This is a note I received today from Brady Clark of Smart-Trips.org, a group dedicated to helping folks get around via non-automotive methods.

Hi Doug-
We were producing a neighborhood amenities map for our Smart Trips Neighborhoods program, and noticed that the Twin Cities Bike Map is missing the Aldine bike/ped bridge. Here’s an aerial shot of it:

http://bit.ly/F5cKz
Brady Clark
Communications &
Outreach Specialist
651.224.8555 x23
brady@smart-trips.org

I’ve connected it via Pierce and Carroll to Fry south of I-94 and added Aldine going north to Minnehaha Ave north of I-94.

Thanks to Brady and the folks of Smart-trips.

Maps are dynamic. Bike routes change, new trails get built and old ones extended. Some trails get shut down, temporarily, because of nearby construction or because the trail itself needs an overhaul. Well post the updates here, then provide a permanent, one-top page for all of the posts within each of the metro areas covered. If you want to see what’s chqnged since your copy of a map was printed, click the links below. If you have update information that we should know about, please email us by using the contact form here.

Madison Map Updates

Milwaukee Map Updates

Twin Cities Map Updates

The Lake Country Trail, in the wetern suburbs of Milwaukee, has been extended. The extension runs from the intersection of County Rd P and I-94 in Oconomowoc. It follows the western edge of County Rd P north to Valley Rd, then turns west to County Rd Z. From county Rd Z, the trail extension goes NW then due north into Oconomowoc. Most of the trail is paved and rideable, but a small section near the interstate is still gravel. Phil VanValkenberg, of the Bicycle Doctor in Dousman, claims that the unfinished section will probably be completed when the nearby work on the highway is completed.

The last link of the Luce Line Trail has been connected to Theodore Wirth Parkway. As of late June, a short stretch of the trail had been paved. the trail still needed striping and landscaping around the edges, but the trail appears to be rideable.

The Bassett Creek Trail, leading from the SE corner of Theodore Wirth to the Cedar Lake Trail, has been renamed the Luce Line Trail. It is now possible to ride from Downtown Minneapolis to Watertown on two trails, the Cedar Lake Trail and the Luce Line. I don’t have an exact distance, but it is close to 50 miles one way. The Luce Line Trail is paved to I-494, then turns to a new crushed limestone surface.

Because of the trail extension, I’ve removed the bike route designation on Duluth St. from Golden Valley Rd. to Douglas St. I’ve also removed Olympia St. and the stretch of Douglas connecting Duluth St to Olympia St. The Luce Line is a much more desireable route and will get riders to the same general area.

The new Riverwest Trail between Burleigh St and Keefe Ave in Milwaukee is open for bicyclists. The trail, on the old Beer Line, runs only half a dozen blocks, but it has the potential to be extended much further. Bruce Thompson, the Milwaukee bike route researcher for the Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin Bike Map has re-routed the connecting bike routes to accomodate the new trail. The new route stays on Richards St. N between Capitol Dr and Keefe Ave. E.

Some things have gotten better and some worse in Minneapolis. Better: The Washington Ave Bridge over the Mississippi River has reopened. Bikes and pedestrians have full access to the upper deck of the bridge again. The bridge had been closed due to structural problems. The problems have been corrected.

Worse: Marquette Ave and 2nd St in Downtown have been turned into gravel lanes as the city reworks Marquette to make it into a bus transit corridor. Cyclists can weave through the construction, but will have to do it on a dirt and gravel lane. The bike lanes will not come back, but when the project is finished, most buses will be rerouted from Nicollet Mall to Marquette and bikes will again have access to the the mall 24 hours per day.

Upcoming changes: Cedar Lake Trail will be extended to the river in 2009 and 2010. Hennepin Ave and 1st Ave will be converted to 2 way streets and the Hiawatha Trail will be connected to the LRT Trail at 11th Ave.

Overall, bicycle facilities are moving in the right direction Downtown, but the changes require some large scale reconstruction. Use caution when riding around the construction areas.

One of the toughest tasks when printing is discovering a mistake just as the presses begin to roll. This is one of those mistakes. Several roads north of Racine slipped through without labels. Here’s the corrected version. The new Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin Bike Map is scheduled for release on April 20. We’ll get them into the distribution system ASAP. With a little luck, you should be able to order them through your local bike shop or bookstore within a week. You can also order them directly through bikeverywhere by going to our store.

The 2nd edition of the Madison and Dane County Bike Map contains an error north of Paoli. The route identified as County Road PB, then Range Trail Rd, going north from Paoli is Range Trail Rd the entire distance. The heavier black line to the east of Range Trail is County Rd PB.

This bike locking method is BK or Before Kryptonite. In the early 1970s, Michael Zane, founder of Kryptonite, developed the U- lock and revolutionized the way we lock bikes in the US and around the world. Cable locking systems fell by the wayside for years. They just weren’t as safe as U-locks.

But U-locks have their own set of problems. They are heavy, and if you want to take ultimate advantage of their security, they are inconvenient. The original locking method involved removing the front wheel, placing it next to the seat tube, then running the rigid U-lock through the front wheel, around a post or bike rack, and through the rear wheel. It didn’t take long for riders to start skipping steps. Today the U-lock is usually run through the front wheel and around the down tube. Sometimes it’s simply looped around the top tube and the hitching device. Bike Snob NYC has some hilarious shots of u-locks run through the front wheel only, or, in one case, attached to the brake cables of the bike.

Those inconveniences, and the sheer weight of the U-lock beasts, left an opening. Cable locks, once thought obsolete, came back. With a cable lock, you don’t have to find a hitching post that’s less than three inches in diameter and you can protect both wheels and the frame without removing the front wheel.

But how secure are cable locks? Security is as much location as it is hardware. In a quiet neighborhood or small town, a bike might be secure on Main St. without a lock. In a rough urban neighborhood, even a U-lock won’t help much because the bike will be vandalized if not stolen.

If you generally trust the neighborhood, but want some level of protection for your bike, simply loop the cable through the wheels and secure it to a post or bike rack. Higher levels of protection require more work, but the overall method is still easier than removing the front wheel and locking it to the bike with a U-lock.

The first photo shows the ultimate security system. The padlock is looped through one end of the cable; then the shank of the lock is run through the spider of the crankset and the other end of the cable. A cut cable doesn’t make the bike rideable, or even easy to cart off, because the lock and cable ends are still attached to the bike. Riding is impossible. Even carrying the bike, with those loose ends dangling and tangling in the wheels, is difficult, not to mention a bit obvious. If the thief does manage to get the bike out of public view and into a workshop, he or she is still faced with getting the padlock off the spider. Cutting isn’t an option. With two cable ends, a crank arm and the chainrings all crowded into the area, a bolt cutter is useless. The only option is to remove the chainrings and slip the padlock off the spider. It’s possible, but not the sort of evening activity that a bike thief is likely to take on.

The downsides are convenience and cleanliness. If your idea of a clean bike fits mine (see grit on spider and crank arms), bike grease and road grime will inevitably get on your hands as you thread the shank of the padlock through the spider. If the neighborhood allows it, you can increase the convenience factor with only a slight downgrade in security.

The padlock could be attached to a crankarm instead of the spider. A prepared thief could carry along a bolt cutter for the cable and a pedal wrench to remove the pedal, but it’s a two-step process instead of one and unthreading a pedal takes 10-15 seconds even for a fast mechanic. You can attach the padlock to other parts of the bike as well: the rear chain stay (beware of scratching the paint), the saddle rails, wheel rim, etc. You can even attach it to a water bottle cage or the brake cable. It’s not as silly as it first seems. The thief still has to make two cuts instead of one to get your bike.

Finally, you can slip the cable through the webbing of your helmet so you don’t have to carry the helmet when you leave the bike. (Slip the cable through an enclosed part of the webbing. Don’t just clip the strap around the cable.) In most instances, you could probably leave your helmet hanging unsecured from the handlebars. Used, sweaty helmets don’t have a lot of value on the black market, but why take the chance when you can secure the helmet in about 5 seconds? Really paranoid folks will slip the cable through a vent hole of the helmet, but that seems like overkill. If sweaty, used helmets have little value on the Black Market, sweaty, used helmets with cut webbing have even less re-sale value.

The new Hwy 12 bypass directing traffic around the Long Lake business district is finished. The impact on cyclists should be minimal because most bike routes through the area avoided the busy main drag. Gear West, the venerable bike and ski store in Long Lake, will lose some exposure with the re-routed traffic, but cyclists wishing to visit the store by two wheels will be able to get to and from the store without risking their lives.