Cycling Is Better Than....

 So-- Why does a girl ride?

Specifically, why does this girl (yours truly) ride?

He Rides To Work. Why Don't More Cyclists Follow Him?

We've all heard some variant of the question, "If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Here is anothe variation:  If a bicycle valet service opens in a city and nobody hears about it....

How do you finish that question?  All right, it won't quite follow the rhetorical pattern of the "tree falls in a forest" query.  But it's pertinent nontheless.

Here goes, "Will anybody use it?"

That is what the folks from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and The Chase Center might be asking themselves. From the moment the venue--which hosts Golden State Warriors games, among other events--a bicycle valet parking service has been available.  

Now, the Chase Center isn't the only such venue or institution to offer such a service.  The valets aren't even the only ones who will take your helmet with your bike.  They might not even be the only such service not to require an admission ticket to the venue in order to use it, like the services I've used in places like the Metropolitan Museum.  

What makes the Chase Center's bicycle valet service unique, to this date, is that it was designed as part of the Center when it was built.   Yes, there is an entrance built into the spherical structure of the arena specifically for the designated bicycle valet area.  

Better yet, the service can park as many bicycles--300--as many venues can park cars in their garages or lots.

In such a bicycle-conscious city as San Francisco, and in a densely-trafficked neighborhood like the one where the Center is located, one might expect a bicycle valet service to be a "build it and they will come" facility and service.  Sadly, though, such is not the case.  According to an investigation by the SF Gate, usage has topped out at around 100 bikes per Warriors game or other event.

While neither the SF Gate report nor team nor venue officials offered an explanation as to why the service is under-used, I have to wonder how many people know it's available.  Whatever the reason, I hope that the folks who run the Center don't decide to turn the space into, oh, I don't know, another gift shop.

There's nothing like a celebrity endorsement to boost a product or service's popularity. So, perhaps, this video or Warriors star Klay Thompson riding his bike to work--a playoff game--might entice more cyclists to park at Chase Center:

One Person's Junk Is Another Person's Jump

I've taken more than a few rides that included the Concrete Plant Park.  I love that what could have been a remnant--a ruin, really--of the industrial past could be turned into a visually interesting recreational space.

The Concrete Plant Park could have become a dump, or worse. Such a fate has befallen too many other sites of closed factories and schools or abandoned residential and office buildings.  Instead, it's a place where folks like me ride, run or walk, or take their kids just to get them out of their crowded apartments.

Now I've heard of something that's perhaps just as innovative:  Using stuff that's been dumped to make a bike park.  That's what some folks in Colorado have done.  The result, aptly named Junk Yard Bike Park, is set to open on Monday, Memorial Day, thanks to Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center in Colorado Springs, near the entrance to Browns Canyon National Monument.  

The idea for the park came to RMOC owner Brandon Slate not long after he and his business partner, Ryan Coulter, after they inherited the Arkansas River site in 2016.  They started riding their mountain bikes among--and, in some cases, on--the junk when they realized the potential for creating "a bike park that will not only fill a local need but also draw people to RMOC to take advantage of the outpost's other features, such as its microbrewery, food truck and riverside setting."  

The site, they say, will include bike lines for cyclists of various skill levels,  a pump track and access to singletrack with mellow downhill sections and more technical drops.

Oh, and if you really want to have fun, you can drop from an old school bus or jump over a rusted classic car.  You can't do that in Concrete Plant Park, or any other salvaged post-industrial site I know of.