Organizers of a new bicycle tour hope a Sunday ride through the inner city next month will illustrate the need for dedicated bike commuting routes on Calgary roads and bike paths.
The 14-kilometre closed-road ride August 23 will wind its way through downtown and inner-city communities. Using a road surface analyzer as the pace vehicle for the ride, organizer Gary Beaton plans to assess the quality of Calgary streets for cycling.
“We want to… make the point to the city that you don’t just slap some paint on a gravel road, or something that’s the equivalent of a gravel road, and call it a bike route,” says Beaton, president of the Calgary tour de nuit Society.
The tour is being organized in conjunction with the Bow River Flow festival — an event Ald. Ric McIver fought against because it will close Memorial Drive. And even though the bike event will close roads in six communities, McIver plans to participate. “There is no comparison between shutting down a major road every Sunday forever and shutting down a few roads for between 10 minutes and an hour,” he says.
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