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Black Eye for Black Hawk
Imagine my surprise to get an e-mail solicitation yesterday from a casino in Black Hawk, Colo., asking me to bring our business to their facility…. Regular blog readers will know this is the very same town that has banned bicyclists from its streets, making it really quite an unlikely destination for a national bicycling organization to choose for a meeting, unless perhaps we are planning some civil disobedience, or a field trip to see what life would be like in a town where bikes were not allowed.
Yes, maybe we could take a handful of potential major donors out there and put the fear of God (or Glen Beck) into them by showing what the world would be like without bicycle advocacy groups like the League and Bicycle Colorado. Or maybe we could go undercover and surreptitiously hand out garish plastic bike pins (if you’ve been to the National Bike Summit you know what I’m talking about) to resort visitors.
What a stark contract we could draw with the promotional materials I picked up at the ASAE convention last week from places like Sonoma County: check out the cover of their Visitor Guide and Wine Map; or Vancouver BC where the meeting planners guide also has a cover shot of normal looking people on bikes and the local bike network is promoted as evidence of their green credentials. Of course, Portland, Ore., and their Travel Portland site has not just a few images but a choice of hotel packages that include bikes.
Closer to Black Hawk, nearby Boulder has getaway packages featuring on- and off-road biking attractions that might just appeal more to the 50+ million adults in the USA that love to ride; Longmont has plenty of riding options; and Fort Collins proudly boasts of its walking and bicycling opportunities in the opening sentence of its website.
For the time being, at least, I think we’ll consider those places as just a tad more suitable for us than Black Hawk.
In fact, we’re having our next strategic planning meeting this fall in … Denver; check out the pedicab on the cover of their tourist guide this year, and the launch of the Denver bike sharing program certainly factored into our location decision! And we’ll be taking a tour of Boulder while we are there. Sorry, Black Hawk. Maybe next year.
Andy Clarke
League President
Andy Clarke was appointed to the position of Executive Director in April of 2004 after successfully leading efforts to create, interpret and implement the various transportation programs that are available to improve conditions for bicycling and walking as the League’s State and Local Advocacy Director. Before joining the League in February 2003, Clarke was on contract to provide technical assistance to the highly regarded Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center on site at the Federal Highway Administration. He is on the Board of Directors for America Bikes, and a member of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycling Professionals.
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August 31st, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I had to laugh when you said Black Hawk.
So the strategic planning meeting will be in Denver, eh, Andy? Further proof to CO Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes that the UN-sponsored bike-ped conspiracy is in full operation. Just leave those blue LCI shirts back in Dee Cee and make sure you don’t attract any attention when you are unloading the bicycles from the black helicopters.
http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894
August 31st, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[...] Read about it on the LAB blog → [...]
August 31st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Denver to BackHawk is only 40 miles or so…Seems like a nice opportunity for a very large group ride as part of the strategic planning.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I’m absolutely shocked that they would ban bicycles from their streets. Even more shocked (and amused) that they would ask the League of American Bicyclists to bring its business to their town/city. I’ve ridden in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins and are all very, very bicycle friendly. Actually, we may be making a move to that area in the very near future.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:33 pm
This sounds like a great subject for a “South Park” episode. I’d suggest pitching it to the show’s creators. Amazing, rather than pursue mitigation funds from casino operators to assure safe streets for all users, Blackhawk prioritizes car traffic. Disgusting.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:50 pm
We can get as huffy as we want (pun intended) but I suspect BlackHawk knows where its bread gets buttered–casino dollars. And casino junkies are generally not cyclists. More likely, casino junkies are those folks who generally are telling us where we can park it.
But this just points out why we need statewide laws that prohibit localities from enacting weird bans on the vehicles of their discontent.
Something about gambling and bicycling, I suppose, makes a bad match. Anyone remember this screed:
http://maddogmedia.com/outerbiking.html
August 31st, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I agree with Paul on this. Give a call to the South Park creators.
August 31st, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Come to Sonoma. Levi knows – the cycling here is the bomb.
August 31st, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Come to Los Alamos. We have bikes and bombs…
August 31st, 2010 at 9:42 pm
As I discovered, not only is this an idiotic move that will make traffic and safety worse, it is also a violation of Black Hawk’s own laws.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_15359817
August 31st, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Hey Khal, Biking and casinos? You may want to rethink that stereotype, bikes and poker have a 125 year history http://www.bicyclecards.com/company-history-pages-8.php . I have bikes that I bought with poker tournament winnings.
September 1st, 2010 at 9:55 am
Perhaps the League should reply to the email solicitation with a request for more information about the community and meeting facilities. This in order to make a location decision for the really big meeting you are coordinating. You can go on to say that you could consider bringing all that business to their fine community. More information would be needed of course, like is there adequate bicycle parking throughout the community….
September 1st, 2010 at 1:51 pm
A ban on bikes in a city is a big deal, but Blackhawk really isn’t a city per se. This should be understood by those that read the articles.
As those of us that live in the front range of Colorado know, Blackhawk is ONLY casinos. It isn’t a real town, it is a group of casinos buried in the mountains, on a 2 lane mountain pass that goes nowhere, but to Blackhawk. If I remember correctly, biking is even prohibited in Clear Creek Canyon – which is the stretch of highway leaving Golden on the way to Blackhawk. So it might even be illegal to ride TO Blackhawk.
That being said, it makes no sense to not allow bikes once your in Blackhawk, but getting there from Golden might be another issue – safety, prohibited.
September 1st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Josh is right that this is a backwater, but its a backwater with serious repercussions for touring cyclists, as Adventure Cycling points out: “…Cyclists riding our Great Parks South Route, Section 1 have two options to avoid a $68 ticket for riding through Black Hawk…”
http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2010/06/bicycling-ban-in-black-hawk-update.html
It is as inappropriate for any bicyclist to be dealt this fate than it would be for a motorist to be traveling to a destination and find out, midway there, that he was blocked by the arbitrary and capricious ordinances passed by a small community. Such laws fly in the face of the spirit of the Uniform Vehicle Code, not to mention the LAB’s Equity Statement.
September 1st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
[...] lost at least one potential consumer of your goods — The League of American bicyclists. So says Andy Clarke, the president of the organization. They’ll be considering other, more suitable, places for [...]
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:28 am
So when is the LAB going to take or help bankroll legal action against the town of Black Hawk? Aren’t you supposed to be defending cyclists’ rights rather than making tepid jokes about this assault on our freedom to travel?
September 8th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Beg to differ with Khal about bicycles and casinos, having visited Las Vegas several times for the Interbike trade show and for meetings when I was a member of the League’s Board.
There are 17 League Cycling Instructors listed in Nevada, but on the other hand, Las Vegas doesn’t do much to make the streets better for bicycling. Las Vegas doesn’t ban bicyclists, though I recall that it did ban pedicabs. Bicyclists in Las Vegas fall into two main categories: workers (many), and security guards (a few). I agree that few people who come to gamble are likely to ride bicycles — though on the other hand, there are some very interesting on-road and off-road recreational cycling opportunities around Las Vegas (better in the cooler months!). A ban on cycling in a casino town falls most heavily on relatively low-wage service workers.
For more detail, see my Las Vegas photos.
September 8th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
John, your comment doesn’t really diverge from what Patrick O’Grady said in Outerbiking, to which I was referring.
Either a ban or an attitude that “…doesn’t do much to make the streets better for bicycling…” falls disproportionately on the low wage service workers who depend on bikes to get to work and who, as O’Grady says, might well put more miles per year on their Huffy than our average Bicycling reader on his Unobtanium 5.12. Not to mention, the low wage service worker might not have the spare change to head for the hills around LV for excellent recreational opportunities with the high zoot bike on top of the SUV. I suspect few of them are LAB members, either.
September 9th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
I too would like to hear about what the LAB is doing to assist the cyclists who are disputing their tickets.
September 9th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Don’t flatter yourself, Andy. I worked for ASAE at one point in time. What you received is a paid commercial mailing. ASAE sells it’s member and attendee list to presenting companies and organizations. You and thousands of others (bike and non-bike received the same mailing).
BTW, do a little more research about Dan Maes before you go flapping your liberal gums all over the place. You are the very reason I put my biking dollars in other organizations other than yours.
September 10th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
I think that was my comment, not Andy’s.
Dan Maes’ recent quotes put him firmly in the Black Helicopter league. Too bad for those in CO rooting for a viable two-party system.
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