The History of the Rail Trail

Welcome to the Bike Bulletin, here to help you find the missing piece to your cycling puzzle.

—Sam Westby @samcwestby

Here’s what we have today.

• 🌍 RIDE: Cycling across Southeast Asia

• 🎥 WATCH: Week 2 of my European Adventure

• 🎥 WATCH: Gravity by Rapha

• 🚲 ARCHIVES: The history of the rail trail in the US

• 📰 NEWS: Bike lanes and a court appeal

ROUTE ON MY RADAR

Bangkok, Thailand to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I stumbled across a 2016 trip blog from Andrew and Jenny. It makes me miss the blogging era of the internet. There’s something satisfying about reading trip reports.

They spent 2 months riding roughly 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) through Southeast Asia. Here are the highlights from the blog:

• They bought cheap hybrid bikes in Bangkok.

• Bribed a Cambodian border official to give them a passport stamp

• Explored Angkor Wat by bike (one of the largest religious structures in the world)

• Extremely cheap travel

Here’s a link to the whole post (with great pictures): https://www.rollingexistence.com/routes/bicycletouringinsoutheastasia/

Stats for the Nerds Store Update

It’s been a whirlwind, and I’m so grateful for everyone who supported. The store will close the night of Saturday, August 23rd.

You can head to statsforthenerds.com to purchase a water bottle, shirt, or sticker.

Why is the store closing so soon? Well, I’m leaving for another adventure on August 25th and won’t be around to ship out items. Here’s the itinerary:

• Bike from Boston to Virginia to attend a wedding

• Bike to North Carolina to see my brother and sister-in-law

• Bike home, through 18 states in 1 week, attempting a new Guinness World Record

I’ll share more about this over the next couple of weeks on all my social platforms. It should be fun.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

The Week 2 Europe Vlog is live! My dad and I cross the highest paved road in the Pyrenees from Andorra into France, struggle with the French language, and stop at bakeries every morning.

This is when our trip turned from tourism to bike tourism. The 1st week was awesome, spending nights in Barcelona and Girona, but the 2nd week we were in a different place every night.

That’s one thing I love about traveling on the bike. Water, Food, Tent, Functioning Bike. With that packing list, you can go almost everywhere.

Watch all 20 minutes on YouTube.

You get a two-fer for what I’ve watched this week.

Rapha put out a doc this month featuring 3 Los Angeles riders. They talk about their unique starts to cycling, the Los Angeles culture, and just seem like cool dudes.

You can watch all 15 minutes on YouTube.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The History of the Rail Trail

In 1911, the C&NW built a new railroad to bypass a tougher section in Wisconsin. 50 years later, the state was in a parks-expansion boom and focused its sights on the abandoned 32-mile railroad Elroy-Sparta segment.

Governor Gaylord Nelson created a pool of funds for recreation lands thanks to a 1-cent per pack cigarette tax. They had $$$$$$$. The state bought all 32 miles in 1966 for $12,000 and began construction.

Although the initial vision was a hiking trail, cycling advocates spoke up and forced planners to resurface the trail with screened limestone and decked bridges.

Since then, a lot of progress has been made for Rail to Trail projects.

• 1983 - Congress added “railbanking” to the National Trails System Act. This lets disused corridors be used as “temporary” trails, while maintaining the possibility for reversion to railroads. This simplified the legal hurdles for trail advocates.

• 1986 - The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy was formed. Their main goal is to support and expand rail-to-trail projects in the United States.

• Present day - We now have about 26,000 miles of rail-trails in the United States, fewer than 60 years after the 1st was built. That’s progress!

Read more on the Rail Trail Wikipedia page.

• Cleveland. This city is set to build its first public mountain bike park. (Cleveland.com)

• Excessive barking. A resident in south Wales, England, opposed a new bike lane in front of their house because it would cause their dog to bark excessively. Bicycling advocates have to fight the silliest complaints. (road.cc)

• 2 miles. Wyoming, MI, just approved a $188,000 contract to reconstruct two miles of road, reduce it from 2 lanes to 1 lane, and add a new bike lane. (mlive.com)

• Appealed. A lower court ruled that the Ontario government could not force Toronto to remove bike lanes. This decision has been appealed to the highest court. (globalnews.ca)

• Covington, Ohio. This village of 2,500 people just opened its first dedicated bike lane. It’s exciting to see small steps toward better bike infrastructure. (WVXU)

A Note From Sam

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