Free Bikes 4 Kidz New Mexico to Give Away 500 Bicycles

 

Reposting from Seniors on Bikes just to get as wide an audience as possible.

Free Bikes 4 Kidz New Mexico will be hosting three drive-thru bike collection days in April with the goal of collecting 500 bicycles to be refurbished then distributed topartner organizations around the state and placed with kids and adults in need. New Mexico is the 11th state to join a national growing movement called Free Bikes 4 Kidz (FB4K.) Since its founding in Minnesota in 2008, FB4K has given away more than 100,000 refurbished bikes. One weekend a year, volunteers collect hundreds of used bikes and over the next two months will refurbish salvageable ones. A free helmet is provided with every donated bike.
 

Bicycle Technologies Incorporated (BTI), a national bike parts distributor based in Santa Fe, has teamed with FB4K to expand the organization’s highly successful bike donation program. The new affiliate, a non-profit called Free Bikes 4 Kidz/Bicycle Harvest will focus on creating a conduit to serve partners across New Mexico and support exemplary efforts like Silver Stallion in the Navajo Nation.

“Research shows that putting kids on bikes not only impacts their health in a positive way but also improves their psychological wellbeing and inspires confidence,” says Preston Martin, Founder and President of BTI. Every year, 25 million bikes are sold in the US and a third of those are kids bikes. Once outgrown, many of those bikes collect dust. That is a potentially constant supply of bikes to ensure kids who want a bike may have the opportunity to get one.

The schedule for the three COVID-19 safe drive-thru bike collection days are:

Los Alamos Friday, April 9 2PM-6PM IHM Catholic Church Parish Hall
Saturday, April 10 9AM-Noon 3700 Canyon Rd. Los Alamos

ABQ Saturday, April 10 11AM-3PM ABQ International Balloon Fiesta Park
Sport Systems 6915 Montgomery Blvd. NE.

Santa Fe Sunday, April 11 11AM-3PM BTI 33 Velocity Way

FB4K-NM will accept used kid’s or adult’s bicycles, tricycles, balance bikes and bike accessories at these events. In addition to these events, there is an ongoing bike collection during March and April at any of the participating local bike shops (during business hours) listed on the web site. For more information on FB4K-NM or to inquire about donations or volunteering, please visit fb4knm.org.

Tom Trowbridge Rides With the Angels

 

  I was pulling into the Frank Ortiz Dog Park with the radio on when the KSFR news announced the untimely death of former KSFR News Director Tom Trowbridge. Tom was also a former New Mexico State Bicycle Coordinator. I've known Tom quite a few years and heard his sonorous voice on the radio since moving to New Mexico. He was also my friend.

Not much is known at this point but if there is some sort of memorial, I'll try to keep folks posted. Get a good ride in for Tom, and listen to KSFR News.

For old times. Tom interviews Tim Rogers and Yours Truly on bike crashes back in 2018.

 

 

I was going to put up a post on riding gravel bikes on the La Tierra Trails, but this kinda knocked the wind out of my sails. The bottom line is none of this good civic stuff happens unless someone is making it happen. Tom busted his ass as a newsman and a cycling advocate to make both the media and bicycling work. Let his life be an example to the rest of us. These things don't happen by themselves. They only happen if we make them happen. For example, Tim Rogers at the Santa Fe Conservation Trust and the volunteers at Trails Alliance of Santa Fe make places like La Tierra Trails happen.

 

 So long, friend.

 

 

Old Farts Need Bikes Too. Or, Mass Bike, Its Not Just About Infrastructure.

 Ken McLeod of the League of American Bicyclists, who I follow on Twitter, forwarded a link today.

"It's not depressing getting old, if you stay healthy", but infrastructure also has to change in line with the changing capacities of older adults. Older Adults should not be a footnote in the planning. @AARP #BikeSummit21"

That is certainly true and as an Officially Recognized Geezer of Social Security Age, I am increasingly aware of that. Plus, I got an email a few years back from my doctoral advisor noting that he was old enough and his bones brittle enough to not want to take a chance of being dinged by an errant driver busily texting at speed. The roads out near Stony Brook and Port Jefferson in Suffolk County, NY, once a glorious place to ride a bike, were getting downright intimidating. And, adding cynicism to the mix, according to county government its apparently the fault of the bicyclists. Infrastructure, not to mention paying attention, matters. In an aging population that hopes to remain healthy, we need to ensure that folks are not intimidated out of riding their bicycles in the places where they live.

But one also has to adjust the bikes. I spent a little time working on the drive trains and raising the handlebars of the road bikes this winter to make both less formidable. Typically by summer I am in good enough shape to ride the bikes using the drive trains and geometries I have been riding for decades. But during the winter, I might ride less due to inclement weather and if I don't adjust the bikes, its potentially a downward spiral of discomfort and less time on the bike. So, without further ado....

The Six Thirteen now has an ugly, but quite comfortable high rise stem on it. I might put the more normal looking Richey stem back on it as the weather warms but right now, it is easier on the back and I am more likely to ride the bike. 

Given the age of this bike, the handlebar is an old 25.4 mm (and having put fresh cork tape on it a few months ago, I was not willing to tear it apart) while the new stem was 31.8 mm as old stems are hard to find. While I don't recommend anyone else do what I do, I found a 25.4 to 31.8 seatpost shim on which I used a Dremel tool to fashion into a handlebar shim, making the old handlebar work with the new stem. Necessity is the mother of invention, as one says. But don't take chances you and your orthopedic surgeon are not willing to live with. A new system was no big deal. I just hate wasting old parts. Including my own...which I carefully hoard.

The older CAAD5, which has become the road bike test mule in my garage, was graced with a stem riser a while back after I herniated a disk. Now one set of wheels is set up with a mountain bike cassette in 11-34 trim. I replaced an Ultegra road rear derailleur with an XTR derailleur that mates with the Dura Ace 9 speed brifters allowing a huge range of gearing for off season riding and more likely, getting to the top of the Santa Fe Ski Hill as the weather warms.

Drive train on the CAAD-5 in close up. A 50-34 compact crankset and 11-34 cassette on this set of wheels provides a 1:1 gear ratio (27 gear inch low gear on a road bike) and ensures I can spin up the steepest climbs on my various routes in Santa Fe. It also ensures I don't call it quits on the local terrain due to old age or lack of training during the winter months. The XTR rear derailleur that I scored, used and abused from a local bike shop, needed some rebuilding, which I did from spare parts. It works fine with 9 Spd Dura Ace brifters and has worked on everything from an 11-34 to a 12-28 cassette with a twist of the B screw. That is good flexibility and encourages one to adjust the bicycle to one's season training plan and with a spare set of wheels, different daily rides. I hope that the new Shimano stuff remains this flexible.

As the beginning of this post suggests, its more important to design both infrastructure and the bike to ensure one stays active rather than to set up insurmountable obstacles, whether provided by government transportation planners or one's own choice of bikes. One does not want to encourage a retreat to the Barca Lounger as one ages. It takes longer to come back, as I found out in 2016-17 following multiple visits to the surgeon. Think outside the box, and keep turning those cranks.

Still Yellow, an E-bike Bill, and Some Other Stuff

 Well, we are still in Yellow Land in Santa Fe although my Bombtown bretheren just went to green. Maybe the light at the end of the Covid tunnel is not the oncoming train after all.

Some good news. Sen. Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez has introduced SB 369 to define e-Bikes in New Mexico law. Currently, they are neither fish nor fowl and deciding how to regulate them in such a murky enviroment is sure to cause more harm than good. Take a look at the bill and email the Senator your comments. I sent her some today and she was genuinely happy to hear from someone in the bicycling community. I don't know who she is working with.

Two motorist interactions this week and surprisingly, both positive. First one, I was bicycling into a left turn bay on W. Alameda to turn onto Guadalupe. Pickup truck pulled up on my right and stopped in the straight through lane and the window rolled down. Of course I was waiting for the usual "get off the road" stuff. Instead, this old guy (hey, I'm an old guy) in a round topped cowboy hat looking like he just rolled out of a silver mine complimented me on my left turn signal and predictability. Second one. A pickup truck passed me as I bicycled on Monterrey Drive towards the Rail Trail and then the pickup slowed to a crawl in front of me. I was waiting to be right hooked and slowed down but the motorist stopped and I passed the waiting motorist, who then turned right into a driveway.

Fascinated by this happy dance of cooperation, I did a quick U turn and thanked the lady getting out of her truck for not turning in front of me. She happily offered that she has biked in a lot of big cities and knew better than to apply the right hook.

Two for two in the win column! What more can you ask for?

And speaking of yellow....I've had enough of yellow. let's try for green?