Missoula News

bike walk bus week

Despite April Showers, Bikers Hit the Streets

By Kyle Lehman, 4-26-08

Photo by Emily Haas

Supposedly spring is here, though one wouldn’t have guessed it from the seat of a bike cruising through Missoula in 40-degree temperatures with fat raindrops rapping off the street. But like the timid wildflowers on Mt. Jumbo, local bikers are making a belated emergence this spring. Their appearance was helped along by the city’s annual Bike Walk Bus Week, which encourages Missoulians to seek out alternative transportation with a variety of enticing incentives. Mountainline has been free all week, UM is raffling off assorted prizes for commuters, and local cafes and bakeries have offered treats to patrons that bike or walk to their doors. 

From the looks of it, cyclists are taking the bait. On Thursday, bikes were stacked two deep against the street signs and parking meters in front of Broadway Bagels. Red-faced cyclists streamed inside for free bagels and orange juice. Around the corner on Higgins, Liquid Planet offered complementary 16-ounce coffees to anyone with helmet hair or walking shoes, and all week Go Fetch! has offered free dog biscuits, though it’s unclear if any pooches rode in themselves. 

It’s a blustery Wednesday and Bike-Walk Alliance for Missoula board member Ethel Macdonald is leading a peloton of three on a tour of the city’s hidden bike routes. The only other cyclist braving the April rain is Dan, wearing dark sunglasses, full rain gear, and sitting astride a black mountain bike with a gun rack on the handlebars. An employee of the University of Montana, Dan says that he relies on public transportation for the majority of his commuting.

“You just can’t beat the Missoula bus system,” he says.

Ethel has ridden her bike throughout Missoula for some 35 years. Ethel reckons that she covers an average of 10 miles a day on her bike, and she just got done beating cars around Missoula in BWBW’s Pedal vs. Metal Challenge. For her, navigating the city is about knowing the secrets, and she has made it a personal quest to show others how easy it is to enjoy a pleasant ride despite traffic and other hindrances.

“You don’t have to put your bike on top of your car and drive up Pattee Canyon to have a nice ride,” she says, cruising down Clements Street at a steady 10 mph.

Stickers cover her bike. “Fight terror, ride a bike,” one says. Ethel doesn’t look much like a fighter, dressed in a yellow jacket with earrings of tiny silver bikes, but when she ventures from her established bike trails and onto city streets, one’s perception of this sincere retiree quickly changes.

“Do what I do,” she says, charging across a busy Reserve Street on her well used Trek commuter, throwing deliberate hand signals like she’s directing artillery.

Sitting at the far end of the river trail, where it dies out just short of an undeveloped field, Dan and Ethel consider the future of Missoula’s bike trails. Dan hopes the new housing creeping toward the old Milwaukee rail line means another stretch of trail will be built.

“What do they want behind their house, just a ditch? Or hey, how about a bike trail so their kids can ride to school,” he says.

If there is something to be gained by BWBW, besides complimentary pastries, a discussion of biking’s viability in Missoula is just it. For proof of its feasibility, one needn’t look any further than Emily Weiler, a senior at the University of Montana. Emily has never owned a car. Or a driver’s license. In her opinion, Missoula just makes it to easy to survive on two wheels. She gets groceries with her backpacking pack, cruises to school and work and only occasionally has to hop a bus. The list of things that Emily can’t do with her bike is short.

“I have to figure out how to pull my canoe with this thing, then I’ll be set,” she says.

It may not sound like a necessity right now, with the Clark Fork running cold and grey, but maybe Emily will have it figured out by the time the Cottonwoods on the bank start blooming, the sun stays out for a solid day, and we are assured that spring has arrived.

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