Biking

The Geminids- the king of meteor showers- is soon approaching. On December 13 and 14, the sky will glow with up to 120 multicolored meteors per hour.

Have you heard about the volunteers who have been cleaning up litter around Carson City? Maybe you've seen a group of people removing trash early one Saturday morning and wondered who was behind the effort. Well, chances are you were a witness to a Trash Mob.

Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell announced his intention to run for a third term this morning at a meeting of minority business leaders at La Posada Real restaurant.

"We are going to build a community for the future, and we aren't going to leave anybody behind," Crowell said.

“Hey, when are we doing that ride again?”, someone asked at the beginning of October. With the summer smoke gone from the sky and cooler Fall temperatures, we agreed it was officially time to plan our unofficial annual ride up to Virginia City. We picked the 4th weekend in October to make the tr ...

Amgen Tour of California, presented by AEG, announced Thursday that professional cyclists return to Lake Tahoe for the men’s Stage 5 finish, as well as the women’s Stage 1 start on Thursday, May 19, 2016. The men will take off in Lodi, Calif. and finish at Heavenly Mountain Resort’s California Base Lodge in South Lake Tahoe. The women will also start/finish at Heavenly Mountain Resort on May 19.

Muscle Powered, the local non-profit organization that advocates for cycling and walking, is continuing their monthly clean-up project called Trash Mobs. The Trash Mob meets on the third Saturday of every month for an hour to clean up litter along Carson City's walking and biking paths.

Carson High School has been back for three weeks and I think we are finally getting settled into new schedules, rekindling friendships, and getting acquainted with new teachers and students. However, our school year started with much sadness as our high school community lost one of our students in a tragic accident at Lake Tahoe.

Whether you pedal, paddle or hike, the watering hole at the end of a long day exploring North Tahoe is the incentive that pushes many recreationists through that last mile.

North Tahoe has stepped up to help those adventure-seekers searching for the perfect pairing of singletrack and suds or paddling and pints with the unique North Lake Tahoe Ale Trail Campaign.



Sierra Nevada Forums will host a free presentation on hiking and biking trails in Carson City on Thursday at the Brewery Arts Center Black Box Theatre.

"People who like trails get to use them, and if more people come into town there's better business and tourism,” said Anne Macquarie, moderator of the forum and founding president of Muscle Power: Citizens For A Bikeable and Walkable Carson City.



The early bird catches the worm and in this case, the early bird gets special pricing for tickets to Lake Tahoe’s only farm-to-fork festival Sample the Sierra.

Early bird tickets for Sample the Sierra are available until August 1 and allow you to attend the festival for just $30 to fully experience dozens of restaurants, wineries, distilleries and breweries. Tickets will be priced at $40 per person from August 1 until the festival on September 6.

Volunteers participated in Carson City's first Trash Mob bright and early Saturday morning, setting their sights and trash bags on the south side of College Parkway near the I-580 overpass.

Volunteer Randy Gaa said he noticed the trash along the multi-use path and wanted to do something about it. As a member of Muscle Powered, a community group that advocates bicycling and pedestrian friendly development, he brought up his concerns to Donna Inversin, Muscle Powered's president.

Saturdays, 9:40 am through summer is the kind of organized bike ride for the family. Meet by the Muscle Powered bike rack in front of the Carson City Aquatic Center at 841 N. Roop St.
Bicycle rides will be moderately paced and distance will be at the discretion of the riders. The goal is to develop skills and endurance over time. Riders must wear helmets and closed toed shoes.

Muscle Powered, the organization for a walkable and bikeable Carson City, is sponsoring a new initiative in the community in order to keep the local walking and biking paths clear of trash. Once a month, the local community will be invited to participate in a “Trash Mob.”

We face some big, daunting environmental restoration challenges here at Lake Tahoe. But helping our environment every day can be as simple as riding a bike, walking, or taking transit. And the hundreds of people who participated in the Tahoe Bike Challenge this June, including many of our employees at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, are showing how big of an impact our individual actions can have.

It’s time for Blinky Man Summer 2015! This annual costumed night time bike ride with lights will be stopping at tasty and refreshing businesses around Carson City on the evening of Saturday, June 13th. Dress your bikes and bodies, and get ready to parade around town in one biking mass of awesome. Th...

First things first. Saturday afternoon could be expecting some wet weather, so be prepared. I can’t predict what events may be affected by it, or if the rain will even show up. No worries for you wine walkers, though, downtown will be hopping: rain, shine, or blizzard. Head over to Artsy Fartsy Art Gallery and wish them a happy fourth anniversary, Jeffery will be serving up one of his signature Sangrias. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church won best wine walk stop last month and will have live music. Don’t forget to spend some time inside Westside Pour House: ARTistically INKlined pop-up gallery returns and proves that tattoo artists are first, and foremost, artists.

SATURDAY:

• Street Vibrations Spring Rally: Downtown Reno
• Reno Tahoe International Film Festival – go to www.RTIFF.org for schedule and locations
• Sierra Lutheran High School's 13th Annual Golf Classic at the Silver Oaks Golf Course (7am Check-in, Shotgun start at 8am; $125 for a single player or $400 for a team of four)

To find a trail close to home that my wife and I can actually hike is no small thing. Being surrounded by steep mountain ranges means having to do some climbing. For the average area hiker, this is no great feat. But for those with disabilities, trails that are handicapped friendly seem hard to come by.

Applying our local knowledge of the region, and after doing some Internet research, we decided to give the Spooner Lake Trail Loop a try.

Nevada is the seventh-largest state in the Union. There are 109,781 square miles to explore, from the basin-and-range landscape on the northern end to the scenic desert panoramas in the south. This summer, discover your Nevada on a road trip to Tonopah or Valley of Fire State Park, or maybe drive the U.S. 50-Interstate 80 loop from the Reno-Tahoe area.

Tuesdays are an excellent day for a stroll. Carson City Parks and Recreation and Muscle Powered both offer a guided walk/hike along one of our valley’s many trails. This morning enjoy beautiful views from the Virginia and Truckee Trail on the west side of Carson; it is also an excellent trail for biking. Later today, tag along with Muscle Powered for something more challenging. They will be exploring around Centennial Park on the far northeast side of Carson City. Check out BikeCarson.org for some great pictures and overviews of area trails, or go here for the Carson City website’s list of public trails.
TUESDAY:

• Carson City Sheriff’s Office’s Crosswalk Safety Operation
• Customer Appreciation Month: free small iced tea today at Dunkin Donuts
• ’New Work’ by artist Pasha Rafat at the Nevada Arts Council: 716 N. Carson St. (8am-5pm)

Even with an aging population, Carson City is showing improvements in a number of public health areas including preventable hospital stays, diabetic monitoring and mammography screening, according to a nationwide health survey released Wednesday through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

Survey results are compiled county-by-county in an easy-to-use snapshot.

Carson City will host a mountain biking event with up to 2,000 trail riders on a weekend in June of 2016, Joel Dunn, Visitors Bureau director, said Tuesday.

I hope everyone is feeling okay this morning; lots of fun was had throughout town yesterday. Please be aware that schoolchildren are celebrating Nevada Moves Day today, and there will be several little ones walking or biking to school.

Enjoy a nice dinner tonight, complete with live music, if you head to Sassafras Eclectic Food Joint, Glen Eagles, or Living the Good Life. The Carson City Symphony is looking for bassoons, French horns, and violas to join them at rehearsals tonight.

Every year on March 17, the Irish and the Irish-at-heart across the globe observe St. Patrick’s Day. What began as a religious feast day for the patron saint of Ireland has become an international festival celebrating Irish culture with parades, dancing, special foods and a whole lot of green. Carson City definitely gets in on the game with festivities all over town. Corned beef and cabbage, green beer, and live music abound. I've included a short YouTube video of Tom and Mary Kay Aufrance who will be performing at Red's this evening.

May the Irish hills caress you.

Many sunny and warm days are ahead and it goes without saying that we will have an increase in motorcycle, pedestrian, bicycle and scooter traffic. For the motorist this means paying attention to your driving and surroundings.

“Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Birthday boy Steinbeck has it right. Carson City is what you make of it; plenty going on, but it won’t come to your home and ask you to get involved. Music, art, theater, dance, hiking, biking, wining, dining, volunteering, sports, and more are available in our area.

The final environmental impact report on Heavenly Mountain Resort's Epic Discovery Project has been completed and is now ready for public review. The new project, located at Heavenly Mountain Resort, will expand their summer activities to include more canopy tours, hiking and biking trails as well as interpretive activities.

If you love Tahoe and you love to ski or ride, now is the time to take advantage of the “Plates for Powder” program.

Lake Tahoe's Northstar California will open this winter’s first halfpipe to skiers and riders this coming Friday, Jan. 9, resort officials announced Tuesday.

Located on Pipeline trail and accessible via Vista Express, the halfpipe is a popular and highly-anticipated feature among Northstar’s terrain park users. Its addition allows for a contiguous, uninterrupted terrain park descent from the top of Pinball Park, which currently offers guests access to 46 features, into the Pipeline Park, which hosts the halfpipe.

After a long wait with much anticipation, I finally got a chance to take the new fat bike out for its first snow ride. Acting on a tip that there was good snow cover with several miles of snow machine tracks up near Carson Pass, I loaded the bike up in the car and headed up to Red Lake on Highway 88.

The Nevada High School Cycling League is hosting a new documentary film about the sport of high school mountain biking. Recently added as one of the emerging leagues of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, the Nevada League will be officially launching a league race series in Fall of 2016. A handful of demonstration races to get more kids involved will be planned in 2015.