Author: Harald Kliems

By the time many of you will get to read this, it will already be 2020. On behalf of our board, I wish you a Happy New Year! And what better start into a new year than to reflect on what has happened in 2019. Here are my personal reflections on everything Madison, bikes, and Madison Bikes.

January

One may think that January is a quiet month for biking in Madison. But in 2019, it started out with a big Madison Bikes event: We had a visitor from Berlin (Germany), Dirk von Schneidemesser. Dirk grew up in Madison but moved to Europe and was one of the key people involved in Berlin’s bike referendum. In our event at HotelRED, “From Madison to Berlin and Back: Civic Activism for a More Livable City,” Dirk described how the non-profit Changing Cities was able to mobilize for a referendum that would have binding rules for safe and comfortable bike infrastructure, collecting over 100,000 signatures in less than a month! You can read a recap of the event here. I can only speak for myself, but I was really inspired by the Berlin story and have kept thinking about whether and how similar advances would be possible in Madison.

January also marked a significant change for the leadership of Madison Bikes. Grant Foster, the very person who instigated Madison Bikes and had been the organization’s president from the beginning, decided to step down and instead focus on running for the District 15 seat on the Common Council instead. I can’t say enough about how important Grant was for Madison Bikes, and I’m glad that he continues to be on our board! The new leadership of Madison Bikes: Yours truly, with Heather Pape as vice president.

February

Local elections were on many people’s minds in February, and Madison Bikes took part in education and informing voters about the mayoral race. (As a 501(c)(3) organization we are not endorsing or advocating for candidates.) In January we co-sponsored a candidate forum, and in February we sent out a questionnaire with bike- and transportation-related questions to all candidates for mayor. It was heartening to see that all but two candidates took the time to respond to our questions. In the February primary, Paul Soglin and Satya Rhodes-Conway received the most votes and made the ballot for the general election in April.

Our other main focus for the month was Winter Bike Week. From February 1 to 8, every day we and our partners hosted events to celebrate and promote year-round biking. Unfortunately (but perhaps unsurprisingly), the weather tried its best to sabotage our efforts. Yes, there is no bad weather, just bad clothing — until you have a week that has everything from freezing rain to days with wind chill temperatures of -25F. Still, we were out there, and some of you were out there too. Kudos to everyone who braved the conditions. This year we’re going to try something a little different to promote winter biking, starting with our Holiday Fantasy in Lights Family Ride on January 4.

March

Madison Bikes is only piece of the bike ecosystem of Madison. Two other orgs had an eventful March: Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison finished their third season and gave away 1400 free bikes. Our board and volunteers contributed to this in a tiny, tiny way by having a volunteer session to help clean and fix bikes. This year’s FB4K season has just started, and we plan on having another volunteer season in the coming weeks.

Freewheel Bicycle Collective had a big March as well: They were selected as the operator for the future Judge Doyle Square Bicycle Center. The center, which will likely open later in 2020, will feature secure bike parking, showers, repair space, and a new, more central location for Freewheel to host its classes.

And this very blog you’re reading also had an exciting moment in March: Our new board member Steph published her first “Biking with Steph” column!

And while all these things were happening in the open, behind the scenes maybe the most important thing for Madison Bikes in 2019 happened: After hosting Madison Bike Week for many years, the Bike Fed asked us whether we wanted to take over the event. Knowing how much went into organizing a week-long event and given that we had less than three months to pull it all off, it wasn’t an easy decision. But because Madison Bike Week is such an important part of biking in Madison, we said “yes”! More on Madison Bike Week below.

April

Did everything change in April? Probably not. But from the perspective of a bike advocate, certainly a lot of things did change in Madison on April 2, 2019. Madison elected a new mayor, and 9 out of the 20 seats on the Common Council were filled by new Alders — one of them being our board member Grant, representing District 15. I was cautiously optimistic back then that new leadership would be a good thing for active transportation in Madison, and I continue to be optimistic. Of course, we still have a long way to go to move away from car-focused planning, and we still need advocates to push, push, and push. But I think April was a start into the right direction.

Maybe one example from April that exemplifies how things are moving the right way but aren’t quite there yet is the Wilson Street corridor study. Wilson Street, which is a crucial downtown gap in our low-stress bike network, was a major advocacy focus for us in 2018. While we didn’t succeed in getting the city to commit to adding protected bike facilities on West Wilson, the Common Council tasked the Department of Transportation to conduct a corridor study. That corridor study looked at connections to the Capitol Square from a larger perspective, and in April 2019 the Department of Transportation published their interim recommendations. The recommendations included many improvements for people on bikes. But they also still included many compromises because of a hesitation to remove car parking or tolerate a couple more seconds of delay for people driving through the area. Nothing has been finalized yet and construction won’t start before 2020 or later. So it remains to be seen how far we as a city have come in prioritizing people walking and biking.

May

In my recollection, all we did in May was rushing to get ready for Madison Bike Week. But of course that’s not quite true. A group of high school students from Oshkosh came on a field trip to Madison. It wasn’t an ordinary field trip, though: The students were on bikes, and the theme was bike-friendly communities. Our board members Pete and Jim, Steve Arnold from Bike Fitchburg, and a number of other Madison volunteers took the students around town and showed off our city’s bike infrastructure.

Bikes and buses make for a great combination

May was also the month when planning for Madison’s future Bus Rapid Transit system really picked up. This clearly had been one of the big election topic, and with a mayor strongly committed to improving transit in Madison, the city put many resources into making BRT a reality. An integrated transportation system beyond cars is important for everyone, and bus rapid transit can work well in combination with biking and walking. This topic will be with us for years to come, and for 2020 Madison Bikes is going to make a push to drive a conversation about how BRT can best work together with biking.

June

What can I say? June was Bike Week, and it was great. Some of my personal highlights:

• Working with all the amazing partners we had. Sponsors who contributed financially, bike station hosts, local non-profits that helped us spread the word or tabled at our events, all the volunteers, and of course Renee Callaway at the City!
• Producing Madison Bike Week TV with Liz: All we had was an idea: Wouldn’t it be nice to have short videos about what is happening each day of Madison Bike Week? No script, no rehearsal, no experience, all shot in one afternoon in Liz’s backyard.
• Speaking in front of the Common Council when they officially pronounced Madison Bike Week in a resolution
• The Fetch the Keg ride: For our Friday party, one of the beer sponsors was the Hop Garden in Paoli. How would we get the beer from Paoli to Madison? Of course by bike!
• Riding with the mayor: To kick off Madison Bike Week, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and several members of the Common Council joined us on a big group ride to city hall for a press conference.

Another June highlight was the launch of an all-electric BCycle bike share system. Madison BCycle replaced its entire fleet with e-assist bikes, and the launch was a big success. Some of our board members joined the launch ride around the Capitol, and our former board member Hank wrote a detailed review of the bikes and system.

July

It took us a little bit to recover from Bike Week. In July we ran a successful fundraising campaign in support of the new Pinney Library. We think books and bikes go together really well, and the new Pinney Library will be in a very bike-friendly location. For that reason the Madison Public Library Foundation ran a “Rack-Raising” campaign. Instead of the traditional model where you “buy” a brick for a new building, your donation was signified by a personalized bike rack. We were able to raise $1000 for the library — thanks to everyone who donated! We’ll have some news to share about this in the next week or two. Stay tuned.

August

August started with a great event that Madison Bikes co-sponsored. Just Bikes!, Madison’s bike equity coalition, invited renowned mobility justice scholar and advocate Dr. Adonia Lugo to Madison. After a bike ride through Madison’s south side, Lugo gave a book talk about “Locating ourselves in Mobility Justice: Planning for multiracial and just future streets.” If you want to learn more about her work, I recommend reading her book “Bicycle/Race.”

Two exciting new bike infrastructure projects came online in August: In Shorewood Hills the Blackhawk Path opened. The path closes a gap of the University Ave/Campus Drive corridor, where previously bikes had to detour through Marshall Court. On the isthmus, the first stage of construction of the John Nolen/Williamson/Blair/Wilson (a.k.a. The Hairball) intersection was completed. While the intersection is still constructed in a way that prioritizes motor vehicle throughput over everything else, the project did bring some nice improvements for people on bikes, such as the much widened bike path in front of Machinery Row and a new protected two-way bike lane on Blount.

Blackhawk path video

September

I talked about change in the city earlier, and this fall we saw two more indicators of this change: Our board member Baltazar de Anda Santana was appointed to the city’s Transportation Policy and Planning Board, and yours truly was appointed to the Transportation Commission.

One of the jobs of a local bike advocate is to be critical of the status quo and to often focus on the negative. So it is nice every once in a while to be reminded of the good things we have in our city. In September a delegation from the Wasatch Front Range region in Utah came to town because from their perspective Madison is a biking success story. We were very happy to organize the event and show our visitors around on a bike tour and connect them with local planners, elected officials, and advocates.

October

The focus of October was the city budget. To paraphrase a well-known quote: What a city truly values is reflected in its budget. Yes, there are many other important levers that we need to pull on to improve active transportation, and most bike infrastructure is ridiculously cheap when compared to, say, expanding the Beltline. But this year’s budget had many important — and sometimes controversial — pieces that will help make transportation in Madison better. We contributed to the discussion by writing explainer blog posts about the wheel tax, encouraging you to write in about Vision Zero and 7-day-a-week clearing of our arterial multi-use paths.

November

The advocacy efforts of October came to fruition in November. The Common Council passed a budget that from my perspective was overwhelmingly good: Funding for bus rapid transit and a study to reorganize our existing Metro bus network, to improve our most dangerous intersections, and to keep our paths clear of ice and snow seven days a week. The path clearing project had been something that we had been working on for several years, and so it was a great success to see it finally come to fruition! Thanks to everyone who has supported us in this.

Photo: Dan Stout

Speaking of winter, November also saw us host another edition of the Winter Bike Fashion Show, an event to encourage and educate people to try riding in the cold season. We had great models and a record attendance! Lots of pictures in this post.

Another exciting thing in November: A new, parking-protected bike lane opened on Bassett Street. Instead of having parked cars on the curb and a bike lane between the parked cars and the regular travel lane, parked cars and a buffer create a protected bike lane on these two blocks of Bassett. This is the first parking-protected bike lane in Madison, and the city is conducting a year-long test, which hopefully will lead to a wider adoption around the city.

December

December is a time of reflection. One result of that reflection was that we decided to do a strategic planning exercise next year. Madison Bikes has been around since 2016, and we feel that it’s a good time to check in what we have achieved so far and where we’re going to go in the couple years. How do we prioritize what we work on? Is an all-volunteer model sustainable in the long term? (And if it isn’t: what are the alternatives?) What are some achievable, measurable goals for the next 1, 5, or 10 years for our organization? I’m excited to explore these questions and continue to build on the past four years of great work that we’ve been doing.

December is also the time of our board election. I’m sad to see some of our previous board members leave: A big thanks to Steph, Jake, Kate, and Pepe for your time with us! We will miss you! And I’m excited to welcome our new board members. We’ll introduce them on our blog in January.

Ah, and one last thing: There are many ways to support Madison Bikes, and one of them is by supporting us financially. If you appreciate what we’re doing, please consider making a donation to us. We appreciate any support you can offer, no matter how small. Thanks!

Just before it got really, really cold, the 9th edition of the Winter Bike Fashion Show took place on November 2. With record attendance of 125 people, we had a successful event. An edutainment event in the best sense, twelve people from the community who already bike in the winter, shared their knowledge and showed off their outfits to those who aren’t yet riding in the winter. Our awesome photography crew — Dan Stout and Mark Renner — produced these great shots of the event. Still to come: video of the Q&A for those who couldn’t make it.

Thanks to our models, event volunteers, Natalie Kuehn for designing the flyer, the High Noon Saloon for hosting us, Teddywedgers for feeding us pasties, and the local businesses who donated door prizes: Bloom Bake Shop, Cafe Domestique, The Cargo Bike Shop, EVP Coffee, Fitchburg Cycles, Planet Bike, Slow Roll Cycles, and Saris.

For lots more pictures, check out Dan’s or Mark’s full albums.

Brittingham Boats and Planet Bike let us borrow their bike racks. Subtle hint to the High Noon Saloon: You need more racks! (Photo: Dan Stout)

Gina, one of our great volunteers at the event (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our board member Baltazar introducing the MC. He had also led a group ride to the Show from Monona Terrace.

Our MC for the night, Luis LuckyVoy Martinez, and our board member Liz (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our first model, Eric, who works at Freewheel Community Bike Shop and will soon hold his own winter biking workshop there. When it’s really cold, he resorts to wearing a motorcycle helmet (Photo: Dan Stout)

Terry is in her 60s and has been car-free for many years. She bikes year-round. (Photo: Dan Stout)

We were super excited to have Yang Tao as a model. When he’s not on stage as a model, he’s Madison City Traffic Engineer. He’s been winter-biking in Madison for 16 years! (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our board member Elysha and her daughter Abby are veterans of the Winter Bike Fashion Show. Watch out for them when they ride around all winter in their family cargo bike or on their own single bikes.

Tim–uh, I mean “Yukon Cornelius” riding in on his sled! (Photo: Mark Renner)

Alder Grant Foster (District 15) and our board member Pete informing attendees about a city budget amendment that would expand snow and ice clearing from 5 to 7 days a week. (Photo: Dan Stout)

Our photo booth had great accessories: Snotcicles, ice beard, foggy glasses (Photo: Dan Stout)

Photo: Dan Stout

Beth and her winter commuter bike. She bikes from the east side to her job on the west side, and she “refuses to let weather determine my happiness” (Photo: Dan Stout)

Caleb’s secret weapon for winter biking: Electric gloves! (Photo: Dan Stout)

One model, Nick, failed to wear his winter biking outfit! Or did he? No, in his velomobile he is protected from the elements and can get away with just wearing a sweater. (Photo: Dan Stout)

Winter biking can (but doesn’t have to be) expensive. Carlton talks about how as a grad student on a limited budget he slowly accumulated and refined his gear over time.

Heather and her three kids (who were slightly distracted by the velomobile…)

When Andy isn’t busy running his bike shop in Lake Mills or Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison, he does recreational rides, no matter the season.

Michael has been doing the winter bike thing since the 1990s. Not only does he ride for transportation; he also has participated in exploits like the Triple-D, a 70-mile offroad bike race in Iowa in the depths of winter.

Q&A with the models. I believe the question was how to deal with snot…

Renowned local artists Jenn and Nicole had painted bike-themed winter scenes that helped us raise over $300 in the silent auction.

Let’s end with some pics of the audience and more volunteers:

Happy Winter Biking!

Our board member Pepe and two of our volunteer models for the Winter Bike Fashion made an appearance on local radio station WORT this morning. If you missed it, you can listen to the segment here (if the embedded player doesn’t appear, try this link:

We hope to see you and your friends this Saturday at the High Noon Saloon! You can get a preview of some of our models on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MadisonBikes/posts/

Madison Bikes had a great time at the Science Fair on the Square last Friday.

First things first: If you missed our action alert yesterday: There still a little bit of time to send an email to the City’s finance committee and support a budget amendment that would expand winter path maintenance. Find all the details in yesterday’s post.

Some construction updates (for a complete list of updates go to the Bike Madison newsletter linked at the bottom of the post):

• Many of you have been wondering when the traffic signals at the new Willy/Blount diagonal crossing would be turned out. Well, there’s been small progress, and at this point the lights are flashing. According to the Bike Madison newsletter, they should be fully functional by the end of this week.
• Starting next week, there will be a detour on the SW Path. Reconstruction of a culvert will close the path east of Midvale until the end of the year. The detour will be via a temporary protected bike lane on Midvale, Yuma, and Council Crest.

On Monday and Wednesday, there will be Open Houses about the proposed Wisconsin River Recreation Bridge in Sauk City. The Monday one is from 6:30 – 8:30pm at Wisconsin Heights High School in Mazomanie. The Wednesday meeting is also from 6:30 – 8:30pm at River Arts Center (Sauk Prairie School District), 105 9th St., Prairie Du Sac. More info on the project on Facebook.

On Wednesday, it’s your last change to attend the Cyclocross Practice series organized by Madison Parks, Capitol Off Road Pathfinders, L5 and Neff Cycling. Starts at 5pm in Marshall Park.

This Friday is the last Friday of the month, which around the world is the day for Critical Mass. After a successful Critical Mass as part of the Climate Strike, there has been interest in making it a regular event. Meets at 6pm at the beer garden in Olbrich Park.

On Saturday, there’s another cyclocross race. Come to Angell Park in Sun Prairie for this year’s CrossFire race. Includes costumes, a kid’s race, and free entries for first-time cyclocross racers.

As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.

It’s city budget season in Madison, and we want to alert you of a budget amendment that would greatly improve winter maintenance on our major shared use paths.

What’s the current situation? On primary paths, such as the Cap City or the Southwest Path, snow will usually be cleared by 7am from Monday on Friday. Smaller paths and trails will be cleared by 4:30pm, also only Monday to Friday. On the weekend and on holidays, snow and ice clearing depend on staff availability, which often means no clearing happens.

Why is this a problem? Those of us walk, roll, and bike on the paths during the winter know all too well what the consequence of not clearing the path 7 days a week can be. The immediate impact is that if you have to rely on paths on the weekend to get to work, run errands, or reach your nearest Metro stop, you’re often out of luck. What’s worse: Not clearing the snow for more than 48 hours (or 72 hours if it’s a long holiday weekend) means that snow will be compacted, rutted, or have turned into ice by the time the plows and sweepers come around. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of the clearing operations and can have negative impacts for many days or even weeks to come. If we want bicycles to be a viable transportation option in Madison, we can’t focus only on weekday 9-5 commuters.

What is proposed? The amendment to the city’s operating budget, sponsored by Alder Kemble and co-sponsored by Alder Foster, would allocate additional funding for snow clearing. This would allow Engineering and Parks staff to increase service on weekends and holidays so that clearing on arterial paths can occur within 12 hours after a winter event, weekday, weekend and holiday alike.

What you can do? If you think clearing the path 7 days a week is a good idea, consider sending an email to the Finance Committee, supporting budget amendment 4 (“Snow & Ice Control on Arterial Shared Use Paths”). The Committee meets tomorrow (Monday, 10/21), and so submit your comments ASAP. To help members of the committee understand the importance of keeping the paths clear and accessible 7 days a week, it can be helpful to share your own experience, whether you’re walking or riding on the paths in winter. Do you rely on biking and walking as your primary means of transportation? Have you had a crash because of snow and ice on our paths? Is it difficult for you to get to your job because have to work on weekends? Are there specific problem spots that you regularly encounter on the primary and secondary paths? After all, if you own a home in Madison, you are expected to keep your sidewalks clear of snow and ice all week. It’s hard to argue that different rules should apply to the City.

Who to send your email to? Below are the members of the Finance Committee. It’s also a good idea to include your district’s alder, as ultimately the whole Common Council will vote on the budget. You can find out who your alder is here.

district1@cityofmadison.com,

district7@cityofmadison.com,

district19@cityofmadison.com,

district4@cityofmadison.com,

district18@cityofmadison.com,

mayor@cityofmadison.com,

district5@cityofmadison.com

Want to become more involved in local bicycle advocacy? Consider joining the Madison Bikes board of directors.

We have already received several exciting applications. But it’s not too late to throw your hat into the ring! We are extending the application deadline to October 20.

Madison Bikes is looking for people who are dedicated, passionate, strong communicators, good compromisers, organized, and able to commit time and energy to promoting biking as a priority in the city of Madison. There are no paid staff and everything we do—from fundraising to advocacy to communications to events—is done by our volunteer board and volunteer committee members.

We are currently accepting applications for up to eight seats on the Madison Bikes Board of Directors, with elections taking place in December.

Our organization is committed to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic board committed to equity in our work. We strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, and other groups who are underrepresented in bike advocacy.

The Madison Bikes board is an all-volunteer working board. We expect board members to:

• Attend our monthly board meetings (6-8pm every third Monday of the month) and our Community Meetings (4th Monday)

• Participate in one or more of our focus areas and work on tasks between meetings

• Have passion for our organization’s vision: Making Madison a city where anyone can ride a bicycle conveniently and comfortably to any place in the city and neighboring communities year round.

Other examples of things our board members do:

• Write for our blog

• Plan, organize, and promote events such as Bike Week or the Winter Bike Fashion Show

• Attend city-held meetings (public input meetings, City Council meetings, local and regional transportation committee meetings)

• Mobilize the community to advocate for bike projects
• Meet and liaise with community partners (neighborhood associations, non-profits, other bike advocacy groups)

• Contribute to fundraising and organizational development efforts

If you are interested in joining our board, please complete this application form by October 20. If you would like to nominate someone other than yourself, please forward this post/email to them and ask them to apply.

Our executive board will review all application submissions and follow up with all applicants with next steps.

Have questions? Email Heather!

Before we get into the Monday Updates, two quick reminders:

• Our board of directors call for applications is still open. If you’re interested in joining our board, fill out this application form, or contact heather@madisonbikes.org to ask questions — or come to our Community Meeting on Monday night (see below).
• We’re also still looking for models for the Winter Bike Fashion Show. Applications close a week from now, and so if you want to share you knowledge about riding in the cold, this is your chance! No modeling experience required; we welcome and encourage all body types and physical abilities, and applications from people of color, LGBTQ+ models.

Also note that phase 2 of the repaving of the Cap City Trail has now been scheduled. The segment between Fish Hatchery Rd and Seminole Highway will be closed starting October 2. More info on the Dane County Park page.

Last Week

The Youth Global Climate Strike was the big event last week. News reports speak of over 1000 participants in Madison, some young, some not so young. Some of those participants got to the Capitol Square as a Critical Mass ride. It’s been a long time since there has been a Critical Mass in Madison, but turnout was good and a big group of people rode their bikes from Olbrich Gardens down East Washington Ave to the Capitol. It looks like there is some interest in future rides and there is now a dedicated Facebook page.

This Week

Are you interested in being involved with organizing our Winter Bike Fashion Show? Help us work on a project that would expand winter bike path maintenance from 5 to 7 days a week? Or just want to know more about Madison Bikes? Then you should come to our Madison Bikes Community Meeting on Monday night. We’ll be at Bendyworks (106 East Doty Street, Suite 200) from 6-8 pm. If you plan on coming, please shoot a quick email to harald@madisonbikes.org.

Also on Monday night is Bike Fitchburg’s monthly meeting. On the agenda will be a recap of their Take Me to the Border fundraising ride. 6:30-8 pm, Fitchburg Public Library.

Wednesday is a busy day.

The Transportation Commission has their regular meeting. On the agenda:

• Expanding the current Snow Emergency zone: This is good news for biking. Parked cars often impede snow clearing close to curb, which then narrows the space available for biking.
• Relocating the intercity bus terminal
• Adding speed humps on Lake Edge Boulevard between Maher and Major

It’s cyclocross season! Whether you’re cross-curious or are already a ‘crosser but want to improve your skills, the weekly cyclocross workshop series by Madison Parks and partners is for you. This week, the workshop is happening at Olbrich Park on Wednesday from 5:30-7 pm. Free and open to all.

If you’d rather stay indoors, come to Union South for a free screening of Anthropocene, a “stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet.” First come, first serve; doors open at 6:30.

On Thursday, you have another opportunity to go to a Bus Rapid Transit Open House. Mayor Rhodes-Conway really kicked off her Metro Forward campaign last week, and bus rapid transit is a key component of her plan. The open house will be a good opportunity to learn more and ask questions. Madison College, Truax Campus, Room D1630, 1710 Wright Street, 6-8 pm

We at Madison Bikes believe that to enable more people to bike, we need to have a seamless network of low-stress bike facilities, covering all of our neighborhoods. The south side is one area where that network has many gaps that need improvement. As part of the update of the South Madison Neighborhood plan, the city’s bike/ped coordinator Renee Callaway is hosting a Bike and Talk Action Workshop on Saturday: “bike and talk about how to make it easier, safer, and more fun to get around on the south side. […] this is a way to show city staff the best and not so great places to get to on bike. Bring your bike as there will be a group ride to start the day. If you prefer not to bike with the group join the workshop at 2:30pm back at the Goodman South Library. Inside if weather is uncooperative. Sat, Sept 28, 1 –⁠ 3:30pm. RSVP here.

As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.

Let’s start this weekly update with some fun pictures: As our board member Grant pointed out, our Badger Band is a biking band!

If you ride past the band practice field at this time of year, you’ll see tons of bikes parked there. On my way back from work, I hung around a bit and took pictures of the band members biking themselves and their instruments back home.

More shots here.

Happy Labor Day!

I’m going to have to take it slow today: Bombay Bicycle Club hosted their Wright Stuff Century as a fundraiser for Free Bikes 4 Kidz yesterday. I did the 64 mile route on the tandem, and after all those hills I’m pretty sore and tired. But it was a great event, benefiting a great local bike charity! Thanks to all the volunteers that made it happen.

Photo credit: Karla King/Bombay Bicycle Club

If you’re reading this early and have energy for some manual labor, go to the trail building day in Cross Plains:

The CP trails are riding great and our locals are getting the itch to finish the remaining west loop and turn the out-and-back in to a full loop. We will be renting an excavator the weekend of Labor Day and are looking for helpers to hand finish behind our equipment crew. No experience necessary and family members are welcome. We will supply hand tools and refreshments, but please bring your own gloves, water, and bug spray.

Starts at 9am, more details here.

On Wednesday, you can practice your cyclocross skills. Capital City Offroad Pathfinders, Madison Parks, Neff Cycles, and L5 are offering weekly clinics in parks around town, both for newbies to cyclocross and more advanced riders. This Wednesday they’ll be at Badger Prairie County Park, starting at 5:30 pm. More details.

Also on Wednesday, the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board is meeting. The big item on the agenda is the public hearing on the Draft 2020-2024 Transportation Improvement Program for the Madison Metropolitan Area & Dane County, a.k.a. the TIP. This is an important document that lays out the budget for all regional transportation projects in the next four years. Unfortunately, it is a long and rather unwieldy document, which makes it difficult to digest and comment on. You can find it in all its 123-page glory here. The meeting takes place at the City-County Building, Room 351, 6:30 pm.

The event I’m most excited about this week is on Saturday morning: It’s the ribbon cutting for the new Blackhawk Path segment in Shorewood Hills! This is a great addition to our low-stress bike network, as you no longer have to ride on Marshall Court and make awkward right/left crossings at University Bay Drive. Come and celebrate at 9 am at the University Station mall. And in the meantime, check out our video of the new path:

If you want to test fancy mountain bikes, you can join Giant Bicycle for two demo events this weekend: At Quarry Ridge on Saturday from 9-4; and at the Blackhawk Trails on Sunday between 10-4. Click the links for more details.

Finally, the Fair Share Coalition is looking for volunteers for Bike the Barns. Sign up here.

It’s Liv, over at FairShare again! I’ll keep this short: we are still looking for folks to fill up volunteer slots for FairShare’s Bike the Barns, on September 15th. With up to 800 riders, 4 farm stops (each with live music, farm tours, and food), and an after party featuring 7 local food vendors, there are a lot of hands that go into making this event a success.

As always, you can find an overview of all bike events on our Community Bike Calendar. Email us at info@madisonbikes.org to add your events. And if you value our newsletter and other work, consider donating to Madison Bikes. For construction updates, check out the city’s Bike Madison page.