Board Meeting
Early March date TBA
Kids on Bikes
Our Kids on Bikes trailer is at Hartsfield Elementary in February
Welcome to Capital City Cyclists, a recreational bike club and 501(c)3 non-profit bicycle advocacy organization for the Florida Capital region.
Dirty Pecan is Saturday March 7
Johan van Tol - 2/24/2020
On March 7, 2020, join fellow dirt/gravel cycling enthusiasts on a ride of your choice of 40, 60, 80, 100, 150, or 200 miles on some of the most scenic dirt roads in the southeast. Organized by Jefferson county, these scenic and rural routes are over 75% unpaved, so a cyclocross bike or mountain bike is necessary. You’ll wind through grand southern plantations, oak canopies, farmland and pecan orchards on red clay and dirt. Pavement has been kept to an absolute minimum. For more information click these links for the event facebook page, Route maps, and for registration.
Bikelanes to be eliminated on Railroad Avenue?
Johan van Tol - 2/18/2020
At the bicycle workgroup meeting Feb 10, the city showed the plans for Railroad avenue between Gaines St and FAMU Way. This project has funds for construction in the city's capital improvement program in 2021 and 2022.
The thinking is to create a 12' multi-use trail on the west side of the road, a median, a greenery strip separating the trail and sidewalks from the road, but no more bike lanes. The road would be 2-laned more or less like Gaines St. What would be helpful for trail safety is that some left turns are eliminated (if the affected businesses do not complain about that too loudly), which would be helpful for trail users. However there are still quite a few business entrances and side roads that provide conflict points for those on the multi-use trail.
Click here for a higher resolution pdf version of the image below.
We are concerned about cyclist safety. We know that riding on the sidewalk is dangerous, with up to 2 times more crashes when riding with the flow of traffic, and up to 4 times more crashes when riding the sidewalk against the flow of traffic. This is a short stretch of multi-use trail that will cross a gas-station entrance, a hotel entrance, 2 side roads, the train station entrance, a dentist entrance, all with a new hotel in construction. The trail will also not provide a good connection to the bike lanes north of Gaines St. From the designs we've seen, the roads will have sharrows, but no space to pass, creating an uncomfortable situation for cyclists as well as drivers using the lane. Please let us know what you're thoughts are (email hans@cccyclists.org) while we try to gather more details about the plans and try to formulate the official club position on the proposed changes to Railroad Ave.
Tallahassee Trail Festival March 20-22
Johan van Tol - 2/18/2020
The Tallahassee Mountain Bike Association is organizing the first Tallahassee Trail Festival March 20-22, with most of the events taking place at Tom Brown park. Participants also have the possibility of camping on site. There will be a large variety of things going on, with planned rides on six trail systems, skill clinics, ladies rides, pump track challenge, camping, and of course food, music, and beer.
For more information and registration, see the facebook page or the TMBA website
Kids On Bikes at Hartsfield Elementary in February
Johan van Tol - 2/7/2020
The Kids on Bikes Trailer is at Hartsfield Elementary this month, being used in the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Curriculum at our local elementary schools. Capital City Cyclists provide the bikes and accessories like traffic signs, while the teachers teach the kids the curriculum. These teachers could use some help from volunteers to get the bikes ready for the kids, getting them fitted with helmets, setting up the course, etc. Also at the end of the course, the kids are taken on a community/gruaduation ride on real roads in the neighborhood with help of the Tallahassee Police Department. That's great fun to watch or help out with. If you are interested in providing some of your time and help during the course or the graduation ride, please contact Kyle Root (kroot@wellflorida.org). New 2020 Officers elected at Christmas Party
Johan van Tol - 12/17/2019
For a third year in a row, Susan Blessing and Kevin Sossong made their home a wonderful venue for the annual holiday party. The many members present enjoyed great food, plenty of drinks, and good conversations. This time Kyle Root of gave a short presentation about the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program, which is funded by FDOT and administered by the University of Florida. Leon county is one of poster child counties for this program, in no small part due to the Kids on Bikes program of Capital City Cyclists. This program reaches thousands of kids, teaching them to ride a bike and how to ride safely in trafffic. This program is always in need of volunteers to help the PE teachers run their classes. If you are interested in helping out or want to learn more, please contact Kyle (KRoot@WellFlorida.org).
Traditionally the holiday party also features the election for the officers of the board. This year there were 4 courageous volunteers to head up the CCC board in 2020, and all four were elected unanimously by those present. After several years as vice-president, Jim Mann will take over as president. Jane Fletcher will continue another year as club secretary, while Kelly Beacher will come back as treasurer. Dan Thompson will come on board as vice-president. Complementing the board will be Hans van Tol as past president and webmaster, Karen Loewen as social media director, and Joe Barnett as advocacy chair.
Many thanks go to Sara Dugger and Marvin (Marv) Rubenstein who will be rotating off the board. Sara was our 2019 Treasurer, whil Marv has been in charge of the membership for many, many years, Please thank them for dedicating so much of their scarce free time volunteering for our club.
Sometimes it's good to complain !
Lights that don't turn green for you? Often the in-pavement detection loop does not detect you, either because the sensitivity is set too low, or you do not know where the sweetspot is for the loop to detect your rims.
Put your frustration into a citizen complaint on
DigiTally. That'll help things to change! We really would like to see better
Bicycle Detection