Thomas Solinsky at Sound Forrest has a full schedule of bike/beer events planned to round out the month of August.

This coming Monday, 15th, a group ride heads out of our parking lot at 6:45 for the beautiful, renovated, still crappy Greer Stadium. The Nashville Sounds take on the Las Vegas 51′s! If you’d like to go, email jessica@soundforest.org and she can get you a five dollar ticket!

This year a local neighborhood cyclist/ Bongo employee got into a severe bicycle accident resulting in a decent hospital stay and multiple surgeries. We want to help support this ride. We are going to raise money and hopefully this will become the first Annual Bongo Bicycle Parade and we can continue this ride and raise money for other causes. Join us Sunday August 21 3 P.M. starting at the Belcourt Theatre parking lot.

Hope to see you at both!

1. Design better bicycling facilities (bike lanes, greenways, etc.);
2. Improve bike/automobile “share the road” public safety information programs.

You’ll be done in less than 10 minutes — we promise. 

The Tour De Nash set off with over 700!!!!! riders this morning!
We Sent two of our most handsome mechanics down there to make sure all bikes were up to snuff.
I have to say there were some nice bikes down there.

Thanks to all the sponsors and volunteers for making this happen!

Looking forward to next year!

If you’d like to read more click on this link below

http://www.hon.org/HomePage/index.php/home.html

SHARE THE ROAD!

The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) has an important pedestrian survey up- and if you want to do your part to encourage our state officials to make real progress with cycling and pedestrian friendly roadways, now is the time!

The survey takes about 5 minutes- FILL IT OUT!

Ride for Reading is an amazing program that promotes literacy and cycling by distributing books via bicycle to low income children. Did you know there is only 1 age appropriate book for every 300 kids in low income neighborhoods? RfR has distributed hundreds of books in the Nashville area, but in order to continue their work, a new space for their headquarters is in immediate need.

Ride for Reading needs a space between 650-1,000 square feet where they can store, sort and distribute books. Their budget is very limited, but they may be able to pay a small amount in rent. However, if the space is donated, it is a tax-deductible write off for the landlord. Please help this amazing program if you or someone you know may be able to contribute. Email info@rideforreading.com – thanks!

Toks Omishakin, Nashville's Bike Czar

There is a great article from this weekend’s City Paper on Mayor Karl Dean’s initiatives to make Nashville a more bikeable city. At the forefront of this mission is Toks Omishakin, who for years has worked to make Nashville a bike friendly city. Mayor Dean recently created a new position for Omishakin- to oversee the Bicycle and Pedestrian Activity Committee (BPAC), which has made him Nashville’s own “Bike Czar.” Pretty rad job, if you ask me.

Omishakin’s main goals for the city?  That every Nashvillian lives within one mile to a sidewalk, two miles to a bikeway and four miles to a greenway. To reach this goal, Nashville is planning to add 50 additional miles of bike lanes and sidewalks, and 20-25 miles of greenways.

Bigger than this, though, is Omishakin’s goal to change the mindsets of Nashvillians. We all have a friend, family member or coworker who thinks it is ‘crazy’ to ride your bike to work when you could drive. As a city, we need to educate our friends and neighbors that cycling and walking aren’t for crazy people- it is a conscious choice to live healthier and happier.

GO NASHVILLE 2010

tomato bike rack at farmer’s market

This has been a good week for cycling in Nashville. Yesterday, the mayor unveiled more of the new art-bike racks, including racks shaped like microphones and tomatoes. Hopefully these colorful racks will bring attention to the number of cyclists in Nashville, and demonstrate the need for MORE bike racks all over town.  If you want to ride through town and view the racks, a rack map is available here!

Today,  it was announced that Nashville will in fact launch a bike share program to begin this summer with 30 bikes. The program’s future was unknown after the May flooding, which destroyed the entire fleet of bikes. Support has been strong for the program, and a new fleet of  bikes is currently being worked on. By next spring, the city hopes to have over 1,000 bikes available.

Many cities- including Austin, Denver, and Portland- have bike share programs, which operate as a bike rental service at an affordable price, though Nashville’s goal is to make the program free. Bikes will be available at sites around town- most likely near greenways, colleges and bikeways- and the city will provide a helmet, lock and suggested bike routes.

This summer will serve as a pilot for the program, and bikes will be available at the Music City Star train station on Riverfront Park and at Shelby Bottoms Park in East Nashville. You can read more about the program here.

These are two great initiatives that Nashville is taking to be a cycling-friendly city. So, get out and support our city- the more people who use the bike share program, the more encouraged the officials will be to continue the bike love!