It is that time of year again. Chainwheel is stoked to present the annual 100 Minutes of C.A.R.P. Mountain Bike Race at Camp Robinson. Expect the usual again this year: a unique race format, fun atmosphere and lots 'o healthy competition.

Mark you calendars. October 31, 2004.

Online Registration coming soon. Keep your eye on Chainwheel.com. We will announce open registration when available.

For questions, call Patrick Barron at 224-7651.

The next meeting of Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas will be at 7 pm. on Thursday, September 2 at the Oyster Bar, 3003 Markham.

Representatives of the Roberts & Williams landscape architectural design firm that has been awarded the contract to design the River Trail from Rebsamen Park to the LaHarpe Boulevard area will speak at the meeting. They will talk about the design plan they are developing for the Trail.

Attending this meeting may be your best chance to have input into the route the River Trail will follow in the critically important section between the Cantrell Road viaduct & the LaHarpe Blvd. viaduct(otherwise known as the Episcopal Cathedral School area). It now appears that the trail will have to go behind the school (to the south of the school). However, there are several alternatives for routing the trail behind the school. A particularly exciting possibility would take the trail over the Union Pacific tracks via a new bicycle/pedestrian bridge that could easily include a short spur trail to the state Capitol complex, allowing state employees access to the trail for noon time exercise, commuting to work by bike, & even biking, jogging or walking to lunch at the River Market via the trail.

The contract with the city specifically requires that BACA have a strong say in the routing of the trail (city officials have also repeatedly emphasized BACA’s importance in the decision). Please attend the meeting to assist BACA in making this important decision.

Thanks
Ken Gould

Pick hits....

Jenny Foster has joined the CARP Membership administrative team and will be helping manage various aspects of the program. More about Jen shortly.

The e-mail reminder telling each member when your CARP Membership will expire has now been set to 30 days before expiration. Basically all members who have provided a legit e-mail to CARP, will recieve a reminder e-mail 30 days before your CARP membership expires giving each member plenty of time to renew online if they choose and recieve your CARP card in the mail before membership expires. If you purchase your membership at a local bicycle shop, expect 7 days to 10 days before we get your online login to you, as we have to pick-up the memberships from each store and process them.

When a CARP e-mail news flash goes out, we still have a significant number of e-mails which bounce back to us because e-mail boxs are full, discontinued, suspended, spam filtered, etc. Be sure you setup your e-mail client to accept mail from CARP so you don't miss e-mail news. For those of you who are subscribed more then once and recieve duplicate e-mails, you can trim these by removing multiple subscriptions using the e-mail unsubscribe field at the bottom of the page here.

Plenty of CARP Jerseys for sale in the member area if your membership is active. We're looking at making the jerseys available to the public online here. No ETA on this however

Thanks

From ABC....

IMPORTANT - Attend meetings (see below) to give your inupt on development of Pulaski County Bicycle & Pedestrian Trail Master Plan - This is your chance (maybe only chance) to have a say in the development of bicycle/pedestrian trails - including dedicated trails, bike lanes on streets & other routes in Pulaski County. If at all possible, please attend one of the meetings listed below. Note! - these meetings are scheduled for next week & the following Monday! Here's the notice as received from the office of County Judge Buddy Villines:

(Also note - Our next BACA meeting will be Thursday, September 2 at 7 p.m. at the Oyster Bar. More information will follow by e-mail & is available at www.bacar.org)

PULASKI COUNTY BICYCLE & PEDESTRIAN TRAIL MASTER PLAN
Community Planning Workshop

The design for the Pulaski County Bicycle & Pedestrian Trail Master Plan is currently underway. Public workshops will be held on four dates at four locations around Pulaski County for community input. All citizens that wish to provide insight on trail routes, connections to local features and trail head locations are encouraged to attend these meetings. The workshop dates and locations are as follows.

LOCATION:
Oak Grove Fire Department
Hwy. 365 & Shady Pine Road
North Little Rock, AR 72118
DATE: August 23, 2004
TIME: 5:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION:
Gravel Ridge Fire Department
14814 Hwy. 107
Gravel Ridge, AR 72078
DATE: August 24, 2004
TIME: 5:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION:
Arch Street Fire Department
15923 Arch Street (Arch Street & Mail Route)
Little Rock, AR 72206 .
DATE: August 26, 2004
TIME: 5:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION:
Lake Maumelle Fire Department
20720 Clay Street
Roland, AR 72135
DATE: August 30, 2004
TIME: 5:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.

It has come to our attention that lots of people are using the old entrance to the trails to either enter or exit. There are no machines now and it seems safe enough. However, we have been told recently that if the F.A.A. inspector sees people on Mountain Bikes on that area he could decide it is unsafe and have the whole club banned from riding on Camp, at least until the project is completed (which could take many months). Worst case scenario is we never get back on Camp. This is very serious, tell your friends who might not get emails. Signs will be posted and tape will placed in strategic locations. Do not ignore them. It could only take one person at the wrong time to ride through there and nobody will be able to enjoy those trails again.
Thanks,
Gary Lamb
President

Check this out! I just got this today, you better sign up early!

Arkansas Trails Council Trails Workshop
IMBA - International Mountain Bike Association
October 8-9, 9 am - 5 pm
Ozark Folk Center - Mountain View Arkansas & Ozark National Forest - Sylamore District

The Arkansas Trails Council is proud to present their annual Trails Council Workshop. Learn trail building and maintenance with the IMBA (International Mountain Bike Association) "Trail Care Crew". The workshop will begin each day at the Ozark Folk Center, followed by "hands on" practice on the Syllamo trail in the beautiful Ozark National Forest each afternoon.

Lunch is available (on your own) at the folk center cafeteria.

The classroom section will occur at the Ozark folk center, and will include video and instruction on what the afternoon session will consist of. This portion starts at 9 am each day. The "hands on" portion will occur after lunch, trailside on the beautiful Syllamo trail system. We ask that each person bring a trail building tool of some type, limb lopper, pulaski, fire rake etc, to help build trail with.

Identical programs will be offered on Friday and Saturday to provide the opportunity for both land manager and users to learn trail building and maintenance skills. Best of all - its FREE!! However registration is required, due to space limitations. - Register online at www.arkansastrailscouncil.com today!

A trail ride is being planned following Saturday's work session on the Syllamo trails. This page has a downloadable PDF map of the trails.

Sponsored by the Arkansas Trails Council
One Capitol Mall
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201
501-682-1301

Members of C.A.R.P.,

BACA received the following e-mail from Steve Weston, Bicycle Coordinator for the State Highway Department & BACA member. If you have any information regarding accidents on the new downtown trolley rails, Steve would appreciate your sending him an e-mail at steve.weston@arkansashighways.com. Please send a copy to me at ksgould@ualr.edu.

Ken Gould
President, BACA

Today, August 11, 2004 at 11 a.m. at Murray Park in Little Rock, Governor Mike Huckabee will be making a ceremonial check presentation to grantees that received a Trails for Life grant this year. This is the same grant program that awarded Little Rock $113,300.00 for the River Trail. We would like to invite any interested people to attend the ceremony and show support for the program. The more cyclists that show up the better. We hope to encourage the the governor to funnel more money to the trail grant program. Wear your yellow BACA Tees.

Thx
Ian

Fantastic news! Judge Buddy Villines called late yesterday afternoon to let us know that the contract for construction of the bicycle/pedestrian bridge across the Murray Lock and Dam was signed at 4:00 p.m. Construction of the bridge will begin in September/October and will take about 2 years to complete.

The bridge will be the longest bicycle/pedestrian bridge in the country. During my conversation with Judge Villines I congratulated him on this incredible achievement, and told him that the good he has done for our community is beyond measure and description. You can thank Judge Villines by e-mail at countyjudge@co.pulaski.ar.us.

Ken Gould

Ok...we finally re-entered the CARP digital Time Capsule and managed to grab some digital remnants of CARP videos. Check'em out here... Basically Windows Media player should work for playing these since they are in .mpg format. Broadband surfers can double-click on them to stream or dial-up users may want to right-click and do a "Save Target As" or "Save As" and save them to your hard drive to view for speed sake. Over the next few weeks as we sort through the various artifacts from the CARP Time Capsule...will get them out to the "Pic of the Day" or on the video page.

Doug pokin in here...
while were talking media....heavy metal media that is....check these rawking Mt Biking tunes from Patrick Rondat...backed by one of Arkansas's own old skool drummers Tommy Aldridge....smokin! Load up your mp3 player for the Camp trails! By the way...Tommy works out on bicycles to keep himself tuned for the rigors of metal drumming.

Here's a few tidbits of info.....

100 Minutes of CARP will be gearing up soon. Registration and details to follow shortly.

BACA'S digital newsletter had a sweet link about Chicago's Millennium Park Bicycle Commuter Station....does this RAWK or what!

BACA Meeting - Thursday, August 5 (7 p.m. - Oyster Bar, 3003 Markham) that all who are interested in development of the River Trail should be sure to attend. Our speaker will be Terry Eastin, Coordinator of Headwaters Partnership. The Headwaters Partnership is a coalition of federal, state, county, and municipal public and private agencies and organizations dedicated to the completion of the River Trail. BACA is a member of the Partnership.

A major (if not the major) issue regarding the trail is the trail’s location in the area of the Cathedral Episcopal Collegiate School on Cantrell Road. We have recently discovered an exciting possible solution to the trail location that would allow the State Capitol Complex access to the trail & might also include routing the trail in front of the old Union Station train depot.

Terry is extremely knowledgeable about the progress of the River Trail. Please plan on attending to learn more about the Trail, including the possible “new” route, & to show Terry your support for her work & the completion of the Trail.

Plenty of CARP Jerseys left. Members sign-in and buy. Quick note on the jerseys appearing in the member area under options....your membership must be active before the option appears for CARP jersey purchases in the member area.

Thanks