Would you swap your car for a bike?

It’s a question that we often ask ourselves when we’re feeling particularly guilty about polluting the planet? could we swap our car for a bike? For many the answer is probably: “Yeah, for the commute, and a bit of shopping but I still need the car to drive to next weekend’s sportive…” Anyway, we’re not [...]

Source: http://magazine.bikeradar.com/2012/11/28/would-you-swap-your-car-for-a-bike/

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Portland Round Up

Last week was a whirlwind of activity for the Routes & Mapping department! The entire department -- minus cartographer Casey Greene, who was in Missoula prepping for a research trip -- was in Portland, Oregon.

The activity began with a member gathering in downtown Portland, Oregon at the Bike Gallery. Routes & Mapping Director Carla Majernik, and GIS Specialists and Cartographers Nathan Taylor and Melissa Thompson arrived at the shop after a 10-hour drive over the mountains to the city. In addition to office staff, tour leader Pete Strause was also present. Pete graciously brought his loaded touring bike and some storyboards of past trips to inspire attendees.

There were about 70 people in attendance, a great number for the first-time member gathering crew to meet and speak to. Melissa reported, "I'd say the member meeting went really well. I heard lots of thank you's afterwards -- people seemed to appreciate the outreach. The bike shop guy who stayed late for us told me they have held several cycling related events and that ours was easily the best attended. So he was impressed too."

Following the formal presentation of Adventure Cycling's history of map making, Bicycle Route 66 research, and GIS map conversions, there was a question and answer period that seemed to revolve around the future of maps. Nathan said, "questions I fielded mostly had to do with navigation by GPS and use-case scenarios for the gpx files, and if/when we will have a mobile app for routes."

And there were cookies! I can't forget the fabulous refreshments that were provided by members because a cookie care package made its way to me later that evening. Yum!

While Carla, Nathan and Melissa were conversing with cyclists, I was helping to complete the finishing touches needed to get the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) annual meeting handled.

But earlier in the day, I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with the America ByCycle group, Ryan, Michelle and Alex. I brought along a cartographic colleague, Glen, hoping to inspire him to do a bicycle adventure of his own down the road.

We talked about bicycle travel in general and their current trip down the Pacific Coast. As with their TransAmerica Trail trip last year, they are mostly sticking to Adventure Cycling routes but have some great side trips in mind as well. Part of their mission on this outing is to explore sustainability, mostly as it relates to food, including beer. They were especially enthusiastic about a brewery tour via bicycle they had on tap for the next day.

On Wednesday morning, Carla, Melissa, Nathan, Glen and I convened for the kickoff of the NACIS meeting. For the next three days we were immersed in learning about new mapping technologies, expanding our ideas and gaining inspiration for moving forward. It was exciting to see how other organizations have dealt with expanding their paper map offerings to digital formats.

One display in the poster gallery particularly caught our eye, The Oregon Bicycle Map. Sounds pretty mainstream, right? Not quite so. According to its creator Mark Scott, "It exemplifies multi-media 3-D map art, where metal and geography come together to form something called Cartomation." It was an amazing map sculpture created with dozens of sprockets and chains from discarded bicycles representing 35 locations across the state and connected in a visually pleasing way. And it really worked!

It was stimulating to be surrounded by people with a shared passion for creating great maps. I especially enjoyed sharing this meeting for the first time with Nathan and Melissa. Carla and I have attended before and are already invested in the value received from participation. I think we all walked away with a refreshed vision of what's possible and some connections with people and solutions to make it happen. It is a slow process to be sure but one that with resources and enthusiasm, can happen and happen well.

Now that we're back in the office it's time to occupy ourselves with getting another printing out the door. All the while that inspiration from the last week spins on in the backs of our minds.

First photo: Cookies baked by Heather Andrews.
Second photo: Lunch with America ByCycle, Alex R. Favacho, Michelle Cassell, Jenn Milyko, Glen Pawelski, Ryan McAfee. Notice the empty plates, crumbs were all that was left of the fabulous vegan cookies we enjoyed for dessert.
Third photo: Michelle and Alex prepare to move on to their next destination post-lunch.
Fourth photo: Supplies for a good meeting, cookies, coffee, water, a program and bag to carry them in.
Fifth photo: The Oregon Bike Map. 
Sixth photo: The Oregon Bike Map with NACIS board member Eliana MacDonald for scale.
All photos by Jenn Milyko.

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GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures, and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/11/portland-round-up.html

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Make Your Own Adventures

A slew of friends have been coming through town these days. Everyone wants to know what we're up to:

? How's work going?

? How's school going?

? Been on any adventures lately? Have any adventures planned?

The adventure questions have sent me into a flustered state lately. I am the type that has either just come off of some great trip, or definitely has one planned for the future. But these days, all my adventures are via text books and computer screens.

When fumbling through my answer one of these times, I said, "Well, yeah, I mean, I'm going on a bike tour next August with my mom and I want to get a climbing trip in for the spring, but nothing coming up ... and, well, skiing should be great this winter, but nothing right now..."

My friend interrupted me and said, "Why don't you make your own adventures? Right here in Missoula."

It was such a great wake-up call.

Just because we're not out there right now biking through the warmer states, or adventuring in another time zone, doesn't mean we can't adventure right here, today.

Evan Smith (my bearded manfriend) finishes his trail run up on Lolo Pass during our recent Missoula-based adventure. 

Photo and graphic by Rachel Stevens

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ART. ADVENTURE. AWESOMENESS. wishes to bring enthusiasm to your second and fourth Monday of every month. This column is written by Rachel Stevens, a graphic designer at Adventure Cycling Association

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/11/make-your-own-adventures.html

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Join us for a Ride in the Cotswolds ? Sun Nov 18th

Join us on Sunday the 18th of November for a ride in the beautiful Cotswolds. We’ve planned two routes and we’re looking to encourage riders of all ages and abilities to join in. What’s more, the ride is FREE. This is NOT an official organised sportive event, rather an informal group ride. Our team riders [...]

Source: http://blog.bike-science.com/2012/10/30/join-us-for-a-ride-in-the-cotswolds-sun-nov-18th

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Tour de Suisse ? Levi Leipheimer Laughs Last

The 9-Day, 1,245.9-kilometer (774+ mile) 75th edition of the Tour de Suisse is now in the record books. Traveling through some truly beautiful country, great old cities, serious alpine climbs, 3 countries, and numerous tricky switchbacks and tight turns, Team RadioShack?s members had not been setting many headlines. Sure there were some excellent performances, Andreas [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/tour-de-suisse-levi-leipheimer-laughs-last/

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Poll: Team Radioshack Riders in Tour de France 2011

We are only a couple of weeks away from the biggest cycling event of the year. This year’s Tour de France starts Saturday July 2nd and ends Sunday July 24th 2011. This year the team will have to do without Lance Armstrong, but the team still has great podium potential. Which 9 riders do you [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/poll-team-radioshack-riders-in-tour-de-france-2011/

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Recap: Tour of Flanders (Ronde van Vlaanderen)

Hills are bad enough, Pave is not a preferred surface for cycling. Put the two together and you have a punishing prospect for a cycle race. And so it is with the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Thrills, spills leg-pain, guts and all out exhaustion are guaranteed in every running of this World Pro Tour race. Falling [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/recap-tour-of-flanders-ronde-van-vlaanderen/

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Brajkovic Leaps into 3rd Place at Dauphiné

Team RadioShack?s Janez Brajkovic (SLO) put in an excellent performance in today?s Stage 3, Individual Time Trail of the Critérium du Dauphiné in Grenoble, France, putting himself in very good position (3rd in the overall General Classification so far) to contend this race, and defend the victory he took here last year. And, putting icing [...]

Source: http://www.teamradioshack.us/brajkovic-leaps-into-3rd-place-at-dauphine/

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