Alec Ogston	Archive

What kind of Riding do you do?

On a daily basis it’s mostly commuting. I ride to work everyday. It’s about 4 miles each way if I go the most direct way.

My wife and I also do recreational rides about twice a week.  We have a recumbent tandem and tow our 2.5 year old in a trailer. It’s a fairly unusual setup!

Where do you do those recreational rides?

We almost always go to Veteran’s Park since it has a nice play ground. Our regular loop is about 6.5 miles. Sometimes we add some extra or we go to a different play ground, which affects the mileage. We do this ride every Tuesday and Thursday after work. Now in the winter I was lucky enough to be able to shift my work hours. I have to start early those two days and it’s quiet at work, so I get a lot done. Then I come home at 3:30 and we can finish the ride before it gets dark. To get there we go through Sun City. There is a gate between two houses that opens up to the bike path just south of Blue Oaks, then we go under the tunnel. On the way back we take the bike path to about where Blue Oaks Elementary school is and then on to Woodcreek Oaks. We immediately turn right into the neighborhood, so our riding on the busier roads is minimal.

What do you think about the bike paths in that area?

They just extended the path from Veteran’s Park in the last couple of weeks through to the well that they were drilling there. We used it recently, and it almost connects with Woodcreek. We had to push our bike through the gravel for the last 10 yards, though…The bike trail also doesn’t connect with the one that goes underneath Woodcreek Oaks. It comes to within about 50 yards. I am not exactly sure how it’s all gonna work when they finish it. But it should be nice once it connects through the golf course to Foothills!

We did notice the crossed out bike sign, saying it is for emergency access only. We interpret that somewhat loosely and others obviously ignore the sign as well. My wife uses this frequently so she doesn’t have to make a left on Woodcreek Oaks, and once asked some workers about the sign, but they had no idea.

They also finished the extension to Blue Oaks Park, which is great.

What kind of bike do you ride?

I have a two-wheel recumbent bike that I got in August 2002. I almost exclusively use it now. I keep my regular diamond frame bike in working condition, mostly for visitors. I really like the comfort of the recumbent bike and my head is about level with the car driver’s heads. Some people are worried about the lower position compared to a regular bike, but I actually feel I have a better overview as I am looking straight ahead. On an upright bike you always have to bend your neck in order to look forward.

And, as I mentioned, my wife and I ride a tandem recumbent.

What was the nicest/longest ride you have ever done?

The longest is a 100 mile ride that I like to do. I take East Roseville Parkway to the American River Bikeway, then go down to Discovery Park and come back. This is about 90 miles. I add a few extra circles to make it a century.

But the nicest ride I have done this summer was going around Folsom Lake, through Folsom, up Salmon Falls Road, down 49 to the Confluence. This stretch I was a bit apprehensive of because of traffic, but as it is downhill I actually had to break for the slower cars. From the Confluence I went up old Foresthill road. That was really nice, too, and there was almost no traffic. It’s about 80 miles with a lot of climbing – probably several thousand feet.

How is the uphill riding with a recumbent?

I don’t have any problems. I use low gears. I don’t try to do it very fast, and I am probably slower compared to some other riders. Actually, I did the “Tour de Lincoln” this year, which is a 100km charity ride and it is quite hilly, as the course runs east of Lincoln. I was the only one with a recumbent bike and I was keeping up with the average riders on the hills.

It is interesting that most of my riding is just a flat 10 miles per day. But it keeps me in good enough shape that when I do those special events they work out well for me.

What do you like about riding in Roseville?

The best thing is the weather. Even in the winter it’s better than most places in the country. And in the summer when it’s hot – well, you certainly don’t have to worry about rain then!

Another thing I like are the consistent and well designed bike lanes. In other places, like  Rocklin, when you want to go straight through an intersection and you follow the bike lane you end up on the right side of a right turn lane.

And compared to other places the drivers here are very courteous. It really doesn’t happen that often to me that a car gets to close or that I get honked at. For the most part drivers are very considerate.

I really like the fact that most of the lights you can trigger as a bicyclist. That probably isn’t true in a lot of other areas, either. I also noticed that the bike lanes on Fiddyment now have loop detectors in the bike lane and they have a white paint mark there. And the light phases seem sufficient. I barely make it on left turns, but overall I don’t seem to have a problem.

What do you dislike about riding in Roseville?

When the loop detectors don’t work! That’s very frustrating, especially when you come to a signal you haven’t done before and you don’t know that you should head for the cross walk immediately. It has happened to us that we got stuck in the middle of the road. It seems that now when they do road work they sometimes pave them over and you can’t see the cutouts anymore. It would seem fairly easy to mark those with the same bike stencils they now use on new developments

Another thing I don’t like is the trails that don’t go anywhere. Especially, as we talked about earlier, two trails coming so close to connect to each other, but don’t actually join up. That seems like a missed opportunity.

Running errands is made a bit harder than it should be as many stores aren’t serious about providing adequate bike racks. A lot of times they are blocked by shopping carts, or are put in a way so they are hard to access. We don’t feel comfortable to park our bikes at bike racks that are placed in areas where the bikes stick out into the pedestrian paths. So we are worried that somebody runs into them with a shopping cart or some passes by and takes the light as a joke

It also makes me a bit apprehensive going to a store that I haven’t been before as I don’t know if I can find a place to lock up my bike. Most stores seem to have bike racks, but they are hard to find sometimes or, as I mentioned, aren’t adequate.

Stores don’t put a lot of thought into the bike racks, they just seem to put them in because they have to. We had to fill out a couple of complain cards to the Safeway store near Woodcreek and Blue Oaks, but now it seems the situation has improved a little.

My least favorite part is crossing 65. It’s very difficult to cross. I usually go over either Blue Oaks or Pleasant Grove, but you really have to concentrate to get into the correct lane, be assertive and hold your lane position. This is an example where a bike lane is less helpful. Right when you get to the more difficult part, your lane disappears and if you rely on the bike lane as a guide to where the best place to ride is you are left hanging.

But for the most part I think Roseville is a great place to ride. It’s too bad it’s not known as a bike-friendly area. I think once you start using the bike, you’ll find it’s actually quite easy to get around.

Are you aware of the public workshop on November 28?

Yes, I saw the email on the bikingroseville forum. I’d like to go, but I am not sure if I can make it since it’s during the week.

I did receive an online survey from the City of Roseville through its citizen online advisory panel recently and gave them my feedback.

Do you have any Thanksgiving riding plans?

No, no plans, but it’s a four day weekend and we’ll probably go out on the tandem. Last year we had our Thanksgiving dinner on another day and so on Thanksgiving Day we threw a bag of charcoal in the back of our trailer and headed to the park for a BBQ. That was a lot of fun. Hamburger for Thanksgiving!

Do you see any benefit in BikingRoseville?

Yes! Being made aware of the planning meetings and the bike assembly event last year is great. I wouldn’t have found out if it wasn’t for BikingRoseville.

I also wasn’t aware of “Commuter Awareness Week” in October until after the event, but I did see it posted on BikingRoseville and I was still able to register for the drawing and filled in my commute info. So that was another benefit of the yahoo forum.

I also think that it is really important for us bicyclists to be aware of each other. It really helped to see others in my company ride when I first decided to commute to work by bicycle. So I think BikingRoseville helps bicyclists to be aware of each other and what they are doing and encouraging others to try new things and use their bikes for transportation.

It was actually our HR department at Pasco who heard about the group and passed it on to all the bike commuters. We have about 185 employees and in the summer there are about 6 that ride regularly and a few more that bicycle occasionally. And we have a good turnout at the “Bike to Work” day, where our employer sponsors a breakfast for everyone who rides their bike to work.

What was the bike assembly event like last year?

That was really fun. When we got there, there were all these people and hundreds of bikes. I really didn’t know much about the event and who sponsored it – I think it was a coalition of construction companies 

It was really great to see all those bikes assembled correctly so that the kids can ride safely and I am planning on doing it again this year.

Did you participate in the Million Mile Challenge in May?

Yes, I did! I don’t remember exactly how many miles I did, but I think it was around 400 miles.