Friday, August 15, 2008

Planet Bicycle #2: Mackinac Island

A bike-lot on Mackinac Island. Image found here.

This morning, while beating the Google-bushes in search of Academics Who Bike, I happened upon Bike Noob, kept by Ray, a professor of journalism at Texas State University, née Southwest Texas State University (which, by the by, saw fit to award your correspondent with an MA in English back in the dark ages of 1989). Ray is not, strictly speaking, an AWB, seeing as he does not also keep a day-job blog. But I've linked to him anyway in the Cycling Blogs section because he's a good writer and he's from home.

Anyway. The picture you see above was taken by Ray during his and his wife's recent trip to Mackinac Island, which he posts about here. Mackinac Island, located in Lake SuperiorHuron, is accessible only by ferry, and the only permitted modes of transportation there are horses and bicycles. It's not quite Amsterdam or Copenhagen or what Andrew saw in Helsinki as shown in this post, but it's a glimpse, no?

7 comments:

Cordelia said...

Just getting back to you now to thank you for all the furious cross-posting and interconnecting (sorry, not a verb, I know) to ferret out academics who bike. As to your previous post about school zones, IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL ?! What happened to waiting until after Labor Day ? On a more serious and apt note, do many children bike to school? Is it safe enough ? Are there places for bikes to be tied up ? Or has biking gone the way of unstructured time and kick the can ?

Anonymous said...

I appreciate the kind words, John. Glad I found your blog. Oh, and Mackinac is actually in Lake Huron.

John B. said...

Thanks to both of you for commenting.

Cordelia, in the Midwest and South, school starts in August, more often than not. The crops are already in down here, don't you know. As for kids biking to school . . . that's an excellent question. I'll see what I can find.

Ray, you're welcome, and thanks for the correction. It's fixed now.

coppercorn said...

At my daughter's elementary, there are two (now 5th grade) boys who ride their bikes. They often try to race my husband on his "bike train". Then besides my son and daughter who ride with my husband to school, I'm not sure there are nay others. When we rode to school yesterday I know there were only two bikes in the rack.

One problem with this school is many of the students live south of Central, and have to cross it to get to school, and it is a major street.

There's a picture on my blog of the four kids (my daughter has a friend visiting this week) standing in front of the "one" bike that got five people to school (tandem/trail-a-bike/trailer). The two boys had to ride in the trailer that day. And you can see the wheel of one other bike in the rack, so there are at least a few student riders left!
http://www.xanga.com/coppercorn

John B. said...

coppercorn,
Thanks for the comment and the link to your blog (I was beginning to wonder if you had one; let me know if it'd be okay with you if I link to it here). The pictures are great, by the way--only my daughters may be prettier than your children.

I agree with you that crossing Central in your part of town would make me nervous if I had to do it every day; I can't imagine what that would be like for smaller kids. Still, it's good to see some kids riding to school who are able to do so safely.

coppercorn said...

The boys who ride do cross Central; there is a pedestrian light there but it's offset from the intersection (at Armour) which makes it unusable for the tandem. We are not even comfortable letting our daughter ride her single with us on that route which is why we use the tandem/trail-a-bike.

I don't have any problems with you linking, although I only discuss cycling occasinally. I do need to put up a better photo of the bike train. And how can your daughters be prettier than my kids - it's un-possible! :-)

John B. said...

Coppercorn,
Be advised that you are now officially a Friend to This Blog. One can do other things besides blog about bicycles to merit such an honorific.

Thanks, in all seriousness, for visiting and commenting--it's much appreciated.