The BBTC Rocks Part II

Once again the BBTC is showing what good planning, great relationship development and elbow grease can do for the mt. biking community. Not only is their website "the" resource for mt. biking in the Northwest but they've built one of the most amazing urban mt. bike parks in the country. And they are about to do it again!

I just received this email from the BBTC:

Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club (BBTC) is pleased to announce that we have received $150,000 in grants from King County to build a new mountain bike skills course at Duthie Hill Park on the Sammamish Plateau. Design work on the course will start in January, which will include input from both the local riding community and the neighbors surrounding the park. Groundbreaking is scheduled for summer 2008.

This new 120 acre mountain bike course will have something for everyone. There will be a range of new trails and technical features, dirt jumps, a pump track and a cross country race loop. In addition, the new trails will create access to already existing trails at Grand Ridge. This park will be another first of its kind designed and built by BBTC. This park will become the hub for mountain biking races and events in Western Washington.

Duthie Hill Park represents the newest trend in mountain biking-- skills parks close to communities where kids and families of all abilities can ride. Following BBTC’s success with the Colonnade Skills Park in Seattle, we now have Duthie Hill. Soon we hope to have parks like these in every community in Washington State.

To which I say, "Outstanding"!

I remember riding Grand Ridge back in the day and I always loved the area. Challenging trails and close to home. We used to go up there before work and get a quick ride in. The day I rode through there and saw the "Super-Axe-Hacker" tearing the trees out was a sad day. There were still trails to ride but it just wasn't the same. This project looks like a great way to revitalize that area.

As a racer myself, having another course that is close to the city but isn't named Sea-Tac is also very exciting. Hopefully there will be an option to run a cyclocross race there as well. So hat's off to the BBTC and the amazing things they are managing to pull out of that hat!

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Tom Yum Noodle soup and othe staff favorites

For the last few months I've been slowly updating the employee profile section of greggscycles.com. It has been a bit of a slow job but very interesting. Having been here for a number of years I've seen a lot of employees come and go. It seems that every time I meet someone new, if they ask where I work, they'll ask me if I knew so and so who worked at Gregg's years ago. I guess if a company has been around for 75 years and I've been here for 1/10th of that (maybe a little more) that'll happen. Usually I can remember the person or at least the name. Well, since I've been adding to the employee profiles I've been learning all kinds of great stuff about our employees.

Adam likes to "Ride it like you stole it", Brian used to own his own painting company, Garrett was raised by a pack of wolves and John is a real composer! With over 100 employees in three stores we've got a bit of everything.

I'm still working on it and there are a lot more people that I need to get up. I've got a good number of the Greenlake employees up and a fair number of Bellevue employees but nothing from Alderwood just yet. So check back once in a while and see who the new gal or guy is, and if you want to leave a little note for them. After all, our people make us great!

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Bike Share in Bellevue?

A couple of days ago I got a call from a developer in Bellevue. Turns out they have filed a "Request for Information" with the City of Bellevue concerning a Bike Share program. The first part of the process is setting up a meeting with concerned parties (by invitation apparently) and talk about what a Bike Share would look like in Bellevue, what what need to happen to make it work and to start to figure out what the logistics would be. Basically to get enough information to see if it will be possible.

The Bike Share idea is not new, it has been an evolution. Bike Share programs are regaining some momentum in the last few years with programs in Europe that have been described as very successful. Because of this the idea is once again catching on in the states with cites such as Portland, Washington DC, Chicago and now Bellevue.

The meeting was an interesting group of people with different interests. There were people from the City of Bellevue, from King County Parks, Cascade Bike Club, Bike Alliance as well as local developers. There are an estimated 3000 housing units going in to the 36 square block area that is downtown Bellevue in the next few years and everyone is a concerned about traffic in the area. Adding a bike share program is seen as a way to possibly reduce the amount of cars on the road in the downtown area.

As you can imagine there are a number of "roadblocks" to negotiate to make something like this happen. Downtown Bellevue is not a bike friendly place in any one's estimation and it will take it a while to get there. Nevertheless it is encouraging to see local developers and city government taking a pro-active approach to future traffic issues and even more encouraging to see that bikes are being seen as a part of the solution.

This is all in the very early stages but I'll keep posting about it as it goes.