hitting liberals.

We crossed Oberlin near Cameron Village and circled the Rose Garden then took several side streets through Raleigh before hopping onto the greenway through Meredith College. The greenway crossing into Meredith is THE WORST design I’ve ever seen. It’s so dangerous it deserves an AAA award: Top 10 Intersections to Run Over a Cyclist.

The Meredith greenway crosses 440 on the pedestrian bridge I mentioned in another posting, then drops into the property below the N.C. Art Museum.

I stopped for a photo, then we did a bit of off-road stuff, popping out in the back of a neighborhood. We dropped down the hill to Lake Boone shopping center, took a left and eventually picked up Glen Eden, then cut through a couple big money neighborhoods.

Dan and I parted ways on Fairview, and I angled home on the Paramount, hanging her back on her hook in the basement until the next soul ride.

In praise of urban riding

Yesterday four of us – me, JoeRay, Danno & Branson – did a variation of our Pancake Ride, which is typically a 60-mile out-and-back from Raleigh to Durham, with a stop at Mad Hatter for breakfast.

With cool temperatures, sunny skies and northwest winds, it was the perfect day to deviate from our standard course and explore the Triangle’s eclectic collection of greenways, historic buildings and outdoor art. It goes without saying that the best vehicle for urban exploration is the nimble bicycle.

Dan, JoeRay and I left from West Raleigh before hooking up with Branson in Research Triangle Park. Normally, we shoot straight out through the fairgrounds to Morrisville. But yesterday, we turned into Meredith College and hopped onto the Raleigh Greenway, crossing the majestic Bike/Ped Bridge across I-440. Here’s a good description of the structure:

The longest pedestrian bridge in North Carolina (660 feet) spans the I-440 Beltline between the Museum Park and Meredith College. It is constructed in three 220 foot long sections, each a “bow-string” steel structure, set onto concrete “bents” or upright supports that were made with form liners in the pattern of stonework.

The path winds down to a creek bottom before climbing back up to the N.C. Museum of Art. There are several outdoor displays there, including a stone sculpture, Crossroads/Trickster 1, by Martha Jackson-Jarvis, and the three hoop “Gyre" by Thomas Sayre. But my favorite is the kinetic sculpture, Wind Machine, by Vollis Simpson. It’s the one in the video at the top of this entry.

Here's a slideshow of shots near the museum.



An aside: Vollis’ property in Lucama is dotted with a dozen or more of these sculptures. He lives on a very pleasant biking road. I met him once while riding with friends from Wilson. To learn more about Vollis, check this PBS story.

After passing the museum, we crossed onto Reedy Creek Road and cruised uphill to Umstead State Park, crossed I-40 and then pedaled into the SAS complex in Cary.

This is the first time I’ve been through there. Impressive, indeed. I snapped shots of these outdoor sculptures as we rolled along. Not sure if all are on the SAS campus.



From there, we picked up Weston Parkway, one of those roads cut through the woods so a dozen corporations could set up shop in the bee-loud glade. We turned right on Evans, left on Aviation Parkway into Morrisville, then right onto Church Street, where we hit another cultural center, Al’s house, the finish to our Raleigh brevet series.


We found our Fearless Leader in his garage, hard at work on the next batch of his home-brewed beer.



Here’s his set-up. By the looks of it, I’d say he’s about ready to go national.

Back under way, we picked up Branson in RTP and crossed back over I-40, left on Cornwallis until we hit the American Tobacco Trail. A description from that link:

As proposed, a 22+ mile multi-use trail will traverse urban, suburban, and rural landscapes in route from downtown Durham, at the site of the Durham Bulls Athletic park, to New Hill Road in western Wake County. At this terminus point, trail users will have the option to board the New Hope Valley Railway and take a train ride to the community of Bonsal.

And here’s a PDF of the route.

We came into Durham right at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, for my money the best minor league stadium in the country.



Right next door is the American Tobacco Complex, an example of urban restoration at its finest moment.



A series of buildings that once housed the American Tobacco Company have been converted into a mixed-used complex of offices, shops and restaurants. The complex is 0-shaped with an open courtyard in the middle. The Lucky Strike water tower now stands in the middle of a series of pools and small waterfalls.

Here are pictures from the complex. As JoeRay noted, they don’t really give you a sense of the scale of the place.



Normally, we eat pancakes at Mad Hatter, another two miles into Durham, but yesterday a waiter from the Symposium in the Tobacco Complex persuaded us to give that restaurant a shot. The view couldn't be beat -- the restaurant has windows looking out toward the Lucky Strike tower. But the meal was just fair and a bit pricey.

Breakfast over, we headed home to Raleigh, stopping in at Al’s again to see how the home brew was coming along. We took our normal route home through the fairgrounds, passing the RBC Center (Home of the Hurricanes) Carter Finley Stadium (Home of the Wolfpack) and the historic Dorton Arena .

Here's a photo I snapped as we rolled past:



Here's a quote from the above link:

The arena's bold parabolic design was conceived by Matthew Norwicki, a Polish architect who helped lay out the rebuilding of Warsaw following World War II. Norwicki assisted in designing the United Nations complex in New York before coming to Raleigh, where he served as acting head of the School of Design at North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University).

I have my own historic associations with that building. It’s where I saw my first concert – Led Zeppelin – in 1970. I’ve actually heard a bootleg copy of that show.

We came up Beryl, passing the JC Raulston Arboretum, before angling through the neighborhoods to Dan’s house. After a relaxing half-hour of latte-sipping, we parted ways until our next urban tour.