Q. I am looking for information. I currently bike 15 to 20 miles a day on my recumbent trike. Here in Wisconsin, winter is fast approaching and I will have to give up my biking until spring. To maintain my current exercise level, how long or how far do I need to walk each day? Is there a formula available that I can use?   Thank you for your help in this matter.
Ed Heuer
Port Edwards, WI

Ed,
I looked around for a formula, and I’ve got your question out to a couple of people who aren’t as math-challenged as I am. But I thought of a way to get a quick and dirty estimate: use one of the online calculators that figure calories burned, and compare entries for bicycling and walking.

For example, I used the calorie calculator at:
http://www.healthstatus.com/cgi-bin/calc/calculator.cgi
First, I had to indicate my svelte body weight of 200 lbs. (Okay, it’s a little higher than that, but I have my goals, too.)

This particular calculator has already figured the activities, and you indicate how many minutes you’re going to be doing them. So I estimated that you were bicycling between 12 and 14 mph for 60 minutes, just to get a baseline. The calculator came back with:

Bicycling 12-14 mph for 60 minutes:  792 Activity Calories burned

Then I entered a couple of numbers for walking 4 miles per hour: It turns out that if you walk for 100 minutes at 4mph, you burn about the same number of calories:

Walking 4 mph for 100 minutes: 780 Activity Calories burned

So, 100 minutes (nearly 2 hours) of walking at 4mph is equivalent to one hour of bicycling at 12-14mph in terms of calories burned (if you weigh about 200 pounds). That would be one way to get at this…use one of these on-line calculators to compare caloric burn for the two activities, using your own weight, and the amount of time you spend on the bicycle doing your 15-20 miles each day.

I’ll let you know if I get any other feedback on this.

Gary

Here’s a post that shows that, even if the NCBW staff doesn’t know the answer, we’re probably just one or two links removed from someone who does. Sharon asked about cycling in the Dayton area…

Hello!  Do you know where I can go, to find out what route to take to ride from home to work in the Southwest area of Ohio?

Thanks.

Sharon

Hi Sharon –

I don’t have any information on bicycling to work in Southwest Ohio, but am cc’ing this message to an old friend, Don Burrell, who is Senior Planner and Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator for the OKI
(Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana) Regional Council of Governments. If he can’t help you, he’s sure to
know who can.

As a separate message, I’ll send you a copy of Don’s “OKI Bicycle E-Info News”
newsletter.Cheers!
J

A. Sharon,
Dayton puts you outside of OKI’s planning area, but Dayton is more bike friendly for commuters and has a wonderful trail network. I will hand you off to Chuck Smith, a member of the Dayton Cycling Club and president of the Ohio Bicycle Federation.

You will find bike commuting resources from the Dayton club
<http://www.daytoncyclingclub.org/commuter.htm>http://www.daytoncyclingclub.org/commuter.htm
   and from the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, our counterpart transportation planning agency for Dayton.
<http://www.mvrpc.org/>http://www.mvrpc.org/
Don Burrell, AICP, Senior Planner
Bicycle / Pedestrian Coordinator

A. Sharon,

On Markey Road, you are near the northern end of the Dayton River Corridor Bikeway. Pick up the Bikeway in the Dayton Heart Hospital parking lot, and ride south.  The Dayton River Corridor Bikeway (also known as the Great Miami Trail) will take you as far south as the Montgomery/Butler County border.

Chuck Smith
Chair, Ohio Bicycle Federation
www.ohiobike.org
We bring you:
1.  Share the Road License Plate
2.  Better Ohio Bicycling Law
3.  Ohio Bicycle Events Calendar

Q. We are looking for a copy of the following report that was published in the mid-80s.

English, J.W. (1986). Liability Aspects of Bikeway Designation.
Washington, DC: Bicycle Federation of America.

Terrance K. Manion | Director of  IT, Instructor of Law, Librarian | Georgia State University
College of Law

 
A. This report is available in Word format at the National Center for Bicycling & Walking web site. Look in the NCBW Publications section of the site library: www.bikewalk.org/ncbw_pubs.php .

Regards,

Gary MacFadden

Brad wrote with this question about getting helmets for distribution in the province of British Columbia.

Good afternoon and greetings from Prince George,
British Columbia, Canada.   Our community
requires that helmets be warn at all times when
biking however many riders do not do so. We are
learning that many don’t wear these simply
because they are without the financial means to
purchase one.  Are you aware of any North
American funding programs that might provide
assistance to obtain helmets for such individuals?

Thank you very much.

 

Brad Beckett
Community Services Supervisor
City of Prince George
Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
250-561-7654

Brad –

I’m cc’ing this message to John Luton of the
Greater Victoria Bicycle Coalition, in case he
has some suggestions for you.

In many communities, the local hospitals help
provide helmets at low — or no — cost. Also,
the ICBC may have some sort of program, although
I couldn’t find it on their website. They do have
a lot of bicycle safety stuff, however. Here are
some of their products.
http://www.icbc.com/youth/youth_new_educators.asp

You should also take a look at the Bicycle Helmet
Safety Institute’s website. This page has
resources, including links to companies that
provide inexpensive helmets.
http://www.helmets.org/toolkit.htm

Hope this helps!
John W.

Q. Hey John,

Bob Shanteau forwarded your web address and the 12 Hazards Color
Drawing to the APBP list-serv. I identified 10 with no hesitation -  the
other 2 escape me . . .

I looked around your web info and the hazards page and I can’t find
anywhere that lists what the 12 are? Where can I find this info?

Thanks,
Debb

A. Hi Debb–

The 12 hazards are (starting at the top):
1. wrong way bicyclist
2. drain grate
3. driver backing out of driveway
4. diagonal railroad tracks
5. train
6. pedestrian
7. dog
8. open car door
9. passing car cutting right
10. crack in road parallel to parked car
11. leaves
12. pothole

I’m surprised I remembered them!

Cheers!
J

I receved a request from Paul, asking if I had any knowledge of a mid-1980s document called ” The State/Federal Highway Planning Survey.” I told Paul I didn’t recall the document, and a Google search
on the name didn’t bring up anything except for a few state documents that mention the survey. I suggested that it might be difficult to find because it may never have been digitized.

Then I mentioned that a while back, I used our local library to do an interlibrary search for a report on some bike safety workshops that I participated in for NHTSA in the ’70s. I was able to locate a copy at a college library in Idaho, and they sent it to our library. I took it to Kinkos and got it copied.

If you’re looking for a hard-to-find item, an interlibrary loan might be the answer.

John Williams

Karen wanted a list of mayors who signed a proposed bicycling resolution at a Mayor’s Conference in June 2008.

Morning John,
I don’t know if you’re the person I need to ask this of or not, so please bear w/ me. Can you tell me how I can find out the names of the mayor’s who signed the resolution at the recent mayor’s conference? I provided a copy of the resolution to Omaha’s mayor (Mike Fahey) and
suspect that he signed it, but would like to know for sure. And since I work w/ several towns/cities in the midwest, I’d like to know which mayor’s are supportive. Thank you.

 

Karen Anderson
National Park Service – Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance
601 Riverfront Dr.
Omaha, NE 68102

 

Hi Karen–
Thanks for the note! See below for the list supplied by Andy Clarke, Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists.

J

 
From: Andy Clarke
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10:48 AM
Subject: US Conference of Mayors – Proposed Bicycling Resolution

Thanks to everyone that asked their mayor to sign on in support of the resolution. We ended up with
a great list of co-sponsors to give support to Chris Koos (Mayor of Normal, Ill.). The resolution sailed through the Transportation Committee and the Children, Health and Human Services Committee and the Mayors adopted this and a bunch of other resolutions en masse on Monday morning. Other Mayors may have signed on as co-sponsors during the meeting – I had dinner with the Mayor of Syracuse, NY, Sunday evening and he was determined to be on the list before it was too late!

1. John Marchione, Redmond, WA
2. Marty Blum, Santa Barbara, CA
3. R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis, MN
4. Jim Brainard, Carmel, Indiana
5. Al Larson, Schaumberg, IL
6. Ron Littlefield, Chattanooga, TN
7. Joe Riley, Charleston, SC
8. John Hickenlooper, Denver, CO
9. Elaine N. Walker, Bowling Green, KY
10. Jerry Abramson, Louisville, KY
11. Peter Lewis, Auburn, WA
12. Richard Kaplan, Lauderhill, FL
13. Kevin Foy, Chapel Hill, NC
14. Richard Moccia, Norwalk, CT
15. Christopher Cabaldon, West Sacramento, CA
16. John Robert Smith, Meridian, MS
17. William Wynn, Austin, TX
18. Bill Mischler, Pinellas Park, FL
19. Elizabeth Kautz, Burnsville, MN
20. Christopher Coleman, St. Paul, MN
21. Ron Tussing, Billings, MT
22. James Cavanaugh, Goodyear, Arizona
23. Ken Flatto, Fairfield, CT
24. Bill Bogaard, Pasadena, CA
25. David Pope, Oak Park, IL