Bicycles are banned in Black Hawk, Colorado.
DO NOT SHOP OR SPEND MONEY IN BLACK HAWK!!!
As it stands, this means a town of 118 can effectively block a major thoroughfare: the road connecting Peak-to-Peak Hwy with Central City. Bad in practice, and perhaps even worse as precedent.
This aggression will not stand, man!
I have not (yet) ridden Black Hawk to Central City, but it was on The List. A google map perspective shows that Gregory St/Hwy 279 has a speed limit of 20mph. The stated reason of the ban is for "safety", for cars to be able to drive and park (I am not making this up). That is, large vehicles of any size, traveling 20mph down the main street, are clearly preferred to little bicycles which can easily match a reasonable speed in much less space.
*** Colorado Tourists ***
If you want to gamble in Colorado, I suggest Central City instead (if not Cripple Creek)!!! There is no reason to patronize ANYTHING in Black Hawk!
DO NOT SHOP OR SPEND MONEY IN BLACK HAWK!!!
I agree with your sentiment, but those roads - at least the last time I was up there SUCKED for the amount of room they provided.
ReplyDeleteGZ: Fully agree on the space. I wouldn't want to spend any more than the 3-4 minutes it would take to get up the hill, which is now a 15-minute walk on the sidewalk with your bike through clouds of cigarette smoke I guess. I could see banning bikes AND cars, with a free shuttle for both...but they can't do that, I imagine, bc of its nebulous designation as part of a highway.
ReplyDeleteWhat's weird and unusual to me is banning bikes because of space, but not cars, on a 20mph (max) road. It reminds me of a flight my wife and I were on, where we had tiny, school sized backpacks in the overhead (along with stuff by our feet, of course), and an exasperated flight attendant was mad at *us*, because she couldn't fit more (twice-as-big) rollerboards up there!
Hard to imagine two MORE divergent demographics: the cycling community and the casino gamblers ;-)
ReplyDelete@Neil: Are you kidding? You know, every ride is a gamble, with the prize being no better off than you were before the ride!
ReplyDeleteGet back to Colorado soon, so we can boycott Black Hawk together by not riding there!