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| The Summer 2000 ride schedule is posted and available at http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Schedule/RideSchedule.htm
The Sun. ride has moved from Young's Farm to the Prescott Courthouse. The ride is now starting at 6:30 AM. This seems really early to me but that is what time most people want to go. The ride description is as follows: Every Sunday Morning The Sun. ride is an all abilities road ride meeting at the south side of the courthouse square in downtown Prescott. Some racers come for training and do not wait up while others can regroup at various points. This weekly road ride has several route options depending on the feelings of the group but usually does the Skull Valley loop (50 miles). Riders are responsible for tools, tubes, water and be self contained. Summer 2000 6:30 AM
Meet advocates from around Arizona - learn how to be successful at getting better bicycle facilities in your own community. Ride in the mornings, Learn in the afternoons, Enjoy High country summer evenings. For more info: Cindie Travis, Chair, Prescott Bicycle Advisory Committee, 520-541-7604 http://www.prescottyellowpages.com/cazb/Summit.htm
Current Prescott Chain Gang members have another place to cash in on a the Club's discount. Mountain Sports of Prescott is offering the Club a 10% discount on all merchandise. I will add Mountain Sports Logo and link to the bottom of every page of our web site along with the other supporters of the Chain Gang. This brings us to three local shops that offer us a generous 10% discount. Bikesmith's Cycle and Fitness The club used to have a card that we were supposed to show at the shops but we ran out of cards and nobody was carrying it anyway. The solution to this is that I now print the club roster and give the participating shops a copy. The roster lists all members and when their membership expires. Membership applications can be found at http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Application.htm
What if you lived in downtown Prescott and worked at the gas station at Robert Rd. and 89A or anywhere around that area. (10-15 miles) Lets also say that you do not have a driver's license because you got into a little trouble with the law and it was taken away for a year. It is too far to walk and too expensive to take a cab. If you are not lucky enough to have a friend to carpool with you still have two options. One option is you do what a lot of people do in this situation do and you drive anyway. You like to think of your self as "straightening up" and a law-abiding citizen now days and therefore do the right thing and you head to the local pawn or bike shop and get a bike. You find that it only takes you 45 min to go to work and 1 hour 15 minutes to get home because of the hill. You do not really want to ride that much but your probation requires that you hold a job. It is hard at first but after a few weeks you can go to and from work without any problems. You also use your bike to commute to work sites to work off your community service hours. Six months later you are almost done with your community service hours and with the money that you have saved from not buying insurance or gas you are paying down your fines. You are finally getting out of trouble. Now, after keeping your nose clean and riding instead of driving you find that they have built a new road and your old route is closed. You logically ride to the new road and on the entrance ramp you read a sign "BICYCLES AND PEDESTRIANS ARE PROHIBITED" You learn that the only way around is 69 through Prescott Valley. This will add an extra 12 miles and 1 hour and 15 minutes to your trip. This is a very long way (32 miles - 2 hours each way) and 69 is possibly the most dangerous place to ride in Prescott. The long way is just not reasonable and you take to the freeway twice a day risking your life and breaking the law - just to get to work. It is true that there is going to be a new road built called the Airport Connector that has a current policy of NO BIKES. This road is going to be considered a freeway. I realize that I-17 is a freeway and we had club rides on it. This freeway is looked at more like the ones in Phoenix and is too busy with merging traffic at the interchanges to be considered safe for bicycles. In Phoenix there are always frontage roads or at least a road parallel to the freeway. There is currently no plan for a frontage road that connects the whole thing on the new Airport connector. The old 89A is supposed to close and reverted back to its original private ranch owners. City Staff in Prescott are trying to get some kind of urban trail made out of the old road so we can get through that way. I am not involved in these talks but it looks possible but difficult and not a done deal. I do wish them luck but fear that we may be putting all of our eggs in one basket. Old 89A would provide an adequate connection but what if it this falls through. Bikes would not be able to legally or safely get through. I think this Freeway should have been designed with a frontage road from the start. It
was probably designed 3-4 years ago and that was the time for cyclist to get involved. The
urban trail would be very nice to have in addition to the frontage road. I think that
realistically we will have to settle for any kind of access we can get because the
possibility is that we would have none.
Once, when I was bike touring in the San Francisco Bay Area I was in Berkley and wanted to head North to Napa. I came to the only bridge across the bay and it said NO BIKES. It made no provisions for bikes and had no shoulder. California drivers in hurry and driving inches from the concrete side of the bridge make for very bad conditions. For me to go around would have taken 2 days through San Francisco traffic. Just on the other side of the bridge was Napa Valley - a bikers paradise. What would you do? I went for it. This is possibly the craziest biking moment of my life. This is possible worse than riding around Mexico City. I lived but barely. I had a bit of red truck paint on my left rear pannier. The point is that if you build a road too dangerous for bikes, make it illegal for
bikes, and do not give us a reasonable way around then we will be forced to risk our live
and break the law to get to where we need to go.
Hi Tim, Cindie, and other Prescott bikers: Thanks for sending the Prescott news. Here is something that is very important to the future of open space and should be of interest to road riders who just enjoy scenic beauty near town as well as mountain bikers who enjoy open space to ride in. Laura~~ SAMBA My wife and I are planning a vacation to the Prescott area in October. Will the weather be suitable for road ridding at that time of the year? Also are there any tandem riders out there in your club, or is there a tandem club, or group? We will be on a Linear recumbent tandem. We also like to Jog [slow] on smooth trails, are there any in the area as well? I tried to find this info on the web with no luck. If you could take a couple of minutes to help us out it would be most appreciated. Thank You. John and Marianne Doyle
Airport Connector Meeting July 19, 2000 and what action we
should take There were only three cyclists in a capacity crowd of neighbors, and maybe we clarified the battle lines a little. All non-motorized travel on old and new 89A will be banned, so it's a fundamental travel freedom issue, and I think our state and county officials are getting nervous. After grilling Tom Foster at the end he said he'd abandon the project and pay the contractors off rather than accommodate bicycles and pedestrians. There were no public hearings on the closure of the old road. "Not necessary", said Tom Foster. The state right-of-way contractually returns to the landowners when abandoned. The state is also taking no responsibility for alternative trail routes, and have no clear idea what they are (none, at the moment, and planning and purchase of an indirect route is running far behind construction of the new road). The current Peavine Trail north access will be cut off. There is still room to challenge the state on providing alternative routes, but the county has the primary responsibility to maintain the public road system, and to take over the old road or provide an alternative. When the state gave up Montezuma downtown, they didn't close it down. The city took it over. I don't think they could have closed Montezuma down without a public hearing. I don't think this situation is legal, and I think our officials know that. Gheral Brownlow gheral.brownlowno smamco.yavapai.az.us is the County Supervisor involved with this project. Perhaps we should contact him individually with our concerns, as well as a considered response with legal advice from PBAC or PAT. Our officials are also urging us to negotiate privately permission to pass on old 89A with Jay Wilkinson. That would get them off the hook. Do you think that's adequate? There's more road rebuilding coming, and this segment sets some precedents. Coincidentally, Pine Lakes adult community has banned bicycles from its roadways. These developments could make for a rather nasty news story on Prescott as a bicycle-hostile community. Derek Brownlee We have an opportunity now before the primaries to get our representatives to do the right thing. Otherwise the closure of 89A to non-motorized travel without due process could be a nasty scandal. Travel is a basic constitutional right, regardless of whether a person pays taxes or owns a car, and it's not something to beg for as a favor, since that implies that we've accepted giving it up. Abandonment of public roads and right-of-way has always had to meet this test, and there's plenty of legal process and precedent to refer to. The old 89A closure is clearly illegal if it does not go through the proper sequence of public hearings and court action. There is also a positive requirement at the county level to provide a public road network open to everyone. Otherwise we have to break down fences and trespass to get anywhere, and when this happens it's a sign that the county has failed its obligation. New roads and development must provide access to everyone. We'll need legal help to support these points, and the 89A closure is such a blatant violation of due process that it should be easy to prevail and keep the old road open. Access to new roads is a separate issue, to be dealt with in a separate process, and it will be a lot less confusing to everybody if we deal with one issue at a time. Logically the old 89A preservation comes first. This is an appeal for legal help on the subject of road abandonment. Derek Brownlee
Ride Schedule = http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Schedule/RideSchedule.htm Chain Gang Web Site= http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/index.htmBuilt and Maintained by PrescottYellowPages.com  |
