Port Jervis BMW Ride

I rode the RT from Atlantic Highlands to Port Jervis this last Sunday to experience the last of the fall color.

On the way already it became clear that Atlantic Highlands retains the fall colors later into the season than the rest of New Jersey, heading west and then north the leaves had mostly fallen, but there was enough of a color splash here and there to make up for it… I only stopped at times to snap a picture, but the weather was fantastic for late November, and the ride was fun.

I’m always torn between trying to join up with the “Jersey Shore BMW Riders”, but I’m a little intimidated at the prospect of riding in a group (and messing up somehow), but the biggest concern as a photographer is that when I see something interesting my ensuing behavior is predictably erratic: First I see something visually enticing out of the corner of my eye, then a debate ensues in my aging brain about wether to turn around and take a photograph or not, and finally I may or may not hit the brakes to the imagined dismay of my fortunately absent ride mates.

Besides, this is a two edge sword in another way: If I do turn around, the picture invariably will not be interesting, but if I don’t, I will scold myself over a lost “once in a lifetime” photo op for the rest of the ride. So you can appreciate that I tend to err on the side of worn down brakes and bad pictures…

Having once again planned the route with my trusty bikeroutetoaster.com app, I’ve also recently become aware of a great way to plan a route using google maps directly. In google maps I can modify a route easily to suite me by dragging it onto the roads I’d like to travel… However, the problem has been that once I have a suitable rout, there is no good way to get a google map route converted and downloaded to my (Garmin Zumo) GPS.  Well, now there is a fantastic tool that does just that: MaptoGPX.

Could a bicycle sharing program work in New York City?

In the “Eco Wordly” blog this morning a story surfaced that London is planning a major bicycle sharing program similar to the ones in place for other major cities like Paris, Frankfurt, Montreal, Berlin, Stockholm.

The Guardian Environment Network writes:

Londoners will soon be able to hire bikes in the centre of town for short journeys, under plans announced this week by the mayor, Boris Johnson. London wants to allow cyclists to pick up one of 6,000 bikes at the 400 docking stations planned for the capital by 2010. more…

I know from personal experience and from talking to Frankfurt colleagues that the system there, which is run by the “DB” German Rail program, is working well and is being used extensively. Many other cities have worked out how to make this work: