Author: Paul Adkins

GEARs Calls for Grant Proposals to Reach Mission

Posted on by Paul Adkins

First Annual call for mini-grant proposals to further the mission of GEARs!

This year, GEARs will award a total of up to $1000 to support local projects that promote bicycle riding for transportation and recreation, the essence of the mission of the club.

Application should consist of an approximately 2 page (3 page limit) letter stating:
a) Descriptive title of application (e.g. “Bike light program” or “Ridding Eugene of street hazards”)
b) Name of applicant(s)
c) Amount of support requested (e.g. $250)
d) Known or likely additional funds available (because GEARs funds are limited, leveraging is encouraged)
e) Background (typically one paragraph describing the problem to be addressed).
f) Plan of action
g) Appendices (e.g. supporting letters)

Application deadline: November 30, 2009.
Send application, preferably as PDF, to the GEARs Board of Directors (board@eugenegears.org).

GEARs expects to announce award(s) before on or before Dec. 8, 2009 and funds will be available shortly thereafter. Not necessary to be GEARs member to apply but members are particularly encouraged.

Board Nominations for GEARs

Posted on by Paul Adkins

The GEARs Nominating Committee has come up with our Executive Board Nominations for 2010. We are very excited to have the volunteer effort and commitment of these folks to help in reaching toward our mission. Here they are. Their bio’s are included below and the election will take place at the General Meeting on November 9th, 8pm at the Keystone Cafe. There are no Board positions that are contended.

Executive Board Nominations:

Sue Wolling -President
Sue has been a GEARs member since the club was founded in 1991. She likes relatively long rides (40-90 miles), but really doesn’t care about speed as long as she’s home by early afternoon. She hopes GEARs can welcome riders who seek exercise, fun and friendship, no matter what pace. While Sue loves recreational cycling, her real passion is bicycling as transportation. After learning about bike advocacy on the Eugene Bicycle Committee, she established the Eugene Bicycle Coalition, which merged with GEARs in 2008. Sue hopes that GEARs can help develop safe, efficient bikeways, education and incentives to promote bicycling, and a culture that makes people choose to hop on a bike, whether to get to work/school, run errands, or for fun on the weekend.

Price Armstrong -Vice President
Price has been a cycling activist since his days as an undergraduate working as the lead coordinator for the community bike program at Hampshire College. Since coming to the University of Oregon, he has had the privilege to work with the Bike Loan Program, the transportation student group LiveMove, and as a Graduate Assistant for the Sustainable Cities Initiative. With climate change, an obesity epidemic, and a unstable energy costs upon us, Price cannot think of a better way to spend his time than with GEARs, advocating for active transportation options. He is currently a Masters of Public Administration student with a concentration in transportation policy.

Richard Hughes -Treasurer
Richard has been a member of GEARs since 2007 and Treasurer for the last year. Also he has been instrumental in directing the Bike Rewards Program, in which retailers offer discounts to members. This program alone has been responsible for a significant increase in our membership. Retired in 1994 as a senior manager in L.A. County Government, where he was responsible for a staff of 300, collecting and accounting for $50 million annually. Richard has lived in Ashland, Santa Barbara, Thousand Oaks, Tehachapi and now Eugene for the last 8 years.

Sarah Thorpe -Secretary
Sarah is eager to start working with GEARs this fall. Sarah recently finished her internship with the City of Eugene Transportation Planning and is looking forward to continuing her work with Eugene’s bicycle community with GEARs. She graduated with a BA in Planning, Public Policy and Management from the UO this June, 2009. Sarah grew up in Ashland, OR, and is a proud member of the Eugene Concert Choir.

Shane Rhodes -At Large (also: Newsletter, Website Director)
Shane Rhodes is the Program Manager for SRTS at Eugene School District 4J. He has worked in the bicycle industry since 1995 as a cargo-bike courier, League of American Bicyclists Instructor, and as an advocate for cyclist and pedestrian issues in Sevilla, Spain, the Bay Area of California, and Eugene. He serves on the cities Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and would probably be a transportation policy wonk if he didn’t think real change comes from the grassroots. When not riding between meetings to make Eugene a better town for families to choose active transportation he can be found gardening with his wife Melissa, daughter, Isadora, and their four chickens.

Gary Cook -At Large (also: Ride Coordinator)
Gary has been cycling in and around Eugene for 36 years on the same bike. He knows the roads and streets well. He has been a GEARs member for about fifteen years.

Paul Adkins -At Large (also: Advocacy & Education Director)
Paul joined the GEARs Board in the Spring of 2008. With a background in communications and marketing, he works at Paul’s Bicycle Way of Life; on their website and community outreach. He earned a BFA from Kent State University in 1995, and led mountain bike tours for years before moving to Oregon in 2007. Now, Paul and his wife, Monica, live car-free with their four young kids: Rainy, Torrent, Dare, and Sanguine. Paul lived in Atlanta, one of America’s worst biking towns, as well as a few of America’s best biking towns: Palo Alto, San Francisco, Missoula, and now Eugene. Paul also serves on the Board of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Portland.

There are many other volunteer opportunities within GEARs. If you think GEARs should be working on a particular issue, please bring it to our attention. The best way to get involved is to attend a general meeting and/or ride and let others know your interest. We really do appreciate all the help we get.

Have You Had a Bike Crash?

Posted on by Paul Adkins

Now is your chance to learn more about your rights and responsibilities as a bike rider. On September 24th, 6:30pm-8:00pm at The Atrium Building (Sloat Room), Olive & 10th, Derek Johnson, of Johnson, Clifton, Larson & Schaller P.C., will present and answer questions relating to civil justice, insurance, and liability associated with bike crashes.

It is your chance to ask questions like: “Do I need to get the name and phone number of the guy that pulled right into me while I was riding down…?” or “Am I liable for hit and run if I run into a pedestrian and leave the scene without talking to them?” Your questions are probably something that we all want to know and this is the night to learn — for free. So, grab your biking friends and bring them to the GEARs legal clinic, this Thursday evening. Bring your headlights too.

Empower yourself and attend. Free to the public.

Eugene Celebrates 111th Anniversary of Bike Lights Parade of July 4, 1898

Posted on by Paul Adkins

Greater Eugene Areas Riders (GEARs), Eugene Celebration, and the City of Eugene present the 3rd Annual Bike Lights Parade on Saturday September 5th. This year is also the 111th Anniversary of the first “Illuminated Parade” held on July 4, 1898 in which 300 bicyclists (or ‘wheelmen’ in those days) decorated and lit their bikes with lanterns.

Eugene, Oregon – August 7, 2009 – Started three years ago to promote safe night riding by using appropriate lighting, this parade turned out to be enormous fun with more than 150 bikes going all out to light up the night. The Bike Lights Parade has become a popular feature of Eugene Celebration, the annual downtown music, arts and sustainability extravaganza.

This year we will be offering 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes for the categories of “Best Illuminated and Best Decorated Vehicles.” Gift certificates donated by local bike shops in the amounts of $122.59, $73.55, and $49.01 will be awarded in each category this year to reflect the 1898 prizes of $5, $3, and $2 – adjusted for inflation. All human powered vehicles are welcome to participate. Those officially registering for the parade will receive numbers and be eligible for prizes.

Eugene Celebration admission bracelets, and/or parade registrations can be purchased online. All proceeds from sales through the GEARs website will be used to support Bicycle Safety Education courses in local elementary and middle schools.

Eugene Celebration admission and Bike Lights Parade registration HERE.

Did You Miss the Prom?

Posted on by Paul Adkins

Sunday, July 19 from 1 PM to 5 PM will be a slightly different kind of Prom. Its the Riverbank Path Promenade. This exciting Sunday occasion will be a unique event along the River Bike Path and Greenway in River Road and Whiteaker Neighborhoods. The popular bike path will become a three mile long mix and mingle Piazza.

Other than two modest clusters of information and activity at River House and Maurie Jacobs Park, there will be no central venue, rather people will be the players, invited to walk, bike, push strollers, skate, picnic, hang out any way they care to. Imagine along the bike path people showing art work, doing tai chi or yoga, engaged in spontaneous performance with passers by welcome to join in.

Bike Path Attractions – There will also be information tables and displays scattered along the path so people can learn about and appreciate the good works that make this such a great bike path. Check out environmental restoration projects, community gardens, points of historical significance, recreation areas, neighborhood projects and more.

The goal of the Prom is to have a free, local, participatory, low impact, creative, positive occasion at an existing and accessible public location. Times are changing and people can look to each other to have fun, build community and do it closer to home. This is a Prom you won’t want to miss! Please tell your friends. For more info, go to http://www.eugenegears.org/promenade or call 686-6761.

GEARs Holiday Get-Together and Slideshow

Posted on by Paul Adkins

Wild Ride Poster

Wild biking, bushwacking, and packrafting
the length of the Alaska Range:
A firsthand account and wild slideshow by
Paul Adkins.

“Forced to dismount on soft ice and slog up a 6,000-foot-high pass, three adventurers press on in their effort to traverse the rugged Alaska Range by mountain bike. On their seven-week, 775-mile expedition the trio rode on glaciers, game trails, and gravel bars.”

From “A Wild Ride: Biking Across the Alaska Range,” May 1997, National Geographic magazine

Join us for a slideshow by cyclist, dad, ex-guide and adventurer Paul Adkins. Hear stories for the whole family. It will be held as part of the GEARs Holiday Get Together held at the Bascom/Tykeson Room at the Eugene Public Library, December 23, which starts at 5:30 pm with the slides and storytelling starting at 6:15pm.

Open to everyone, bring a dessert to share if you can, and lets have a fun evening together.