Get Creative: Decorate Your Helmet

After Kidical Mass #4, I rode downtown to the Tacoma Art Museum where local artists were busy decorating bike helmets. (Many thanks to Tinkertopia owner RR Anderson for the heads-up on this event!)

According to TAM:

"Participating artists will receive a bicycle helmet to decorate, an assortment of mixed media supplies, receive 20 dollars of credit at Tinkertopia, and an honorarium of 50 dollars for participating. During the event there will be a ballot box for people to vote for their favorite helmet. At 3 pm the first, second, and third place will be announced.

After the festival the helmets will be on display at Tacoma Art Museum in the community art space until September 21. On September 22 during the Dome to Defiance Sunday Parkways bicycling event the helmets will be worn by special guests."

It was a beautiful day to work outside and every artist seemed to have a completely different design concept.

Some helmets were already completed and on display inside the museum.

Make sure you attend the Downtown to Defiance event on September 22 to see these works of art in action. TBR will be there to help with Kidical Mass #5: Point to Point. It's going to be rad. 

Kidical Mass Tacoma #4: Water Ditch Trail

Our next Kidical Mass on August 17 will head to South Tacoma for a ride on the Water Ditch Trail. The trail starts near South Park and the Asia Pacific Cultural Center at S. 50th and Puget Sound Ave (just off South Tacoma Way). We'll start there at 11 am, but come earlier if you want to decorate your bike.

South Park has a playground, sprayground and restrooms.

The trail heads south through the neighborhood, past Gray Middle School, and ends near Arlington Elementary School. I pre-rode the route today and found this guy at the Arlington playground.

While the playground will make a fun mid-point recess spot for our young riders, I couldn't help but notice the litter. There's a lot of litter around the playground. So I'm going to bring garbage bags, broom, dustpan, and some gloves so that we can do a little clean-up while we hang out at Arlington. It just looks like it could use a little love. Bring gloves for your young riders if you'd like them to pitch in.

View Kidical Mass #4: Water Ditch Trail in a larger map

Then we'll head back to South Park for treats and another chance to play. South Park is well shaded and will be a great place to cool off after this flat and manageable 3.8 mile round-trip. Did I already mention the sprayground?

As always, we will ride together and stop to regroup as needed along the way. Our only major street crossing will be at S. 56th Street. We will have volunteers stop traffic before crossing the street as a group. On every ride, I'm always impressed with the courtesy of drivers who give us their right-of-way when we cross arterials. Kids are traffic, too!

We'll see you on August 17.

Kidical Mass Tacoma 3: Share, Snack, Play, Crash

Kidical Mass #3 took place on Saturday July 13, starting and ending on the beautiful campus of the University of Puget Sound. We had 42 riders including Jeff's Ice Cream and several kitted members of the Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club who not only came along for the ride, but also offered mechanical support and TWBC tattoos!

Once the kids were inked and their bikes were decorated, we had a brief safety message to emphasize Stay on the Right and Don't Bunch at Intersections. These have been key concepts to emphasize while we are on the road as well.

We made our way south to our first stop, the Central Tacoma Free Radical Media Exchange. It's the largest of several Little Free Libraries in Tacoma. Because it's located down a loose gravel alley, we dismounted and walked down to check it out. 

The pocket library concept seemed new to most folks, but the kids quickly jumped right in to hunt for books and pick a few fresh raspberries. Many thanks to library curator RR Anderson for showcasing a great way to creatively re-use materials and share with neighbors.

Now loaded up with books, we took off for Franklin Park. On the way we had our second minor crash that resulted in a flat 12" tire. A few folks stayed behind to try and patch the tube, while the rest of the bunch continued to the park for a longer break. Ultimately, the young rider's dad had to go back for his truck to give him a lift to the finish. There's always free ice cream at the finish and he had definitely earned his ice cream.

Just a few blocks from UPS, a third rider went down. He was ok, buck shaken up. Thankfully, his mom was willing to give him a pump back to campus and a cargotrike dad was able to carry the young rider's 12" bike to the finish. Teamwork!

Interestingly, when we pulled over to make sure mom and son were ok, several of the kids noticed we were stopped next to another little library! It was a surprise to me, too, since this one isn't registered on the LFL website. Look for it north of 6th on Puget Sound Ave.

Back on campus, the kids enjoyed made-in-Washington ice cream bars from Jeff's Ice Cream and raced bikes around Jones Fountain. My helmet is off to all of the pedal parents and kid riders who persevered on this rather rough ride. The street surfaces of Central Tacoma are in the poorest condition of any that Kidical Mass Tacoma has ridden so far.

This was also our longest and most involved ride yet. Our average speed of 4.5mph has been quite consistent on our three rides and is based primarily on a single-speed rider with 16" wheels. I don't want to discourage riders with 12" wheels from attending Kidical Mass, but parents should be aware that Tacoma's road conditions don't always play nicely with wheels that small. Potholes are the bullies of neighborhood family bike rides.

As always, your feedback and comments on the ride are always appreciated. I'm still ironing out the route details for KM #4 in August, but it will likely be a South Tacoma route. More details to follow soon!

Bridges of Tacoma

With the recent reopening of the Murray Morgan Bridge, I've started thinking about some of Tacoma's bridges. The Murray Morgan, also known as the 11th Street Bridge, connects downtown to the working waterfront and the Port of Tacoma. It now has a dedicated bike lane in both directions.

There's the 21st Street Bridge, that connects downtown with Northeast Tacoma via WA-509. Bicycles are permitted, but I would recommend finding ways around it unless you are in a car.

Photo by Mrs. TBR

Of course, most folks think of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, which is now actually two bridges. The newer one has a separated multi-use lane that is amazing to ride or walk on, especially at night. Plus you don't have to pay the bridge toll if you walk or bike across. Cha-ching!

There are other bridges in Tacoma that don't span waterways, but until today I hadn't used one of the most visible of those land crossings. The 38th Street Pedestrian Bridge crosses eight lanes (or maybe 9 or 10?) of Interstate 5 in the middle of the city. This bridge has a long ramp on the west side near Costco. It's actually very easy to find and use.

I'll add that the main arterial intersection nearest to this point, South 38th and Steele, is probably the most pedestrian and bicycle UNfriendly intersection in the city, not to mention one of the busiest. This bridge is here for a reason.

As you get to the top of the ramp, look south and hear the 38th Street exit roaring along.

Or look north towards the never-ending reconstruction of the Highway 16/I-5 interchange. CHA-CHING.

I had already biked underneath the Highway 16 construction zone, waiting in line with the idling cars on South Tacoma Way. Maybe it was the construction, or maybe it was the rain, or maybe just the fact that I couldn't hear myself think through the traffic noise, but I looked like this as I crossed the bridge towards Jennie Reed Elementary and the East Side.

Whatever the reason may have been, I'm glad that the 38th Street Pedestrian Bridge is there. It made my ride safer and easier than using the main 38th Street Overpass. I was smiling again as soon as I was back on terra-firma, rolling away from the freeway.

From the East Side, I dropped down towards Hill Top and home. On the way, I figured out how to fit the Tacoma Dome on my bike rack.

There are many more bridges in Tacoma. Which bridges do you use? 

Kidical Mass Tacoma - Coming Soon!

I've been talking to parents around town for at least a year, gauging interest in a monthly family-oriented bike ride. The interest is there. Parents want to find more opportunities to ride with their kids. 

Inspired by the folks in Eugene, Oregon, who started Kidical Mass, and then spurred on by groups in Portland and Seattle, TBR will be organizing Tacoma's first Kidical Mass ride to take place Saturday May 4th, 2013, as part of Bike Month. (Go mark your calendar right now!)

 

What is Kidical Mass? It's a casual bike ride for people of all ages and abilities that gives kids an opportunity to share the road. Kids are traffic, too! The goal is to introduce children to cycling in a fun, safe, and low-key atmosphere. We'll ride in a group and leave no one behind, use quiet side streets, have volunteers stationed at arterial crossings, have snacks at the end (and maybe before), and hopefully have some sort of theme that makes the whole thing more exciting. Rides will likely be out-and-back loops at first, starting and ending somewhere fun: a playground, a donut shop, or even a beach. The rides also give parents a chance to share ideas on what works when it comes to family biking setups (cargobikes, and trailers and trail-a-bikes, oh my!), share tips on teaching kids to ride, and create a support network or riders who are willing to nurture everyone's enjoyment of cycling.  Obviously there's a tongue-in-cheek reference to Critical Mass, but really this is all about having a good time.

I'm posting this announcement early because I will need some help. 

• I'd like to determine a summer's worth of dates, locations and routes before the first event so that participants can plan ahead and spread the word. We're looking at hosting a monthly event May-September. Where would you like to ride? 
• We will need volunteers to help at the start-finish location during the ride (clean-up/prep), and also a few folks to help stop traffic at any busy crossings. Most of these routes will be through neighborhoods, but we'll have to cross an arterial somewhere along the way no matter where we go. And someone must bring up the rear, a sweeper. Can you do one of these tasks? Could your spouse do it while you're on the ride?
• I'm handling logistics with the City (liability insurance is required if they are promoting the event as part of Bike Month), and also doing some preliminary searching for potential sponsors as we move through the summer. Would you or your business like to be a sponsor? This could be snacks, beverages, bike decorating materials, helmets, money for event insurance, etc. 

If you answered YES to any of those questions, or have some ideas, send me an email at matt (dot) newport (at) gmail (dot) com. Comments are helpful, too. I'll continue to post updates here on TBR and the giant Kidical Mass button on the right will take you to the posts related to the rides. If the response is big enough, maybe we can even get a ride going in April. I don't know that I can wait until May.

-Matt

Tacoma's Murray Morgan Bridge Reopens

A pair of riders on electric-assist folding bikes were the first to cross the reopened Murray Morgan Bridge today. My pre-schooler and I were right behind them on our cargobike along with 30-40 pedestrians. I used to bike commute over this bridge on my way to Federal Way, especially after it was closed to automobile traffic but left open to bikes and pedestrians. It's a striking and functional landmark of Tacoma that deserved to be restored and preserved.

I know more than a handful of bike commuters who work on the Tide Flats who are very excited for this bridge to reopen. The improved road surface would have been worthy enough of praise from cyclists, but the bike lane is very much appreciated.

As we turned around at the bottom and headed back up to downtown, we followed another Port worker on his bike. He was excited for the bridge to be open, too, as he needed to get to the bank downtown to cash his paycheck.

Tacoma's Pocket Libraries

A while back, Tacoma's RR Anderson built a pocket library in his alley called the Central Tacoma Free-Radical Media Exchange. A pocket library is a repository of books, videos, music and all kinds of other media that can be borrowed on a take-something leave-something basis. In my opinion, RR has built the coolest library in town, but more importantly, my kids think it's awesome, too.

We bike over there about once a month, returning books and cassettes that we borrowed the last time and looking for something new to take. RR has added a second row of shelves and nearly doubled the capacity of the space, which means it's hard not to find something of interest. On our last trip, the oldest picked up a copy of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, which she immediately began reading on the ride home.

Just a few days ago, like the Lorax rising from the stump of a Truffula tree, a second pocket library sprung up around the corner from my house! It's superbly built and decorated.

Inside there's an assortment of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a note pad where you can leave comments. I left a note about the CTF-RME and plan to see if I can get the two pocket libraries intertwined somehow. Coincidentally, both of these pocket libraries are located between Oakes and Anderson streets, but 24 blocks apart. 

Apparently there are at least four pocket libraries in Tacoma, but here's where to find the two listed here. Take something with you to leave behind! You'll be surprised how empowering this kind of neighborly sharing can be.

View Little Free Library Index > Scroll Down in a larger map

View Little Free Library Index > Scroll Down in a larger map