March 24/08 10:20 am - 'Crazy Guy On a Bike' Part 2: Grandpa Cycles Europe

Posted by Editoress on 03/24/08
 

Ed Schum has been a backbone of the B.C. provincial scene for many years - and a sometimes CC reporter. He just sent us the following note about his plans for a 3 month European bike trip starting in Lisbon. Good luck Ed.

Since my trip across Canada last year, I have pretty well disappeared from the road racing scene. (See Ed's journal of this trip www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/crosscanada2007)

Things with youth development in B.C. are looking better than they have for as long as I have been involved with Cycling B.C. (25+ yrs.), mainly ( I would almost say entirely) because of the work of Richard Wooles, our new head coach. Youth development has been my main and only reason for being involved with Cycling B.C. and with it in good hands now, I enjoy cycling at a more leisurely pace with time to, as they say, 'smell the roses'.

I did enjoy my trip across Canada immensely and can't wait to go out to do more touring and see other places from the seat of my bike.

Part of the purpose of the trip was to report on how safe or unsafe our roads are for cycling. Without going into detail, I found that a lot needs and can be done to make our roads safer for cycling to encourage more people to at least occasionally get out of their SUV's and onto bicycles. I have been in touch with our MLA, our Premier and the B.C. minister of Transportation and was told that the B.C. government is willing to work with the cycling community to improve cycling infrastructure in the province.

I have since joined the B.C. Cycling Coalition and we are working with the government on planning of new trails and improvement to old routes. Our intention is to make sure that, for the money spent, we get something the cyclist really wants and needs. We have seen too many 'Mickey Mouse' trails built in the past that no cyclist wants to use.

In order to learn more about cycling infrastructure I will be touring Europe for three months, starting in Lisbon on April 3rd. I will ride on many cycling routes and find out what we can learn from the way they have been build over there.

The journal of my trip is up and running at: www.crazyguyonabike.com. I think many of your readers would be interested to see it.

Happy and safe cycling.

Ed