L stGears

Reviews and inspiration from the bicycle kingdom

Bill Palladino
Staff Writer
July 30 Fixed Gear Gallery
Www.fixedgeargallery.com
Bicycles and other freewheeling ideas 2008 Email: lostgears@gmail.com

Riding The Hills of Fargo: bike gadgetry, originally calling the company Burley
Bags. I've lost track of them over the years and not sure
I rode my first real bike in Fargo after moving there from if they'd even remember me, but it's great to see them
New York in 1978. The first one was a nice Trek 910 tour- working together so successfully now.
ing rig that I purchased on layaway with tips from bar-
tending. All black and sparkly. Took it on many excur- I'm telling you all this because I made a pilgrimage of
sions including one to New York in 1980. It survived a sorts to Fargo last week. I returned for a 30th anniver-
year in the Big Apple, and then got stolen from the base- sary school reunion. I drove the distance from Michigan
ment of the Trader & Trapper Bar where I was working to Fargo and used the opportunity to take my Fausto
after moving back to ND. Coppi fixed gear with me. (The Coppi has S&S cou-
plings for traveling.) I fully intended to revisit some of
After that was stolen in the summer of 1981 I started to the old stomping grounds around Fargo where Hanz
hang out in the Nomad Bike Shop. The Nomad was every and his other brother Ian had taught me the hard les-
biker's dream shop. Small and serious. The Scholz family sons of the peleton and of the lonely time trial. I'll never
ran the place... and I do mean family. Mom, dad, and the forget Mrs. Scholz, (we all called her mom,) standing
kids (three boys and two gals as I recall.) I'd already been there at the finish line on a farm road
an avid bike rider, but the Scholz's in north Moorhead calling out splits to
pushed me further in that direc- us as we passed. Best tip I ever got was
tion. They introduced me to the compe- using the contents of my water bottle
tition and community aspects of bicy- to stop the dogs from Anderson's farm-
cling. house dead in their tracks. The TT
course went right by their place and
Hanz Scholz sold me my first serious since we were all lined up two minutes
racing frame, a gorgeous "pre-owned" apart they'd just lay in wait for us, one
1973 Eisentraut, that he'd taken in on after the other. I wish I had video of
trade and repainted himself. I still mourn that now.
over selling that thing, (though the guy I
sold it to - Dave Madson - still has it.) Nomad was also Another notable memory of Fargo was John Lindgren.
home to North Dakota's only official bike racing team. I John was a hero of sorts to me. He was a professor of
was a hanger on to that group and managed to learn a lot economics at NDSU, and he also held the Sekai Dealer-
over the years tucking into their slipstream. ship for the region. Adding to this interesting combina-
tion Mr. Lindgren was also Fargo's mayor. He could
Hanz went on to found BikeFriday after leaving Fargo to regularly be seen riding to work, rain or shine, from
join his brother Alan in Portland. Alan you may know as north Fargo on his Sekai touring bike dressed out in
the founder and proprietor of Burley Design - yes, that fenders, with his briefcase on the back. I loved that
Burley. Before the famous trailers Alan sewed all sorts of sight.
John Lindgren laid the groundwork for a community that embraces bicycling. It's funny because it's not necessarily in
outward ways like Portland, OR or Davis, CA.

The cues that bicycles are welcome and appreciated are subtle but many. Last weekend I put on more than a hundred
miles in and around Fargo and its sister city across the river Moorhead, Minnesota. I was happy to find more trails,
bike lanes, and bike racks than were there when I left years ago. I believe Professor Lindgren is responsible for starting
this notion and instilling it into the thread of bureacracy and politics in Fargo. It's important to note too that this kind
of payoff can take decades to create. Thanks John!

Today there's a new bike shop in town, Island Park Cycles. They moved from Island Park some time ago and are now
located right in the heart of downtown on Broadway between 4th Street North and the railroad tracks. In fact the store
is in the old Burlington Northern Railroad depot. They seem to be the organizers of the current bike scene
there. (Thanks to "d" from Arizona for contributing that via the comment section. See him here.) Find Island Park Cy-
cles here.

One of the very interesting applications of bike-friendly design is the way they
choose to allow for bikes in the
downtown area. Rather than create

those scrawny little bike lanes that hug

the right side of the road like in Traverse City, or the bike lanes that sit in the
middle of the traffic lanes, like in Minneapolis, Fargo has chosen to simply
make the entire width of the street equal purview of cars AND bicycles. The bike lane marking on the
roadway is dead center of each vehicular lane, and there are signs that read, "Bicycles may use full lane."
WOW! Now that's advocacy!

In addition to this there is permissive language used in other control signage. What I mean by permissive is that subtle
difference between using the word "no" and using more positive suggestive language.
On the sidewalks downtown, rather than the common "No bikes on sidewalks," the paint says: "Walk bikes on side-
walk."

Finally the bike racks are not positioned on the sidewalk, but on the road surface in what would be a vehicular parking
spot. Again it's subtle but demonstrates the importance of bikes and that at least here they are equals to cars. These are
subtle lessons in psychology that other communities might learn from.

I rode most of two

days in and outside the
city and found the
roads and trails to be
well planned and
maintained. This in-
cludes a trip to the air-
port which had a bike
trail going the full dis-
tance from town to the
terminal. I cut across
the NDSU campus
2
heading north and just had to cross one street to get to the trail. The trail ended at a place where traffic had calmed con-
siderably (Old Highway 81) and where it felt very safe to enter the roadway.
Riding on this road was a nostalgic joy. Hanz and the boys used this route to start most training rides. It heads north to
Harwood, ND, a farm community with a large grain elevator visable from north Fargo some nine miles away. The land
is so flat here, nothing can hide. I then took a turn east heading to north Moorhead and around in a big forty mile loop.

There's something about that wide open land that fascinates me. Especially while riding a bike. The view is relentless,
and if there's a wind... watch out! The Nomad crew used to joke about doing hill training. That came when there was a
strong headwind directly forward, typically from the North. At one point someone in the front of the pack would turn
his head and yell "hills!" That was the cue for all of us to drop into our fattest gear and go into the wind standing up as
far as we could. It was always a grueling experience that started and ended with laughter and cajoling. On windy days
that grain elevator sat in the distance it seemed forever. While riding north of Fargo last week I snapped a series of pic-
tures for a panoramic view so you could get a sense of it. The photo on top of the cover page attempts to give an impres-
sion.

On the way back from the big ride, I came down through north
Moorhead and downtown. As if to accentuate the full experience of
living here I got caught by a Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad
(BNSF) train. This is a part of life here. There are several rail tracks
crisscrossing the Fargo/Moorhead community. All things stop for
them. I used to have an apartment right off the tracks in downtown
Fargo. The trains would rumble by all day and all night. I learned
to sleep through the quaking and horn-blowing. Now, some 30
years later, the sound is comforting to me.
So that's my little journey to Fargo.

Go to http://www.lostgears.blogspot.com/ to view all the photos and some video too.

REFERENCES:

BikeFriday http://www.bikefriday.com

Island Park Cycles http://www.gncycles.com

Fargo-Moorhead Tourism http://www.fargomoorhead.org/

Fixed Gear Gallery http://www.fixedgeargallery.com

All photos by Bill Palladino © Copyright 2008 Bill Palladino and FixedGearGallery.com. All rights reserved.