Blogs

7 days, 430 miles, all on a bicycle… That’s the quick recap for Ride Idaho 2007. Ride Idaho is Idaho’s annual state bicycle tour that provides a great opportunity to cycle through some wonderful parts of the state, get a chance to meet a variety of very interesting people, and to completely check out from your normal life for a full week. This was the third year for Ride Idaho and I can attest that the event keeps getting better and better. We did a big clockwise loop starting and ending in Coeur D’Alene. Along the way we visited and camped in wonderful hamlets including Wallace, St. Maries, Deary, Lewiston (Hells Gate State Park), Moscow, and Heyburn State Park (on the banks of lake Coeur D’Alene). Many of us took advantage of an extra 34-mile loop out and back to Elk River – where tasty huckleberry ice cream and milkshakes awaited us.

I don't know if there was something specific recently that stirred things up, but twice so far this week the issue of the "No bikes/pedestrians" sign on the west side of Veterans Memorial Parkway (VMP) in Boise has come up.

I took this photo several years ago when I was involved in a discussion on the League of American Bicyclists Certified Instructor email list. The sign was put up long before that, probably when the VMP bridge was originally built. For those who are not familiar with the area, VMP is one of the few ways to get across the Boise river. The next closest place to cross the river is a couple miles away.