I managed to forge a cycling purpose into a non-cycling vacation in August, 2011, using the brute force of a big-ass 1996 GMC camper van.
Here are the posts: Vapid Transit, Snap Judgements, How to Blow $20 in Boulder, Public Art You Can't See from a Car, and How does your town say "˜No Bicycles?'
In retrospect, this photo taken in Loveland, Colo., captures my vacation:
Note that the bike shop is closed, and the liquor store is open.
I’m not a heavy drinker. Really. In the ten days I was away, I spent more waking hours drinking than cycling–but that’s not saying much.
But in visiting a handful of towns in Colorado on car and on foot, I became curious about the psychological impact of signage. When a municipality puts up a sign that says No Bicycles, is the subtext, No bicycles, because we hate you, or is it, We love bicycles, just not right here?
Even bike-friendly cities such as Salida, kind of bungle this.
Here’s a selection:
How does your town say ‘No Bicycles?’ If you have a photo you’d like to share, send me a note using our contact form.
Trinidad
One of our final stops on the way home was Trinidad, Colo. Absolutely nothing bike-related happened during our few hours there.
My wife and I had lunch at a cafe. I had my laptop, so we watched an episode of South Park set partially in Trinidad.
Our main purpose in Trinidad was to stop by the Carnagie Public Library and drop off two boxes of Korean-War-era newspapers from a now-defunct Trinidad paper called The Morning Light.
If you search online about The Morning Light, not much comes up about this newspaper. If you exclude the word “Tobago,” you’ll get better results, but still not much information. In your Google search results there will be obituaries for people who worked for the paper. One will be for a man with the same name as me. That’s my father. And that’s why I happened to be in possession of two boxes of The Morning Light. When he was in his 20’s and fresh out of college, he was the editor of that paper.
I posed for this picture with the library staff when I dropped off the boxes. By coincidence, I was wearing a Commute by Bike t-shirt.
Look, Dad, I’m an editor too.
And that’s all I have to say about my vacation.