My black Townie 21, during one of last fall's rides.

OK, it will probably still be hot, but at least it has been cool enough to get in some short (5 mile) rides on the Townie in the evenings. I have been mostly devoting myself to aikido practice this summer, with some evening longboarding when it falls below 100 at about 7:30. I’ll ride bikes in the heat, but I don’t like getting all that sun exposure.

As reported here on Bike Friendly Richardson, my town is putting in miles of new bike path, including 2 spots where you can get under the freeway! Once this is all done, and once Dallas finishes some of their current bike path projects, you will be able to get very long rides while staying off the street almost completely. From Richardson (or maybe Plano) all the way down waaaaay into Dallas. So it will soon be time to get on the sweet red Fuji and get going.

I have been neglecting this blog a bit, as I have several other blog projects that I work on. It’s been a hard summer in other ways other than the extreme heat, so we really didn’t tend our gardens enough to brag about either.

Oh – for those who don’t follow my other blogs, here is a nice longboarding pic that my friend Sean took.

Me, riding down a hill. Fun.

Here is a very good editorial in favor of the bonds – more calm and rational than mine.

http://www.suburbanshift.com/?p=54

The first post, with some information on typical home energy use and waste is now up. Please check it out, and spread the word. I appreciate your support.

It’s too bad there aren’t any projects planned for the southwestern part of town, but I don’t think there are really any great places to put them. That part of town is very easy to navigate on side streets anyway, so a trail really isn’t needed. However, if you look a the lower left side of the Trail Guide, you’ll see a planned section of the Cottonwood trail, that has two small completed sections. This little section is weird looking — appears like its supposed to cross Coit Rd? Are the areas currently green on the map supposed to connect to anything? It looks like they might. Need to see what Dallas is doing on the other sides of those roads.

OK, THIS is proper heel clearance for your panniers. This is the bike I want.

As I just read what I’ve written below, I realized it somewhat, errrrr…, well, it’s kind of like a rant. So please just cut me some slack.

Richardson is holding a bond election for some improvements to city infrastructure and amenities on May 8.  The entire package will raise the property taxes on a home of about $180,000 valuation by about $110 a year. Amazingly, some nutcases are against this. C’mon people, that is NOTHING. It isn’t like they’re gonna flush that money down the toilet. They are maintaining and improving our city — doing things to try to attract talented, educated, good people to live here, to get excellent companies to locate in Richardson.  Good grief, if we left things up to these teabaggers, we’d have no public life at all.

Seriously – do we want to end up like Garland? I don’t think so.

And before some teabagger brings this up — YES – I am a homeowner. In fact, I actually own my home, rather than renting it from the bank. I don’t mind paying an extra $110 per year to keep our city moving in the right direction. It’s all part of living in a good civilization.

Just keep building bike paths, please. Build, build, build.