The Mid-Valley SPIN
Newsletter of the Mid-Valley Bicycle Club
Don't forget! The special MVBC General Meeting for "January" is February 2 at 7 p.m. MVBC is partnering with the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition's Transportation Action Team for a special opportunity: A conversation with Dan Burden, originator of the Road Diet.
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From the President ...
by Paul Lieberman
January is living up to its reputation as a dreary month for bicycle riding. As I write this its 36° and dense fog. So of course I'm dreaming about this year's upcoming tours! I am pleased that Peter Wendel has stepped up to lead our new touring committee to help promote and support our touring program. In addition to Loop Tour, we hope to be able to offer a variety of gravel tours, as well as shorter road rides and credit card tours. If you have any ideas for a tour you'd like to do, or want to help plan a tour you can contact the committee at touring@mvbc.com .
The start of the new year is also a time when the Board looks ahead to the things we'd like to accomplish this year. One project is to review and possibly revise the MVBC bylaws. The current bylaws were last updated in 2011. If you see anything in the bylaws that you think needs updating please send your suggestions to me at president@mvbc.com .
Another thing the board will be working on is how we do recruitment for board and committee positions. Our membership is way up but its still been difficult to fill some crucial positions. Many of the current board members will be reaching the three year term limit this year so it is crucial that we find energetic people to fill these roles next year. You'll be hearing a more about this as the year progresses.
Take care, don't ride on ice, and hopefully we'll get some good riding weather soon.
MVBC welcomes your special talents to enhance the biking community
by Eileen Tokuda
Mid-Valley Bicycle Club Board of Directors appreciate the hard work, effort and time of our Volunteers. Volunteers are the lifeline of this club and we have a great deal of gratitude for all that is accomplished through the skills and time provided by countless individuals over the years.
There are numerous talents needed to help a large volunteer-run organization like ours function smoothly. Here are but a few of the tasks for which we seek assistance:
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Why volunteer? Make a tangible difference Use skills and talents for good Meet and network with cyclist community Work to elevate a cause Helping others get out and enjoy cycling Strengthen your skills and develop new skills Here are a few of the positions that are currently open: Promotions Committee This Committee supports not only our signature event, the Covered Bridge Bicycle Tour, it also supports our weekly rides both road and gravel as well our bi-annual membership campaigns.
This Committee can offer micro-volunteer tasks, that is a series of easy tasks that can be done in a flexible timeframe and pretty much in a manner the optimizes convenience of location for the volunteer. Contact: membership@mvbc.com for more information Ride Leaders Seeking members who wish to become Ride Leaders for weekday and weekend rides. Descriptors of our rides are found here: Descriptions of Current Weekly Rides Ride Leader Benefits
There is flexibility for the volunteers in the frequency of this task. Contact: ride-committee@mvbc.com for more information Recruitment Committee This is a new and expanding committee. With so many fun events, projects and positions within MVBC to choose from, we’re confident that, with your help, we can create better ways of communicating our organizational needs and identifying the best volunteers to fill those needs. We are seeking a 6-month commitment to the committee to help us design creative and meaningful ways to recruit our members to get involved. Contact: membership@mvbc.com for more information. |
Remembering Jerry Rooney
by Susan Christie
Long time club member Jerry Rooney passed away in his sleep on January 14.
Jerry served two terms on the MVBC Board in the early 1990s and 2010s, including a term as president. His focus was on vehicular cycling, publicity, marketing, and safety.
Jerry started the 10 AM Saturday ride to provide a slower paced social ride that would leave no one behind. He wanted riders to enjoy socializing and have fun, to watch out for each other, and to build good friendships. Jerry initially named this ride the "Wholly Rollers." It was commonly called the Rollers until it eventually became the Tenners after Jerry was no longer ride leader.
Jerry was, at the time, a licensed League of American Bicyclists bike safety instructor. At the start of every ride, he would call us all together, get everyone’s attention, talk about the route, and offer a few good reminders on safe cycling. The rides were always fun and there was a good bit of playing around, being silly, and taking fun pictures along the way. And of course food stops were a big thing too."
Continuing his preference for slower social rides as he grew older, Jerry went on to start the informal Tuesday morning coffee ride and to participate in the Sunday Lunch ride. The photo on the left shows Jerry in style on the 2016 Corvallis Tweed Ride. Jerry also helped start the annual Ride of Silence, which takes place each May to honor cyclists killed or injured by motor vehicles.
You may have seen Jerry scooting around town on his Elf velomobile.
We will miss you Jerry.
by Rob Upson
During 2022, and the waning of the “work from home” era, there was an increase in crash rates for all road users: cyclists, pedestrians and automobile drivers. There were too many fatalities and injuries on our roads in 2022. Is that going to change in 2023? Doesn’t everyone agree that SAFETY is the number one goal on our roadways?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could build roads that were so safe that there were ZERO serious incidents? What a VISION! That is goal of “Vision Zero,” a framework used by over 40 communities across the United States, including Eugene.
The key principles of a Vision Zero program recognize that traffic injuries are preventable. An integrated approach to transportation infrastructure can be designed to accommodate human failings and when examined overall, is less expensive than the status quo.
In 2019, the Corvallis City Council resolved to appoint a Vision Zero task force. At Council’s January 8 work session they discussed a strategy to review the goals of the Task Force and possibly make appointments to this year. It is certain to be a valuable discussion for
the community.
If you live in Corvallis and if zero fatalities or serious injuries sounds like a good thing, contact your city councilor. Ask to talk with them about Vision Zero. They are very friendly and approachable. Several councilors are cyclists, like you. Find your councilor here: Councilors
Accidents will continue, but many crashes are not accidents. They are preventable with improved street designs. While we may never get to zero fatalities, isn’t there more we can do?
If you have any questions about bike advocacy feel free to email advocacy@mvbc.com
| The Loop Tour Committee is excited about the Olympic Penincycle Tour and registration details are coming up. Priority registration is open to club members who have contributed to the club by volunteering in the past year and will open in April. Open registration will open following priority as space allows. The fees have not yet been finalized but will be announced prior to the opening of registration. Look for information on the tours at Loop Tour. Event updates are at Loop Notices. If you have not seen the presentation from the annual event, it's available at Loop 2023 presentation.
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The Loop Tour 2023 route will highlight the beauty of the Olympic National Forest and take advantage of some of the Olympic Discovery Trail(DT), the 135-mile trail is composed of road and multi-use pathway. Currently, more than half of the ODT route is on non-motorized paths. For more, visit Olympic Discovery Trail. |
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This is the time of year when I start looking at my calendar and try to keep straight all the upcoming bike events of the summer. There are some near and some far. With roads, gravel, single day rides and longer events, races and tours there's something for everyone! The MVBC calendar lists MANY events in our area. Check it out here! calendar. (I recommend putting it in "month" mode.)
MVBC events Spring Overnight, May 14-15 Columbia Gorge Campout, May 22-25 Covered Bridge Bicycle Tour, Sunday August 13 Loop Tour: Olympic Penincycle, July 8-16 (LT1), July 29-August 6 (LT2) Coast Range Gravel Adventure (CRGA), fall (date TBD)
| Other area events April 14-16, Swift Summit Spring Classic, Brownsville May 20 Mohawk, Eugene May 19-21, Cycle Oregon Gravel June 24, Strawberry Century, Lebanon August 19, Blackberry bRamble, Eugene August 20, Open Streets, Corvallis August 25-27, Swift Summit 100/200, Lebanon September 9 and 16, Crater Lake Ride the Rim September 9-16, Cycle Oregon Classic September 18 Hop Head, Independence October (date TBD), Autumn Amble, Brownsville |
Middle School Bike Safety Program, your help is needed this Thursday, February 2
Thanks to you, the pieces for the Middle School Bike Safety Program are coming together. The new trailer, bikes and helmets have all arrived. Corvallis School District has also acquired the Albany bike trailer. We have lots of equipment and thanks to COVID, lots of kids that need Bike Safety instruction.
Cycle Oregon has partnered with Safe Routes to School to teach PE Teachers how to integrate bicycling skills and pedestrian safety into regular class instruction. This one-day workshop is coming to Corvallis.
This is where you can help! It takes additional adult volunteers to help with playground drills and make it possible for students to practice bike and pedestrian skills in real world situations. You are invited to learn alongside PE teachers as they master important bike safety instructional skills.
The workshop will be offered at Cheldelin Middle School on Thursday, February 2, from 10 am to 3:30 pm. Bikes and helmets will be provided but you are also welcome to bring your own.
Please text Nancy Meitle at 541-740-0668 or email her at meitle@comcast.net, if you would like to attend.
Additional volunteer opportunities will be available this spring to work with local PE teachers as they implement this new curriculum.
Dog Dayz Southwest Vancouver Island Bike Tour
By Lori Wilson
When our friends Piet and Kari invited us on a tour of South West Vancouver Island with them, we said an immediate yes! The best part was that they planned the trip, had made dog-friendly Airbnb reservations and invited our dog Enzo along too! So, our next step was to start training our then 60 lb., 8-month-old puppy to ride in his Bark Ranger Burley dog trailer. We didn’t get as many training sessions in as we would have liked before we left Corvallis on Aug 17th. He was now a full-grown dog at 72 pounds. We were hopeful all would work out.
We found a parking lot that had weekly rates in Port Angeles and left our car there for about 10 days. We caught a morning ferry over with the four of us, plus Enzo, with our bikes and dog trailer. We had an Airbnb reserved just outside of Victoria for our first night and the same one again for the last few days of the trip.
Our 185-mile loop loosely followed a route from backroadsbiketouring.com. (This ridewithgps is our actual route.) We did the loop in 6 days of riding plus a layover day at Honeymoon Bay at Lake Cowichan. We decided to forgo the Sooke Hills wilderness trail and instead we headed over to the Lochside Trail on the Saanich peninsula via the Brentwood Bay ferry.
Because of the gravel trails, gravel tires are recommended. Our tires were between 37 and 57 mm in width. The trails included: the Galloping Goose, the E & N, the Cowichan Valley (with some big train trestles) and the Lochside. Enzo enjoyed the bike trails the best since they were mostly very quiet. We could let him out to run for awhile on the deserted paths. There were a few places to swim along the way, which was another favorite thing for Enzo to do!
This loop is suitable for ebikes and dog trailers! Our friends Piet and Kari were on ebikes. Staying in Airbnbs made it work out great with charging up the ebikes. And it was just really nice to know where we were staying each night! A couple of them even had hot tubs. So, we were definitely not roughing it on this trip. One of our favorite places that we stayed in was an off-grid tiny home deep in the forest! Another highlight was a very nice condo with a view of the water in Port Renfro. It looks like there are a lot of nice campgrounds, if you would rather go that way.
As far as traffic on the route, the only cars that we encountered were along the scenic and paved West Coast Road from Sooke to Port Renfrew (70 km). That would be a good place to go single file, make sure you’re wearing bright clothes and have your flashing lights on. We never felt like it was unsafe, but it is good to be careful. On the Pacific Marine Road, north out of Port Renfro, I think we saw more motorcycles than cars. It’s a beautiful, remote, quiet road through the mountains to Lake Cowichan. It wasn’t as steep as we had expected.
We enjoyed having Enzo along on our ride. One benefit for me was that pulling him in the trailer slowed Mike down to my speed! Another benefit was all of the smiles of passersby when they saw Enzo sticking his head out of the top of the trailer! He was definitely a conversation starter everywhere we went and he got a lot of hugs from people.
Contact Lori or Wilson if you are interested in more information about our route, our stops, or traveling with a dog in a trailer.
Clara Honsinger wins her third US cyclocross national championship
If the name Clara Honsinger sounds familiar, it should. In December 2022, she won her third consecutive US cyclocross national championship. While this makes her recognizable to the cycling world at large, there is also a local connection: Honsinger grew up in Ashland and was a student at Oregon State and still appears on local Strava segments and leaderboards.
For more on Clara, see Clara Honsinger. For her recent win, see champion.
All Bodies on Bikes adds a Podcast
This new podcast builds upon the All Bodies on Bikes (ABOB) movement focusing on celebrating joyful movement. The approach is, "All bodies are good bodies, all bikes are good bikes and all rides should be celebrated."
Marley Blonsky, co-creator of ABOB and Maggie Lowe, hosted the premiere episode of the podcast on January 22. Kailey Kornhauser, co-founder of ABOB and former OSU graduate student and MVBC Ambassador, was their first guest. The trio gave an overview about their hopes and plans for the podcast.
ABOB is designed to create and explore ways to foster a size-inclusive bike community. The podcast will take time to have conversations about the limitations of equipment, finding tools and properly designed clothing as well as group ride dynamics that are more inclusive of larger-body people. It will also feature stories and interviews with cyclists within the industry from big names in racing all the way to community members that simply love cycling around town. Join hosts Marley and Maggie as they explore the complexities of the bike world, continue to break down barriers and help create a more inclusive and welcoming cycling world.
The All Bodies on Bikes Podcast is available on all podcast platforms (Apple Podcasts) and ABOB YouTube and more details can also be found on their website. The podcast will have weekly episodes released on Wednesdays.
For more, you can also listen to the Mid-Valley Bicycle Club's general meeting video from September 2021. Kailey Kornhauser, co-founder of All Bodies on Bikes and former MVBC Ambassador, talked to our members about Body Size Inclusion. Click here for Kailey Kornhauser's talk.
The Shimano video project that includes more of the story of ABOB and includes video footage along the C2C trail is available here. ABOB C2C video.
Upcoming events
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06/06/2025 2:00 PMRiverside Campground (Deschutes National Forest)