A few things that have been happening this week . . . 

Our friend Jack V. sent this photo of the ghost bike that's been spotted on the SRT recently. Instead of a seasonally appropriate ride for a ghost, it's a memorial to cyclists who've died on SC streets. Read more here. South Carolina suffers from a rate of bicycle fatalities that is out of proportion with our population. We in the cycling community can help lower that rate by influencing some of the major factors that contribute to fatal accidents: the use of lights at night, helmet use, riding with traffic, et al. We can do those things for ourselves and help educate others to do the same, but we also should not miss an opportunity to educate motorists that:

1) Cyclists are out there on the streets, in growing numbers. We're not Big Bike. We're not crazy extremists who're plotting to take away your cars (um, we're mostly not). We're their neighbors, friends, and family members, and . . . 

2) Cyclists are legal users of the roadway and should be accorded respect on the road. 

On to cheerier topics. If you do want to ghostride, you'll have the chance at this months' Critical Cruise. It jumps off this Friday at 5:30, from the parking garage beside Barley's on W. Washington. Costumes are encouraged and the route should be sufficiently spooky for a pre-Halloween ride. I imagine there will be a post-ride hydration and carb-loading session at Barley's, as usual.

Next, Scott recently traveled to the ATL and was able to bump around on the Atlanta Beltline. As soon as he had finished excitedly filling me in on it, I called my sister to get the local scoop. Wow. The Beltline is an ambitious greenway project in the urban core of Atlanta. It combines connectivity, green space, affordable housing, and it really has the potential to be transformative for the community—instead of being a escape to the hinterlands from the city, like other local greenways, it's in the heart of the city, enabling users to bike and walk in what is otherwise a fairly bike-unfriendly region. Users will be able to commute, shop, run errands, or just enjoy the green space and amenities that are close to the trail. It's funny—when I left Atlanta, it seemed like a city that was firmly in the oily clutches of the car-centric culture . . . nearly everywhere you went gave you the feeling of having been created to accommodate cars rather than people. It's really heartening to see that there's an effort to unwind some of that tangle. 

Finally, at the shop this past weekend we met Karen, bike commuter and proprietress of She Rides a Bike, a bike blog that centers around commuter cycling, city riding, and fashion. Be sure to check out Karen and Bob's stylin' Flagstaff adventures there.