I was trying to hunt down any remnants of the KJRH video when I came upon this youtube.com gem. It's all about biking in Tulsa... or not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj-dSPeyHd0
Not sure where they found the last song on the video. It must have taken them a while to find it.
WOW .... that video was to videomaking as Sanjaya is to singing.
I realize that Tulsa doesn't have bike lanes and if you are trying to get around South Tulsa on a bike, it would probably be difficult, but these people act like Tulsa is the only place that is like this ..... and it is most definately not.
Bikerfox probably needs to know that's not why people are calling him names
LOL...As the bicycle and pedestrian transportation planner for Tulsa and the surrounding area, I'll say that that short clearly represents a far from balanced perspective, and I'll say Tulsa is a friendlier city for cycling than portrayed here, but all in all I like the punk/dyi thing they've got going on there.
Yes, we need more awareness for cycling and cyclists. And heck, I've had crap thrown at me too in Tulsa, in Seattle, in Portland, in Chicago...It goes with the territory to an extent. We need to have the discussion on what a bike friendly community means and have policy in place to make that happen from a legal and physical standpoint (street design). But mostly we need people to get out and ride their friggin' bikes. It's the chicken or egg thing. The more people on bikes, the more awarness there is, the more there is a need for bike specific capital improvements.
That being said May 16th is Livestrong Day and is the kick off for our Bike to Work season. We are going to have an early morning event somewhere downtown...well keep you posted.
Interesting. I'll have to come back to this video when I get home.
I think pfox got it ride, we need more cyclists out there on the roads to help raise awareness.
I have a question about biking, does anyone know why there are so many people biking around in downtown at night? Are they just avoiding drink driving laws or is it a club?
The Soundpony, for one. But if it was 2 weekends ago, it was the Bike Pub Crawl.
Wow! That video was gawdawful. I've ridden a bicycle in several eastern cities with narrow, winding streets, and I gotta tell you that Tulsa is much easier to get around in on two wheels. Sure, there's a certain percentage of buttheads out there, but they'll still be buttheads regardless of your choice of transportation.
As for the River Park Trail, it's a jewel, but it's a recreational jewel. Granted, most people ride bicycles for fun, but some of us use them for daily transportation. When you need to get from home to work, trails are nice if they go that way, but most of the time they don't. So a commuter cyclist learns to ride on the street, and surprisingly enough, commuter cyclists have the lowest crash rates. Like that bike shop owner said (I'm sorry, but I don't know his name) you develop a 360 degree awareness that keeps you out of trouble. This is LEARNED. It's not ESP or rocket science.
I ride to work most days. One of the best kept secrets of commuter cyclists is that they see the same motorists day after day, and that leads to an expectation of meeting a cyclist on the road. After a couple of days, I'm just another guy going to work, part of a normal day.
I write about commuter cycling at:
http://www.cycledog.blogspot.com
I thought to bring the video up because I was fuming. Tulsa evidently was the back-water city for bicyclists to them. I wanted to send them a nice little email asking them if they ever went to a city that didn't have any jerks. This video, and one about the poor of Tulsa, got some interesting responses on youtube.
quote:
Originally posted by pfox
The Soundpony, for one. But if it was 2 weekends ago, it was the Bike Pub Crawl.
I think it must have been the Bike Pub Crawl then. Thanks for clearing that up for me. [:D]