The Fort Collins Bicycle Cooperative presents:
First Friday, June 3^rd 2011

Exhibit hours: Friday June 3^rd 6pm – 9pm

Location:  The Fort Collins Bicycle Cooperative

331 N. College Avenue

Fort Collins, CO 80521

Eligibility: All artwork depicting bicycles, biking culture, bicycle safety, bicycle as alternative transportation, etc. will be considered.

Consideration: To be considered for the exhibit, send a low-resolution image of each piece along with entry form by the entry deadline.  Please e-mail image(s) to fcbc...@gmail.com

Media:  Photography, painting, sculpture, crafts, pottery and other media.  Pieces must be ready to be hung or displayed.  Tables will be available for small 3D pieces.  Only pieces incorporating bicycles or bicycle culture will be considered.

Juror: The Fort Collins Bicycle Cooperative Art Committee

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The Fort Collins Bike Co-op is having a bike sale on May 7th and 14th from 10am to 4pm.  We’ll be selling lots of top-notch refurbished bikes, some new bikes, and “As is” bikes to fix up yourself. ( at home or at the Co-op’s open shop! ) All styles of bikes are available including commuters, cruisers, fixed gear, single speed, road, and mountain bikes.  New and refurbished bike prices range from $100 to $600.  “As is” bikes and bare framesets are $10 and up.

The Bike Co-op also sells lights, locks, helmets, and innertubes.

The Fort Collins Bike Co-op is a Non-Profit, Community owned and operated bicycle project; as an independent and autonomous initiative, your patronage allows the continuation of our mission by directly supporting our charity, recycling and education programs.

The Bike Co-op keeps thousands of bikes out of our landfill each year while providing bikes for those who need them the most in our community.

On the same days as the bike sale we’ll be holding a kids bike swap.  Anyone can bring bikes in for this event.
-Get the outgrown kids bikes out of the garage and trade them “with a neighbor” for something useful.
-Beginning at 10 a.m. we’ll set aside a portion of our parking lot for a kids bike swap including:
-12, 16, 20 and 24 inch wheeled bikes (and small 26 inch or 27 inch bikes)
-Only Kids bikes please!
-Put a price tag on your bike, a “free” sign, or a “will trade for _______”
-By noon if you haven’t sold, traded or given your bike away, take it back to the garage OR donate it to the bike Co-op!  We’ll find a home for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two CSU departments are getting together to help promote health and increase energy awareness this Earth week.  For the entire week (April 18th-22nd) they will have energy producing stationary bicycles in the Lory Student Center Plaza.  The goal is to produce 15,000 Wh (15kWh) of electrical energy over the 5 days of the event.  This energy is going to be donated to BPEC and the Bike Co-op.  It represents about $3600 worth of electricity.  There is also a panel discussion on Friday (April 22nd) on Bike safety, employee biking rebates, and Bike rentals.

Please come out and support the Co-op by pedaling your heart out.

Event Flyer

Event Website

by Rick Price, Ph.D.

First published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan March 7, 2011

City Council adopted the new Bicycle Safety Education Plan on Tuesday, paving the way for a bicycle program where before we had just a plan.

That plan for the past 15 years was to build bicycle infrastructure. We’ve done a great job at that and continue to do so. The plan included encouragement initiatives like Bike to Work Day, Winter Bike to Work, Light up the Night, Commuter Incentives, Bike Library and others. There was very little education in the plan, though, besides pamphlets, a website and marketing initiatives tied to our encouragement efforts. And there was even less enforcement in the plan, as our police really didn’t know where to begin to reign in the scofflaws.

I am hopeful that we are on the edge of a big change.

What happened in the process of writing the Bicycle Safety Education Plan is that we saw transportation planners talking with traffic engineers, educators and law enforcement officers about how to make this a safer bicycle community. They began asking questions about where and why bike/car crashes happen and how we can prevent them through engineering solutions, serious educational outreach and enforcement with an eye to educating all road users. This important change lays the groundwork for the development of a city bicycle program.

In its 2005 report, “Blueprint for Better Bicycling: 40 Ways to Get There,” Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) identified several categories of cyclists. That report has been getting a lot of traction. We should make use of it as we roll out our new bicycle program.

BTA noted that 33 percent of people won’t pedal, period. Either they are too young and their mother won’t let them, or they are too old, too busy or just not interested. Another 1 percent are wild-eyed cyclists who will ride any time and 7 percent are “enthused and confident” (that’s me and many of you, I presume). The important number here, though, is the remaining 59 percent of the population described as “interested” but “concerned.” Call them a huge pool of potential bicycle riders.

If you talk with this group in Fort Collins, you will find people who express concerns such as “I don’t know what to do when the bike lane finishes,” or “I’m uncomfortable with the traffic in Fort Collins,” or even, “it is simply not safe to bicycle in this town.”

Portland addressed similar concerns by developing bicycle boulevards – think of them as bicycle thoroughfares – on neighborhood streets. They also hold frequent special bicycle events during which they close streets to automobiles to let residents experience riding without fear of cars and to help them create new mental maps of how to get around the community. And they adopted innovative techniques to slow traffic, educate motorists and bicyclists and promote bicycling.

Education is a big part of this new direction. Let me know if you or your business would like to help.