Who would stop at the Town Plaza in Palisade for the Mesa County Bike to Work Day breakfast at 6:30 a.m. on June 25, a Wednesday?
No one, at first. The 6:30 to 7:30 hour was quiet, but soon pedestrians and one or two people on bikes spotted two tables each staffed by two people at the plaza on the corner of 3rd and Main Streets.
By 8 a.m., visitors included a young mother, Jaime Cox, Palisade, on a bike with a trailer holding her son, Kyle, 18 months. The morning was bright and sunny with a gusty canyon wind from the east.
Long-distance bikers, Randy Fay and Nancy Lewis, husband and wife from Palisade, and wearing colorful Palisade bike to work day shirts, stopped and talked about taking a flight the next day for Canada.
They both would ride their bikes from Jasper to Banff, then Randy would ride the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, south to the Mexican border. His blog is at GREATDIVIDE2014.TUMBLR.COM.
That is impressive, but Randy commented that in the past he made a two-year bike trek from the Arctic to Argentina, 14,000 miles all together.
Back at the plaza in Palisade, the table set up by the town provided breakfast rolls and juice and a selection of biking and recreation material. Staffing the table were Sarah Brooks, town recreation director/events coordinator; and Sabrina Jackman, town recreation programmer. Brooks said the event was part of Colorado Bike Month.
The table staffed by two Rocky Mountain Health Plan sales representatives offered free health bars, packets of sun screen lotion, pens, and health insurance brochures. At the table were Chelsea Knoll and Mandy Makowski. They noted that county bike to work day breakfasts were also being held at the recreation center in Fruita and city hall in Grand Junction.
Visitors to the tables included Rondo Buecheler, co-owner of Rapid Creek Cycle and Sports, located across Main Street from the plaza, and Collin Miller, staff member at the store. Miller said he uses his bike “all the time.”
Bike and foot traffic picked up noticeably after the Palisade Slice O’ Life Bakery opened for the day across 3rd Street from the plaza.
For more information, see www.healthymesacounty.org, a Mesa County Health Department program. Also, see: http://www.coloradodot.info/programs/bikeped/information-for-bicyclists/colorado-bike-month.
