Dec 22 - Happy Holidays

Yesterday's Dominion Post had this editorial from a beleagered Morgantown pedestrian.  If you can relate, consider volunteering with us to help raise pedestrian awarenes.  If you drive, observe the posted speed limits and give all your attention to driving and watching out for others - even if they're not in a car.

With the Christmas Bikes behind us and the holiday break ahead, it's time to reflect on the year past and plan for the year ahead.  I am in the process of drafting our 2010 event/milestone calendar (thanks to WVU student volunteer Harry Shaffer for putting it on the web).  If you have an event you'd like us to participate in please send me an email with information (date, time, description) and we'll add it to the list.
We are still looking for qualified and committed boardmember volunteers who are passionate about transforming Morgantown transportation in ways that make our city more liveable, sustainable and inclusive of all citizens.  Contact me if you share our passion and can contribute your time and resources.
I'll be on vacation and the shop will be closed from Dec 24 to Jan 6 (resuming normal Winter hours Jan 7), but I'll have the phone with me in case you need to reach me.  I'll be travelling (in a rented car) to see family in Wisconsin and plan to post updates as time permits.  I wish the best to you, your family and all your loved ones.  I look forward to working with you in the new year in positive and joyful ways that improve our city with the best and most sustainable mobility.
We've got a couple of great new volunteers joining us in the New Year.  Duncan, an experienced shop mechanic and mountain biker will be helping supervise shop hours.  Jessica, a WVU Masters' student in Public Administration will be helping us out.  She's particularly welcome after her previous experience as an intern at the Alliance for Biking and Walking.  We're grateful to them for sharing their passion for sustainable transportation and making Morgantown a better place to live and get around.

Dec 17 Christmas Bikes Distributed

Our 5th annual bike giveaway is now complete.  Due to your efforts we donated 70 bikes to Christian Help for the toy drive.  An additional 5 new bikes were dropped off by other donors for a total of 75.  At the end of the day we only had to bring back 15 of them, meaning that 60 were given away, about the same as last year.  However, most of the leftovers were in sizes we had too many of.  Next year we need more 24 and 26" mountain bikes. The surplus bikes (mostly 16 and 20") are available to other charity programs.  If you know a family that needs a bike for a small child please stop in.  We can help you out.

Thanks to volunteers from: WVU Tau Beta Pi, WVU Mortar Board, WVU Industrial Engineering students, Our regular volunteers, People who heard about what we're doing and just pitched in and anyone I may have missed.

Thanks also to Christian Help for getting us involved (our 5th year!) and particularly to Cheryl Stout whose divine efforts make it possible for families in need to have their needs met with joy and dignity.
Nick 

16 Dec - It's finally here. The Christian Help Toy Drive

Good evening,
We've just finished taking all our bikes to the armory for the Christian Help Toy Drive at the Morgantown Armory.  The total is somewhere around 75, although in the mayhem of transporting them I wasn't able to get a final count.  Tomorrow I will, I'll be up there early and staying through the day.  If anyone would like to come and help out with inspections, minor repairs and fittings give me a call at the shop number.  I'll have photos up tomorrow.  Thanks to all our incredible volunteers who made this the biggest and best bunch of bikes we've ever delivered.  Particular thanks to Duncan Oliver (and his very patient and helpful girlfriend), Will Ravenscroft, a slew of CCE volunteers too numerous to mention and to Pathfinder who gave us generous discounts on last-minute part purchases.  Thanks also to George Lasnier who picked up and transported bikes throughout the drive and to Bill Jones who helped tonite getting bikes to the armory. 
Nick

12 Dec - Copenhagen conference

Good evening,
On Saturday we were invited to a candle light vigil at the Courthouse to help campaign for a <350ppm treaty at the Copenhagen World Climate conference.  It only seemed sensible to us (myself and Duncan Oliver, our new shop mechanic) that we bike to the event and bring along our pedal generator to shine a (LED) spotlight on the event banner.  However, we made the news in today's Dominion Post.  You can read the article here.

When it was our turn to talk we also encouraged everyone to do their part for carbon dioxide reduction by driving less and using sustainable transportation (walking, biking, transit and carpool) to get where you need to go.  Thanks to all of you who are already doing this.  If you must drive, you can still make the roads more fun for others by driving at or below the speed limit and paying attention to others who are sharing the road.  Even if they aren't in cars.

Dec 9 More Christmas Bike

Dec. 5

It was snowing this morning when I woke up, but I had something to deliver to a friend in Osage so I took our best-equipped all-weather bike to make the trip.  Turns out that it was no match for wet slush-slop snow.  In the short space of the 12 mile ride the bike gained about 50 lb of water weight, eventually the drivetrain became so clogged with snow that the chain couldn't engage.  This meant I had to walk the last 2 blocks to the shop.  It gave me pause to think about how ill-adapted conventional bikes are to adverse weather.  Otherwise it was a beautiful day to be out.  The traffic was light due to slippery conditions and it was blissfully quiet on the roads.

     Later in the day we opened the shop with about 10 volunteers from the Center for Civic Engagement.   These are students with a service-learning obligation - either for a class assignment or as the result of an infraction. They were an excellent bunch of students and helped us finally get to our goal of 70 bikes rehabbed for the Christian Help toy drive next week.

Nov 30 - Meeting a good friend

Today I was walking along the trail by the riverfront and bumped in to Bill Metzger, an old friend from Confluence, PA.  I first met Bill during the 2004 Mayors' Ride Relay from Washington DC to Pittsburgh.  The ride organizer, Troy Bogdan, had told Bill we'd be coming through and staying the nite.  Bill is a map maker, photographer and magazine illustrator and historian.  His day job is writing for "Railroad' Magazine, but he's also the author of all the Pennsylvania lettered routes for bicycling.  He was out for a ride with his wife Pam, also an avid biker.  Bill has progressive muscle degeneration in his legs, which has meant he has slowly had to go from a bike to a recumbent trike to a hand-trike.  But it hasn't slowed him down any.  He showed me the mileage on his odometer - 12500 miles in the past year or so.  We talked for quite some time about all our various interests and enjoyed the peace and sun by the river.  They get to travel extensively with his job, researching various historic train routes.  A train went by on the other shore while we were talking and he told me what every horn blast signal meant.