NOTE: We don’t endorse all of what they show or say but they are informative and at least serve as good points of discussion.
If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.

We’ve broken it up into categories  to make it more useful, but they do overlap a bit.

Hope you enjoy them!

And if you have any you would like to suggest, please let us know.

Motivation to Ride

Riding with Traffic / Rules of the Road/ Vehicular Cycling

Words of Wisdom from other cyclists

Four Season/ all weather riding

Riding and looking good at work

Cycling Gear including bikes, clothes, lights, etc.

Bicycle Maintenance

On-Road Riding Skills

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July Newsletter for Maine Commuters

“We realized that in order to promote commuting by bike, in some cases we needed to help folks get on the bike in the first place,  so we are starting at the beginning and helping folks get a healthy start in cycling, then boosting them up too commuting by bike.” said Jim Tasse, Education Director at the Bicycle Coalition of Maine (BCM). The BCM is co-delivering this program with GO MAINE.

The Program works on two key areas: bike culture in the workplace and riding education for the employees.  We help the HR departments in their goals of supporting staff wellness efforts by including cycling.   Usually this means we meet with them and look at their site to discuss appropriate policies, bike parking, or shower/locker facilities that could work.   We also help them get the word out to staff about what presentations we can offer.   Then we return to deliver one or more presentations to interested staff on riding,  laws,  safety,  how to look good when they get to work and anything in between.  Presentations are fun and too the point.

If you would like the FREE Bicycle Commuter Education program to come to your workplace, please contact ewest@gpcog.org to learn more or set up an appointment.

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

Greater Portland Council of Governments
Carey Kish, 207.838.9669, ckish@gpcog.org

Nominated for
Marketing and Outreach Award

WEBSITE:

• www.gomaine.org

YOU TUBE VIDEO:

• GO MAINE Nation: Our Stories

• GO MAINE Park & Ride Contest

• GO MAINE Emergency Ride Home Guarantee

FACEBOOK:

• www.facebook.com/gomaine

E-MAIL NEWSLETTERS:
(Originally via Constant Contact, saved here as PDF)

• November 2009
• December 2009
• January 2010
• February 2010
• March 2010

RADIO SPOTS:
GO MAINE Nation – 30 seconds  Play MP3
GO MAINE Nation – 60 seconds  Play MP3
GO MAINE Bike Park and Ride – 60 seconds Play MP3
GO MAINE Emergency Ride Home Guarantee – 30 seconds  Play MP3

PRINT ADS:

GO MAINE

GO MAINE Emergency Ride Home Guarantee

TWITTER:

• www.twitter.com/go_maine

WEBSITE BANNERS:

Vertical Website Banner - Click to enlarge

Horizontal Website Banner - Click to enlarge

This program will help guide businesses that want to promote cycling within their organization and help the cyclists who want to commute by bike.

To support businesses, the program offers guidance on creating a bicycle friendly culture in an organization, understanding the needs of a cyclist who rides to and from work and outlining what facilities a cyclist would typically want at the workplace.  While having all the facilities like showers and lockers is nice, it’s not a deal breaker.  When an organization understands the cyclist’s perspective, many different options are possible.   This program offers that type of guidance to businesses.

To support the cyclist, the program offers on-site training seminars by qualified cycling instructors. These sessions are adapted to the time available to employees during the day or scheduled after hours, at the business’ and employees convenience. Through these, existing or would be cyclists can learn the realities of cycling to and from work and the hard skills that go with it. topics include setting realistic goals, managing a work out  on your way to work, bikes and other equipment, riding techniques, route selection, night riding, and general traffic safety. These classes are taught by instructors who speak from experience and are trained in safe cycling practices. Classes are for intro to intermediate cyclists of all ages.

Erik West, a League of American Bicyclist, Certified Cycling Instructor (LCI) is the Bicycle Commuter Education Program Director for GO MAINE. The program is made possible through funding from the MaineDOT. The Program will train and utilize qualified cycling instructors in the pool of instructors who currently teach for the Bicycle Coalition of Maine. Jim Tasse, Education Director for the Bicycle Coalition of Maine (and also an LCI) is partnering with West to establish a group of instructors statewide that can comfortably teach this cycling niche.

If you would like more information about this program or would like it to come to your place of business, please contact  Erik West at ewest@gpcog.org or at 207-774-9891.

Give it a try and if you have a moment, drop us an email to tell us how well it works in your area. We’d love to know.

Also, you might be interested to know that for about a year, the Portland Transit providers have been working with Google to get the bus routes in the Portland area on Google Maps as well. Google has had quite a backlog, trying to handle the bigger cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, but the Transit operators, working through The Greater Portland Council of Governments (The mother office of Go Maine) got their act together early and now we have just recieved word that our area has been accepted and is in the works. We’ll announce it here when it goes live. When it does, this also helps the cyclists because every bus also has a bike rack on it. Stay tuned.

By Sarah Cushman, ASE Master-Certified Auto Technician

It’s spring – an important time to do some every-six-months checks and maintenance on your car or truck.   Who wants to put more cash into their vehicle?  You do.  Painful though it may seem to consider, a little money spent now to keep your vehicle properly maintained will save you spending a lot more on unforeseen and calamitous repairs.

What should you take care of?  Vehicle checks that will keep you from preventable breakdowns – and services that will extend the life of your car or truck.  To demystify what’s best for your vehicle – use this cheat-sheet table to work from.  Compare it with what you know has been done recently for your car, and go from there.  For example, make sure to check your tire pressures, get an oil change if it’s been more than 3 months, do all the checks listed in the Spring column, and then also get your cooling system flushed if it’s been over two years since it was last done and your system uses regular (green) coolant.

And remember, don’t groan when repair needs are discovered. Instead, thank your service technician for finding them during the convenient hours and location of having your car or truck already in his or her service bay (versus at night on the side of the highway, for example).  Stay on top of these simple checks and services and you’ll feel all that much better as you and your carpool roll down the windows and enjoy those warm spring rides.

Sarah Cushman is an ASE Master-Certified auto mechanic and owner of Cushman Transportation Consulting, LLC (www.sarahcushman.com).  She also helps organize Greater Portland’s monthly Green Streets Day (www.portlandgreenstreets.org), a fun grassroots effort to encourage people to walk, bike, carpool and use public transit.

The thermometer is topping out at 50 degrees today but it’s still May and bike season and despite the cold, it’s a gorgeous day today. It’s biking season for sure. So if you just got your bike out of the garage and are beginning to ride again, one thing you may want to do is clean and lubricate it for the season ahead. This is a good chance to give it a once over as well, but it doesn’t need to be a big chore. In fact, don’t make it a big chore or you will be less likely to do it. You don’t need to clean it after each ride and you don’t even have to clean the whole thing. So here are the basics:

Look at it:
Look at the chain, the chainrings on the front and sprockets on the rear. Together, this is your drivetrain. The drivetrain functions best when it is clean and oiled. The more gunk it accumulates, the more issues you will notice. And who wants a bike with issues? Bike issues include shifting poorly, shifting on it’s own or grinding. If the chain is oily but not gunky and there are no issues, leave it alone and go for a ride. If it’s getting gunky, you need to address it.

Clean it:
Chain cleaners rock. They are little plastic gadgets full of brushes and pointy bits that whirl around and clean the gunk out of the chain. They snap together around the chain, you put in a little cleaning liquid and pedal the bike backwards. As you pedal, the chain passes through the machine and after a few passes, it’s clean. Great stuff. If you want to use a toothbrush instead, go for it. But it takes longer and makes a mess. For the chainrings and sprockets, bike shops sell a long stiff brush that will get in and do a great job in there. As for cleaning the rest of your bike, a soapy sponge with dish soap and a garden hose works great. Just spray your bike from the top down, like rain. If you blast water at it sideways, you might get it into the bearings, which is a bad thing.

Lube it
Once your bike is clean, you have to lube the drivetrain. There are two ideas for that. One is good old oil. Bike oil is essentially thin motor oil. Tried and true. And as you might expect, it gets your chain oily. But keep in mind, your drivetrain was designed to work with oil on it. The other method is a “Dry Lube”. I don’t like this stuff but lots of folks do. The benefit is it doesn’t attract gunk like oil. The drawback is it is more likely to give your bike issues and it doesn’t last that long, so you have to keep reapplying it. If you use it, read the bottle first. It usually tells you to wait a few hours before you ride.

You are done!
It’s that simple. The best time clean it is after your ride, so it goes away clean and ready for next ride. Enjoy.

Written by Erik West

PORTLAND – The League of Young Voters Education Fund and the Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation is holding a forum called We CAN Get There From Here! In a time when gas prices are rising, jobs and affordable health insurance are hard to find, and climate change is imminent, people need options to get where they need to go. The goal of this forum is to bring all different modes of sustainable transportation together around a shared vision. During the forum, we will hear from experts of each mode, and we will break out into groups to develop action items that will help with implementation of this vision. The forum will be held at The Merrill Auditorium Rehearsal Hall on Tuesday, May 25th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Our speakers include experts from the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, METRO, The Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, The Rail Transit Coalition, and GO MAINE. We will also be hearing from Jennifer Puser , Deputy Director for the Governor’s office of Energy Independence and Security. At the end of the evening, GO MAINE will be presenting information on how we as a community helped to reduce traffic congestion and auto emissions, as well as auto trips, miles, tons of pollution, and gallons of gasoline, not to mention the money we saved during the month of May – Transportation Month.

WHAT:           Forum: We CAN Get There From Here

WHEN:          Tuesday, May 25, 2010
5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

WHERE:        Merrill Auditorium Rehearsal Hall

20 Myrtle St., Portland, ME (enter the door further toward the bottom of Myrtle)

To Register: www.portlandmaine.gov/planning/conferenceregistrationhere.asp

For More Information:

Hilary Frenkel, Young Voters

772-3207, hilary@youngvoter.org

You can download a poster about it here. Spread the word!!

Sign Up here.