Beauty bike lanes, eh

Sacramentans talk about making our city better, a lot. Too often they don’t find the will to start, let alone finish, their grandiose ideas. When recent discussions of new bike lanes in downtown fired up, I was skeptical to say the least. We’re a city that’s on hard times and only the most biker-dedicated city would keep the safer streets dream alive when funds are scarce, right?

I’m happy to say Sacramento has kept that dream alive. You kept the promise, albeit months late, and so far it’s worth the wait. I stand and applaud the effort to resurface and paint new lanes for cars and bikes on some of our most busy streets.

In the hotter-than-I-expeted debate about the bike-friendliness of Sacramento, I fall somewhere in the middle. Can Sacramento be the next Portland/SF? You bet! Should we? If I had my way, yes. But, can we? This is where I see people split.

Some don’t want to devote any money to bike lanes and accompanying infrastructure. To me, it’s key to the “big city” dreams of Mayor KJ and others. Our downtown is the perfect size to become a showcase for complete streets—where drivers, cars and pedestrians get along comfortably. Let’s become that shining example and let people come see what Sacramento does right.

Portland’s lanes often lead to a box for bikers to gather at red lights.

Green lanes separated by an extra “buffer” from traffic.

What too many people forget is that Portland and SF weren’t made bike friendly. They had to work at being bike friendly. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither were the miles upon miles of green bike lanes in Portland, SF and cities beyond (LA, Minneapolis, Denver to name a few) that have made bike commuting a priority. This is the type of club we should crave membership in. Let’s get past this club’s ugly bouncer and red velvet rope, take a walk inside and smell the awesomeness.

Sacramento’s bike lanes project is an amazing step forward. We have lanes in parts of downtown that used to be a biker’s nightmare. From downtown, I can only imagine how much further we can expand these bike-friendly ways.

To the nay-sayyers: bare with me on this one. You’ll see your drive to work isn’t ruined by bikers, it’s made easier. For every one of us you pass, that’s one less car in your way. Give us a little room, a little respect, and together, we’ll help make this city a better place. We’re all in this together.

Backpacking shutdown

This summer has been tough for a close friend of mine: my pack. He’s been relegated to the closet for all but one trip.

My knee is 90 percent recovered from a nasty ACL & Patallar Ligament sprain and I’ve been cleared to hike. But my newest hiking buddy, our pup Lucky, has been put on a  rest order after having the ol’ man parts snipped. We’ve had to cancel a trip and this puts future trips in jeopardy with the changing weather around the Sierra’s and Lake Tahoe each October.

Should a weekend pop-up with good weather once Lucky’s ready to go, we’re there. But out of respect for the soon-to-be-changing conditions, I’ve decided to begin shutting down the backpacking season. Barring a mild fall and a late start to winter, I’ll be conditioning for snowboarding and Lucky will be sniffing and slobbering.

In honor of the season that wasn’t what I hoped for, I’m sharing a time-lapse of gorgeous scenery in Iceland to ease my back country cravings. The video is what backpacking is for me; motivating, empowering, peaceful, yet strangely calming and relaxing.

Here’s to a good snow season and an early start to next year. Cheers!

ICELANDIA – Time-lapse Visuals from 64° North from The Upthink Lab on Vimeo.