Cycling

The N.H. Department of Transportation is tackling a plan for the next decade to improve how we get around in the state, on foot and by bike.  We look at the state planning process, and how walkers and bikers can weigh in on problem areas. We also discuss how different kinds of cyclists and pedestrians (including children) impact state and regional planning, and how streets are rated for traffic stress.  NHPR's Sam Evans-Brown, host of Outside/In, is guest host.

GUESTS:

We kick off the summer season with NHPR's Outside/In.  First, sharing the road between bikes and cars, and one cyclists's war against bike lanes.  Then, an american lobster in Stockholm. Is Scandinavia is in the midst of a foreign lobster invasion?

A new bike-share program has launched in Manchester, making it yet another city, alongside Portsmouth, Hanover, and Laconia, to offer bike rentals at various locations around the city. And infrastructure modifications, including complete streets, which allow safe use for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, are popping up all over the state. Still, many cyclists, and drivers, do not understand how to co-exists on our roads. We'll look at the latest in road safety, bike sharing, and cyclist/pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. 

Saturday morning, cyclists racing in Newton’s Revenge will tackle the grueling, 7.6 mile Mount Washington Auto Road.

Missing from the pack will be the cyclist who won 11 titles racing the course, the most ever.

Marti Shea announced this week she is stepping down from competitive racing. The 52-year-old Manchester, New Hampshire native has been battling an arthritic knee.

She owns the women’s record for time for both Newton’s Revenge and the Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb, which use the same course.  

For the first time this year, the Exeter Classic – a “criterium” style bike race – offered equal prize money in their pro women's race as their pro men’s race.  In September, the Portsmouth Criterium will also offer an equal purse to women for the first time.

Top female bike racers say regional race directors in New England and Northern California are pushing national and international governing bodies toward equality for women as they make room for women’s races and attract sponsors for equal prize money.

  Drivers and cyclists aren’t always happy to share the road. After two cyclists died in a fatal car accident on Saturday morning in Hampton, tensions between those on two wheels and four -- have heated up. 

When Krystle Crossman, who lives in Manchester, first saw that two cyclists had died after being struck by a car in Hampton, her instinct was to blame them. She says "because when there are in large groups like that because of roadraces and such, they tend to go four or five abreast, instead of one or two."  

As more New Hampshire communities adopt bike-friendly policies, more Granite Staters are taking to two wheels instead of four, encouraged by programs such as "Complete Streets" and new rail trails. But along with expansion has come some tension -- with cars and pedestrians -- as well as debates over how scarce resources will be spent.

Guests:

-Larry Keniston, Intermodal Facilities Engineer, Rail and Transit Bureau, N.H. Department of Transportation.

A lot of Americans are struggling to lose a whole lot of weight, and they try all kinds of crazy things.

Ernest Gagnon — a man from Billerica, Mass. — decided to shed pounds by getting into the often intense, high-adrenaline sport of cyclocross: racing road bikes on obstacle courses.

Two years ago, Gagnon tipped the scales at 570 pounds. He was depressed and embarrassed to leave the house.

Selectmen in the Seacoast town of Rye have voted to require cyclists to ride single file on all roads in the town. The ordinance passed despite opposition from the community, and it also requires pedestrians to walk single file on Rye roads.

Similar rules are in place in Newington and Newcastle. Supporters of single file ordinances say that the narrow, winding roads on the seacoast don’t have space for two cyclists abreast.

The rule became a flashpoint after Rye’s chief of police put up a traffic sign that read, “Roads are for riding not chatting. Ride single file.”