Category Archives: Activism

by Christopher | October 22, 2011 · 12:00 pm

Upper Madison Ave. Street Festival Report

A little over a year ago I was inept at fixing bikes. I couldn’t even clean a chain. Who would have guessed that last weekend I and my colleague and fellow ABR member Mike Barr would be teaching people how to repair bikes in representation of ABR at the Madison Ave. Street Festival. ABC was there as well with a swanky new sign made by Lorenz Worden with our new logo on the front.

After the initial set up Ken went on a coffee run to give us that brown liquid that makes us warm in our bellies in trade for bike repair because his headset had some play in it and his handlebars were loose. Sadly we could not fix his bars, but we removed the play on the stem.

Next was a child who needed his training wheels readjusted. Easy enough.

Lastly there were the bike cops that wanted to swap seats and seat posts. I am always glad to help out the boys in blue.

On the other side of things the APD set up an obstacle course that was supposed to teach you bike skills and was designed for kids bike, but we had to try it anyway. After all of us almost wiped out we all managed to get through big bikes and all.

We then tore down the obstacle course and turned it into a bike polo rink. Of which two out of four people wiped out on and it was taken down soon after.

All in all it was a good day for Pine Hills. With the ABC, ABR, and the APD representing in the way of bike advocacy, repair, and safety it was a good day to be a bicyclist. Also I discovered something interesting. Pine hills has a Google Calendar with all there events on it. So if you use Google Calendar like me you can add it to yours and get all the events that are happening each week, and there is a surprising amount of events up. So go check it out.

Written by Chris Belsole

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Filed under Activism, Article, Bike rescue

by Christopher | August 25, 2011 · 7:00 am

Changing Albany on Short Notice

I have written about Albany 2030 before. For those of you who don’t remember it is a way for the citizens of Albany to have an impact on how our city is shaped in the future. Part of this future, hopefully, will include bicycle transportation accommodations. How do I know this? What an astute question self. I know this because we are going to make it happen, and when I say we I don’t mean ABC. I mean us, the people of Albany because we are what makes this city great.

So what can you do to make sure bicycles get their due space on the road? Today Albany 2030 is hosting a ride where you will go around the city and check out all the bicycle accommodations camera in tow and tell them through the art of photography what you want to see more of and what ways the city could improve.

(click on the image to make it larger)

Written by Chris Belsole

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Filed under Activism, Article, Rides, Support the Cause

by Ethan | June 8, 2011 · 6:07 am

Volunteering as a Bike Mechanic for the Tour de Cure

My alarm went off at 6:30 on Sunday morning. I had all my tools ready, so I threw them in a backpack, grabbed something to eat, and headed out the door. A few blocks away I picked up Dan, who had also volunteered to be a roaming bike mechanic for the 20th Tour de Cure.

We arrived at Saratoga Springs High School and met up with Brent, our contact there. We got bright yellow t-shirts that said we were volunteers. He split us up; each of us teamed up with a radio operator and a vehicle, and around 9 we were off.

There were a lot of cyclists there. I heard rumors that there were 2000. When you have rides of different mileages, you get a lot of different people. Obviously the vast majority were racers in full kit, but I saw some people on trikes, some nice cruisers, young guys on mountain bikes, and a lot of kids. They took off in waves, and it was impressive to see so many cyclists.

Dave, my radio guy, was a real pleasure to work with. He was very familiar with the area and had a lot of great stories. We were “Roamer 2”, and we patrolled Area 2 in a donated Nissan Xterra.

I don’t know why they gave us a mammoth SUV to drive around with cyclists, and I told them as much. Of course, event coordinators understand that, but Lia donated the vehicles and they probably just wanted to show off something shiny.

Most of what I did was pump up tires. People who had problems would notify anyone with a volunteer shirt, who would notify control, who would notify us to go help them. By the time we got there to help out, most people had already swapped tubes. We usually showed up just in time to pull out the big air pump and wrap things up.

I did have to tinker with a lot of kid’s bikes. This is my only real judgmental complaint. I don’t understand why people ride a department store kid’s bike 25 miles, without tuning it up first. That’s got to be brutal. The nice thing, after helping them out, was looping around through the route and seeing these kids still on the road, pedaling away.

It was interesting to see all the cyclists riding on roads with cars. Despite being told to follow the rules of the road, most blew through stop signs and red lights, and often look the entire lane making it impossible for cars to get by. At one point we had to tell some people to get out of the lane for oncoming traffic. There’s a lot of room for education at events like this.

After a few hours of that we got lunch. And ice cream.

I had a good time. I don’t consider myself much of a bike mechanic, but it was really nice to help out, even with my meager skills. Maybe next year, the ABC can send more than two people.

Written by Ethan

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Filed under Activism, Events, Volunteer

by Christopher | May 14, 2011 · 12:00 pm

For The Betterment Of East Greenbush

Here at ABC we got an e-mail recently informing us on a meeting happening in East Greenbush. From the e-mail:

“The Town of East Greenbush will be holding a public workshop on May 23rd @ 7pm in the Town Hall to discuss potential ideas for new recreational amenities in the town. Such amenities as park improvements, trails, bike paths and other recreational improvements residents would like to see are being considered for discussion. The public is invited to come and share ideas. Check the town website for more information or updates. Thanks!”

For more information visit the meeting’s official site.

Honestly I love when people alert us to these kinds of things. We are called Albany Bicycle Coalition, but when we have a chance to help citizens outside of Albany we take it. We could change our names to the Capital Region Bicycle Coalition, but ABC is too good of an acronym to give up.

If anyone out there has any tips on bike news or improvement projects feel free to drop us a line or send us an e-mail. We are always glad to hear from you.

Written by Chris Belsole

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Filed under Activism, Article

by Lorenz M. Worden | April 17, 2011 · 12:00 pm

Albany Bicycle Coalition Reaches Out to the Community

Over the April 8-10, 2011 weekend, ABC members hosted an information table at the L.L. Bean Colonie Center Spring Sports Weekend. This event was for outdoor enthusiasts with free clinics and demonstrations on paddling, hiking, camping, and other spring sports. At the other end of the consumption extreme, we were at the Hudson-Mohawk Reskilling Festival in Troy which featured exhibits and demonstrations on climate change, wind power, bicycling, composting, urbanism, and other skills. ABC members used both events to promote bicycling and the work of the Albany Bicycle Coalition with a special emphasis on Complete Streets. The reception of our message by the shoppers at L.L. Bean and the attendees at the Reskilling Festival was very favorable.

We distributed literature on ABC, Bicycle Month 2011, other bicycle related events during April and May, Shared Bicycle Lanes, and cyclist/driver responsibilities.