Saturday Musette
Owasso Bicycle Parking
I was out and about this morning, running the normal Saturday errands. I stopped at the new shopping plaza just north of my house and went into that famous French store, Target, for some coffee. That’s pronounced “tar-JAY”. Besides the ubiquitous S-Bucks stuff, they have some other less well-known coffees, and I was feeling adventurous.
I was pleasantly surprised to find some bicycle parking bollards out in front of the store! These are vertical posts about 8 inches in diameter with steel semi-circles welded to each side. They’d work well with chains, cables, or U-locks. The racks are just south of the main entrance, around the corner of the building, but in plan view of passerby and the coffee shop. The design is very pedestrian-friendly. And since it’s Target, they’re painted red.
That makes two businesses in town that have bicycle parking. The other is the Walgreen’s with its ‘wheel bender’ rack on the sidewalk out front. The space is constricted, unfortunately, and if someone were to use the rack as it’s intended, the bicycle would block the sidewalk completely.
Still, it’s good to see that some businesses want to attract cyclists. I talked with the manager on duty, Mark, who said that the racks are standard design features for all prototype stores and they’ll be retro-fitted to all the other stores too.
Pedalin’ Mormons
The family went out for dinner last night to celebrate Lyndsay’s return from a mission trip in Mexico. Her group arrived at about 2AM Friday morning and she’d spent most of the day sleeping. We went down the hill to Goldie’s Patio Grill.
After dinner at about 8PM, we went to Braum’s for yet another gallon of milk and some ice cream. Anyone with kids can relate to this. A gallon of milk lasts two days – at best – in our house. The city should just pipe it in and meter it.
As we drove down the frontage road, I spotted two cyclists riding north in the dark. They were wearing helmets, white shirts with ties, and dress slacks. Most likely they were Mormon elders doing local missionary work. But they didn’t have lights on the front of their bikes, and as we passed, I couldn’t see any red rear reflectors on the backs, even though there was a car overtaking them.
Oklahoma law calls for a white front light, a red rear reflector, AND a red rear light. In their case, the white shirts helped to make them more conspicuous, but lights would have helped even more. I called the local Church of the Latter Day Saints to talk with them about it, but no one answered. Since we’re having a skills clinic in conjunction with tomorrow’s Freewheel training ride, I wanted to invite them to attend.
For the most part, the Mormon elders I’ve encountered have been careful riders, though they often ride the sidewalks. I’ve never seen them ride against traffic, but riding at night without lights is both scary and dangerous.
An American Derney
It may not have the funky style points of a purpose-built European derney, but there's no denying that the price of the state-side unit is far more attractive. Just the thing for doing motor pace work!
Spooky Tooth Cycles
I was out and about this morning, running the normal Saturday errands. I stopped at the new shopping plaza just north of my house and went into that famous French store, Target, for some coffee. That’s pronounced “tar-JAY”. Besides the ubiquitous S-Bucks stuff, they have some other less well-known coffees, and I was feeling adventurous.
I was pleasantly surprised to find some bicycle parking bollards out in front of the store! These are vertical posts about 8 inches in diameter with steel semi-circles welded to each side. They’d work well with chains, cables, or U-locks. The racks are just south of the main entrance, around the corner of the building, but in plan view of passerby and the coffee shop. The design is very pedestrian-friendly. And since it’s Target, they’re painted red.
That makes two businesses in town that have bicycle parking. The other is the Walgreen’s with its ‘wheel bender’ rack on the sidewalk out front. The space is constricted, unfortunately, and if someone were to use the rack as it’s intended, the bicycle would block the sidewalk completely.
Still, it’s good to see that some businesses want to attract cyclists. I talked with the manager on duty, Mark, who said that the racks are standard design features for all prototype stores and they’ll be retro-fitted to all the other stores too.
Pedalin’ Mormons
The family went out for dinner last night to celebrate Lyndsay’s return from a mission trip in Mexico. Her group arrived at about 2AM Friday morning and she’d spent most of the day sleeping. We went down the hill to Goldie’s Patio Grill.
After dinner at about 8PM, we went to Braum’s for yet another gallon of milk and some ice cream. Anyone with kids can relate to this. A gallon of milk lasts two days – at best – in our house. The city should just pipe it in and meter it.
As we drove down the frontage road, I spotted two cyclists riding north in the dark. They were wearing helmets, white shirts with ties, and dress slacks. Most likely they were Mormon elders doing local missionary work. But they didn’t have lights on the front of their bikes, and as we passed, I couldn’t see any red rear reflectors on the backs, even though there was a car overtaking them.
Oklahoma law calls for a white front light, a red rear reflector, AND a red rear light. In their case, the white shirts helped to make them more conspicuous, but lights would have helped even more. I called the local Church of the Latter Day Saints to talk with them about it, but no one answered. Since we’re having a skills clinic in conjunction with tomorrow’s Freewheel training ride, I wanted to invite them to attend.
For the most part, the Mormon elders I’ve encountered have been careful riders, though they often ride the sidewalks. I’ve never seen them ride against traffic, but riding at night without lights is both scary and dangerous.
An American Derney
It may not have the funky style points of a purpose-built European derney, but there's no denying that the price of the state-side unit is far more attractive. Just the thing for doing motor pace work!
Spooky Tooth Cycles
posted by Ed W at 11:45 AM
3 Comments:
I've wondered for a while what kind of bicycle safety training the Mormons do. Regardless of the religion thing, if you could get LCI training standardized in the Mormon church, that's probably thousands of adults that would learn about cycling effectively.
I like that bike.
It almost looks like a small Harley V-Twin could fit in there:-)
I tried to use the 'contact us' links on the Target page. They just take you around in a circle, and you never do get to an email address. It's distinctly unhelpful. I looked for a receipt that may have an email address, but aparently I threw it away. I'll contact our local store and try to get an email address from them.
The STL store and the laughable placement of the bike rack really should be brought to their attention.
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