Exercising after 50
Great examples of citizen athletes bouncing back from the consequences of aging are found in "Exercising after age 50," an article from the McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
One of them is Minneapolis, Minn., resident Dick Anderson, who at age 52, had to give up rock climbing. But he then took up cross-country skiing and kayaking with a passion. “I found that I needed to be active to feel complete as a person,” he said.
Five-year trail building plan for Dane Co. Wis., excites
As a newly relocated resident of Dane County, Wisconsin, I'm excited about the five-year plan, released last month, by the county parks department, to build hundreds of miles of new bicycle and pedestrian trails.
For me in Middleton, I'm especially happy to see plans for off-road trails northwest to Mazomanie along Co. Hwy. 14 and completion of the paved trail adjacent to State Hwy. 12 all the way to Sauk City. A new rail trail between Sauk City and Mazo would complete a decent loop for those wishing to avoid the myriad hills on rural roads in the interior.
The bicycling boom in Michigan
There's some eye-opening data about prevalence of bicycling in Michigan in this piece from The Bridge, the magazine of the Center for Michigan. This paragraph in particular jumped out at me:
"Michigan boasts more than 300 bike tours that criss-cross the state, said Rich Moeller, executive director of the League of Michigan Bicyclists, with approximately 45,000 to 50,000 cyclists who participate in them. Of the 300 tours offered, five are a week-long; of those, two sell out every year. The rest are at near capacity."
Roger Drayna, outdoors enthusiast, 1930-2012
The obituary for silent sports enthusiast and writer Roger Drayna just crossed my desk. I didn't know the Wisconsin native, but I can only hope to live as he did. Drayna died on April 8. He was 81.
Drayna, according to a news story in the Wausau Daily Herald, wrote a weekly column called "Boots and Paddles" for the Antigo Daily Journal from 1968 to 1992, contributed regularly to the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine and was published in three anthologies.
Environmentalists lose suit over motorized access to Superior National Forest
In a ruling against environmentalists opposed to more off-highway vehicle access to the Superior National Forest, a federal judge determined the U.S. Forest Service's plan would close more roads than it opens.
Courthouse News Service reported that U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson in Minneapolis accepted the USFS's claim that its road-designation plan, released in 2009, would decommission 154 miles of unclassified toads, limit OHV use to 142 miles of roads and actually reduce motorized use by more than 100 miles.
Cost of trails in Des Moines questioned; La Crosse cyclists seek safety
The construction of a .85-mile, $800,000 trail behind his house prompted a Des Moines, Iowa, resident to ask a newspaper columnist to find out if the high cost of trail building is worth it to taxpayers.
Lee Rood of the Des Moines Register complies by doing an inventory of the city's trail projects, which she writes will cost at least $3.1 million in taxes this year.
Mich.'s Kal-Haven Trail fee is eliminated & usage more than doubles
A recurring question among nonmotorized trail advocates is how to pay for the cost of their maintenance. An increasingly prevalent idea is pay-for-play, i.e. trail fees paid by users.
While cyclists aren't necessarily averse or unfamiliar with slipping a few bucks in an envelope and dropping the envelope in a slot at a trailhead, especially before riding on county land, the requirement raises questions about access based on who can afford it.
Trail dreams, real & imagined
Enough people were taken in by this year’s April Fool’s story "Disney to purchase Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail"
in The County Line, a weekly newspaper based in Ontario, Wisconsin, that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources felt the need to issue a denial.