Back from vacation and trying to catch up

I’m back after a week’s vacation. Each year, several friends and I go to Bike Virginia, a five-day bicycle tour through a different part of Virginia.

This year, about 1,800 of us were riding around Bristol and Abingdon, in far southwest Virginia, with a swing into Kingsport, Tenn. The scenery and weather were spectacular, and the company was even better. I rode a little more than 350 miles, including 100 miles one day. Bike Virginia is both physically challenging and mentally refreshing. It’s hard to think about everyday worries when you’re focused on pedaling up the next big hill. And southwest Virginia has a lot of big hills…

So, what happened in Kentucky while I was gone? A lot, apparently. Over the next few days, I’ll be catching up on CentrePointe and other issues and writing about what comes next.

By the way, Commerce Lexington has posted videos of the main presentations made during the Leadership Visit to Austin, Texas, in early June. While the other 274 Kentuckians on the trip were listening, Mark Turner, the chamber’s senior VP for communications, was capturing the speakers on video. Lucky for you; there are a lot of good ideas on those videos. Click here to watch them.

Danville strikes up the brass bands

The Excelsior Cornet Band from New York. Photos/Tom Eblen

Click here or on the photo above to see a slide show with sound.

DANVILLE - In high school, I was a band geek.

Since then, I’ve mostly been a newspaper and bicycle geek.

But once you’re in a high school band, especially a marching band, you never seem to get it out of your system.

Just ask the dozens of musicians in the 18 bands performing at the Great American Brass Band Festival this weekend. Not to mention the several thousand people here to listen to them.

“For me, the great thing about this festival is seeing all the younger players coming out, having a great time and producing a great sound,” said Jim Drake of Frankfort, who started playing trombone in fifth grade, switched to tuba in ninth grade and is still playing in two brass bands.

Danville always seems to look like a Norman Rockwell painting, but never more so than each June when the brass bands come to town. People from all over the country set up lawn chairs around one of three stages and listen to bands like the ones most American small towns had a century ago.

“I’ve heard this is our 10th year, but I’ve lost count,” said Dan Shields, who plays tenor sax in the Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band of Indianapolis.

“All of the people are here for the music,” he said. “It’s a language that people should learn and not forget, even if they don’t keep playing. It makes them a more educated listener.”

In addition to free public performances, the festival included a Chautauqua Tea on Thursday, a Brass History Conference on Friday and a big parade down Main Street on Saturday.

You can still catch some of the action Sunday, when the main stage at Centre College will have performances from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. The annual balloon race, postponed Friday because of bad weather, has been rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Stuart Powell Field outside Junction City.

The bands range from Ameriikan Poijat, a Midwestern band that plays Finnish-style, to the Walnut Street Ragtime Ramblers, a four-man combo from Lexington led by Dick Domek, a University of Kentucky music theory professor who plays a mean piano.

There are several military bands - the Hellcats from West Point, the U.S. Army Brass Quintet and the U.S. Air Force Reserve Band. Plus crowd favorites from an earlier era of military bands: the Excelsior Cornet Band from Syracuse, N.Y., and Saxton’s Cornet Band from Kentucky, which use antique instruments to recreate Civil War-era music.

In honor of the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial, the history conference this year focused on music from his time. It included a re-enactment by the Olde Towne Brass of Huntsville, Ala., of a concert Lincoln and his Lexington-born wife, Mary Todd, attended. Saxton and Excelsior both played a popular tune that they noted, ironically, was one of Lincoln’s favorites: Dixie.

As a bicycle geek, I was fascinated by the 18 riders from the Ohio Wheelmen, who led the parade on big-wheel “bone shakers” and other two-wheeled relics.

“This is a unique parade,” said Del Nichols of Findlay, Ohio, the group’s leader. “There’s a higher class of people who come here because of the music.”

Back when I was a band geek at Lexington’s Lafayette High School in the mid-1970s, there were two musicians we all looked up to: Trumpeter Vincent DiMartino, who was then at UK and now teaches at Centre, and euphonium virtuoso Earle Louder, then a professor at Morehead State. They each performed solos in concert with us, and we were awed by how they could make their instruments come alive.

Now, DiMartino and Louder moonlight as the directors of the festival’s host band, the Advocate Brass Band of Danville, which is sponsored by the local newspaper. The band played Saturday evening at the festival’s Great American Picnic, and will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday.

If that wasn’t enough to make me love the Advocate Brass Band, there was this: Former director George Foreman spent years having the band explore the great heritage of newspaper music. Yes, newspaper music.

The most famous example is John Philip Sousa’s Washington Post March, which was commissioned in 1889 for the U.S. Marine Band to play at an awards ceremony for the newspaper’s student essay contest. The march became one of Sousa’s most popular, and started a trend.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, newspapers across America commissioned marches. It was like the 19th century version of a TV marketing jingle. Foreman documented more than 300 newspaper marches, and under his direction the band recorded four CDs of them.

There’s even a Lexington Herald March, written in 1936 by Robert B. Griffith, a UK student who went on to direct the University of Louisville marching band. Click the arrow below to hear a short clip of the Lexington Herald March. Click here to find out how to buy the Advocate Brass Band’s CDs.

If you have time Sunday, drive over to Danville. It just might make a band geek out of you, even if you weren’t one in high school.

Photos, top to bottom: Mick Gould of the Ohio Wheelmen leads out the parade Saturday. Members of the Excelsior Cornet Band from Syracuse, N.Y., play on a wagon in the parade. Dick Domek of Lexington plays with the Walnut Street Ragtime Ramblers. Natalie Fieberg, 3, of Danville, watches Dan Shields of the Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band of Indianapolis run by during the parade. Photos/Tom Eblen

Tiny road kill

Dead cicadas have replaced live tent caterpillars below the tires of my bicycle. That’s good for baby horses — and my ringing ears.

Horsey Hundred attracts 1,700 cyclists

About 1,700 cyclists from across the eastern United States are attending the 31st annual Horsey Hundred bicycle ride Saturday and Sunday. The ride, sponsored by the Bluegrass Cycling Club and based at Georgetown College, offers rides of between 34 miles and 104 miles through Scott, Woodford, Fayette and Bourbon counties. Bethel Presbyterian Church, above, was a rest stop for some of the routes. Below, cyclists coast down a small hill on Falcon Wood Way. Photos/Tom Eblen

Lexington turns out on two wheels

Lexington is never more beautiful than on a sunny spring day, viewed from the seat of a bicycle. It looks even better when everyone else is on a bicycle, too.

This was Bike Lexington weekend, and everyone downtown seemed to be on two wheels.

The fun began Friday evening along Euclid Avenue with the prologue of a three-day stage race that attracted more than 150 racers — and several times that many spectators.

“Three restaurants in Chevy Chase told us last night they had never been so busy on a Friday night — and their road was closed,” said Joe Graviss, a McDonald’s restaurant franchisee who helps sponsor a local racing team.

What makes Bike Lexington special isn’t the racers — it’s the average folks who come out on all kinds of bikes.

“This may be my most enjoyable day of the year in Lexington,” said Mayor Jim Newberry.

The main event was the Saturday bike rally, which attracted more than 1,000 people to the courthouse plaza.

Corporate sponsors Humana and Pedal Power and Pedal the Planet bike shops set up festival booths, as did cycling organizations.

Bicycle police officers were there, as well as the fire department’s new Bike Medics, showing off their rigs.

The idea behind Bike Medics is to quickly reach an ill or injured person at a crowded event. A paramedic on a bicycle can administer first aid and prepare the person for evacuation on a small utility vehicle.

“We can do everything on these bikes that we can do on these trucks,” said firefighter Anthony Johnson, whose bike packs held a heart defibrillator and other equipment, along with emergency drugs. “It also makes it less likely we’re going to hurt somebody else like we might if we tried to take a truck into a crowd.”

The Brain Injury Association of Kentucky fitted and gave away 250 bicycle helmets. And the Yellow Bike program, which offers public loaner bikes downtown, signed up new members.

Shane Tedder served up fruit smoothies on his bicycle-powered blender, which he and welder Patrick Garnett built from old bike frames.

In remarks to the crowd, Newberry said promoting bicycling for fitness, recreation and transportation is a priority of both his administration and the Urban County Council.

“We’ve made some significant improvements, and we’re going to do more and more,” Newberry said.

Lexington has 19 miles of bike lanes on streets and 12 miles of trails, Newberry said, and more are planned.

Newberry and at least two council members were among the estimated 800 people who participated in the 10-mile family fun ride through downtown and the University of Kentucky campus, around Commonwealth Stadium, out Richmond Road and back. That were about 100 more participants than last year, said Kenzie Gleason, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

People of all ages and sizes, riding all kinds of bicycles, cruised through the cool morning breeze on a course closed to motorized traffic. There were many children and more than a few senior citizens.

“You can see biking has really taken off in Lexington,” said councilman Chuck Ellinger.

Councilman Tom Blues, who like Ellinger is an avid cyclist, predicted that more people will bike as more trails and lanes are built — and as more people realize that Central Kentucky’s rural roads are a cycling paradise. Rising gas prices won’t hurt, either.

Bruce and Jessica Rishel of Versailles brought their two young children to Bike Lexington last year, and they’ve been eager to come back ever since. “She thinks the courthouse is for bike festivals,” Jessica Rishel said of her daughter.

The Rishel children — Anemone, 5, and Alex, 3 — wore helmets and rode tiny bikes with training wheels for the kid races. Their parents pulled them in a bike trailer on the family fun ride.

As I got ready to start the 10-mile ride, I pulled up beside Jim Hilke of Paris, who is something of a legend in the Bluegrass Cycling Club. Hilke turns 78 next week. He has already ridden 700 miles this year, and he’ll get in another 1,300 or so before Christmas.

Because cycling doesn’t pound your body like running and some other sports, it can be a lifelong activity.

Hilke said he’s starting to slow down, what with arthritis and all. But I think it’s a ruse: The last time I rode with him, it was all I could do to keep up.

As the family fun ride started, Hilke pulled out ahead of me, and I thought of little Alex Rishel riding in his bike trailer somewhere back in the crowd. In 75 years — at Bike Lexington 2083 — he just might be the next Jim Hilke.

Top photo: Shane Tedder, right, built the bicycle-powered blender with help from welder Patrick Garnett. He made smoothies with help from Jake Samson, 13, who supplied the pedal power.

Bottom photo:Bruce and Jessica Rishel of Versailles came with son Alex, 3, and daughter Anemone, 5. Photos/Tom Eblen

A bike wreck teaches educator some life lessons

Life can change in an instant.

Stu Silberman, superintendent of the Fayette County Public Schools, learned that lesson on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, Oct. 8, 2006.

He was on a leisurely bicycle ride with a friend among the horse farms of northern Fayette County. He was riding slow, probably too slow, making a left turn and trying to put a water bottle away when he lost his balance.

“The next thing I know, the front wheel is wobbling and that’s all I can remember,” he said. “Somehow or another, the bike flipped over and I landed on my right side.”

Silberman hit the road hard, breaking his collarbone, several ribs, a hand and, most seriously, shattering his hip joint. “Thank God I had my helmet on,” he said. “It cracked in three places.”

An ambulance rushed him to a hospital, where the next day he had the first of six surgeries. Over the next several weeks, his body would acquire an assortment of metal rods, plates and screws - and a serious staph infection, among other complications.

“My life completely changed on that day,” Silberman said. “There were two or three times at different points where I thought I was going to die.”

Silberman recently had what he hopes will be his last operation. Physically, he’s almost back to normal. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally and professionally, Silberman says he will never be the same. Like many people, he has found that a life-threatening event can also be life-changing - mostly for the better.

“The first thing I learned is that this is an extremely caring community,” said Silberman, a New Yorker who moved here from Owensboro in 2004 with ambitious goals for improving Lexington’s public schools.

“There were over 1,000 cards that were sent,” he said. “I didn’t know until much later how many prayer lists I was on at churches and temples all over the place.”

One of the most difficult adjustments Silberman has made since his recovery is that he no longer rides his bicycle outside, where he used to put in 1,000 miles a year.

“Boy, oh boy, do I miss it,” he said. “That was my combination hobby and exercise, my outlet, my everything.”

Silberman has given up outdoor cycling until retirement, which he expects to be at least seven years away.

“If I pop over, I could be back in the hospital,” he said. “If it happened again, I think the community would have a much different reaction to it, and it would be very difficult for me to explain. … I have a responsibility to this whole community, and I feel that.”

To compensate, Silberman rides his bicycle in his garage. It is hooked up to a high-tech stationary trainer and a laptop computer. The system measures his speed, heart rate and other vital statistics in addition to tracking mileage. An integrated video system shows him riding stages from the Tour de France as he pedals.

While he misses the open road, Silberman loves the high-tech gadgetry. He lost 25 pounds after the accident, but gained 35 back. He needs to work some of that off, plus stay in shape for a cycling trip to France he has planned for retirement.

A long road back

Silberman’s wife of 38 years, Kathy, was his constant caregiver through months of recovery from surgery and infection and the long, painful weeks of rehabilitation at Cardinal Hill Hospital.

“I think he makes time for things more now,” Kathy Silberman said. “The idea that you’re here today, and tomorrow you might not be.”

The Silbermans were active in their Owensboro church but were too busy for church after moving to Lexington. Silberman called the accident a “major wake-up call.” During his recovery, they found a new home at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.

“There is no question that your faith is strengthened, because when you’re lying there in bed, that’s what you’re thinking about,” he said. “You’re doing a lot of praying. At least I did.”

Melissa Bacon, a school board member who belongs to the same church, said Silberman has become extremely active - leading a stewardship campaign and leadership classes.

“I think the accident definitely allowed him to reach out and depend on his faith,” Bacon said. “I also think he’s a little more sentimental, because he appreciates things more.”

Silberman said he no longer takes simple things, like being able to walk, for granted. He has new respect for doctors, nurses and other caregivers, as well as for disabled people.

“I’ve just become really thankful for lots of stuff,” he said. “Being able to step into the shower - it’s just part of a daily chore until you can’t do it. It really makes you think about what you’re doing today, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

Silberman remains hard-charging, arriving at the office by 7:30 a.m. and frequently attending school events in the evenings and on weekends. Before the accident, Silberman said, he would stay up half the night responding to

e-mail. Now, he tries to be in bed by 9 p.m. and rises at 4 a.m. to do e-mail.

“You know, I’m kind of a workaholic,” said Silberman, 56, who is in his 34th year as an educator.

Speeding up the clock

Silberman credits his staff with keeping things running smoothly during his recovery.

“This school district didn’t miss a beat,” he said. “I really think we got better while I was gone, which is what I would have expected them to do.”

Silberman thinks he has become “more grandfatherly” with his staff.

One reason may be that he became a grandfather eight months ago when one of his three daughters gave birth to a daughter, Allie. Silberman’s motto for the Fayette school system is “It’s about kids,” and you don’t have to be around him long to see he’s all about this one.

Silberman said his accident has led him to focus more time and attention on staff development, mentoring and leadership training. Plus, he plans to take his broken helmet around to elementary schools to talk about bicycle safety.

He is especially proud that six staff members over the course of his career have become superintendents.

“There’s this sense that you have to pass along those kinds of things because you may not be here tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t think about that all the time - that I might not be here tomorrow - but subconsciously what ends up happening is your sense of urgency, or your clock, speeds up.”

That sense of urgency has made him put even more pressure on himself and his staff to achieve the school district’s goals of raising test scores and improving student proficiency.

Silberman said his stamina is back.

He recalled that Cathy Fine, the principal at Glendover Elementary, took ballroom dancing lessons last year. At her school’s winter program, which Silberman attended, she and her dance school partner put on a show for the kids.

Silberman saw Fine again recently at a school district career fair. Suddenly, he said, he grabbed her by the hand, and they took a few spins around the room, much to everyone’s surprise.

“I wanted our people to see that I’m back, and I’m dancing.”

Yellow Bikes return soon to downtown Lexington

Christopher Rowe is passionate about bikes. Most recently, yellow bikes.

Get up early this summer and you will see him on the streets of downtown Lexington, pedaling an old blue bicycle rigged with a rack made of plastic pipe so he can tow one or two yellow bikes behind him.

Rowe is wrangler-in-chief for Lexington’s Yellow Bike program, which will begin its second year next week. About five dozen bikes will be rolled out from winter storage and put back on downtown streets for public use.

Last year, yellow bikes were placed throughout downtown, available to anyone who paid $10 for a key to the cable locks that secured them. The idea was for keyholders to ride a bike downtown and then lock it up for the next person.

When the program began, critics predicted the bikes would all be stolen within weeks. But Rowe said fewer than 20 of the 80 bikes were lost or destroyed.

“We had the highest percentage of retention of any program we’ve ever heard of,” he said. “There are still a few floating around. I just recovered one the other day.”

Christopher Rowe, shown last October, used a bicycle to tow Yellow Bikes to new locations and take them off to repair. Photos/Tom Eblen

New bike rules

New rules will make the bikes more secure, but a little less convenient to borrow.

People who pay $10 (or who paid last year) will get an ID card they can use to borrow a bike at one of at least five downtown locations. Bikes will come with sturdy “U” locks to secure them when they’re not being ridden, and they must be returned within three hours.

The time limit is designed to keep Yellow Bikes from wandering beyond downtown. “But if you can pedal to Paris and back in three hours, go for it,” Rowe said.

To get an ID card, Yellow Bike members must give a credit card number to guarantee the $300 replacement cost if they lose a bike in their care. The Yellow Bike program will begin issuing ID cards Saturday.

Rowe, an Adair County native who has lived in Lexington since 2002, took the part-time wrangler’s job last year because he loved the idea of getting paid to ride his bike around town every day. He fixed flat tires and mechanical problems, moved bikes to where they were needed and rounded up strays.

When not on his bike, Rowe, 38, edits Kentucky Epidemiological Notes and Reports and writes fantasy and science-fiction stories. Author Stephen King, who edited the 2007 edition of Best American Short Stories, chose one of Rowe’s stories as among the nation’s 100 best last year.

Rowe is a big believer in the Yellow Bike program, which receives no government funding but is supported by the Downtown Lexington Corp., several developers and other sponsors.

To Rowe, cycling is more than a form of transportation: It’s a political statement.

“It’s good for the rider, good for the environment and good for the community, too,” he said.

Rowe said he watched people of all ages and walks of life use the yellow bikes last year. One evening during Gallery Hop, he saw a lady wearing a little black dress and heels pedaling one down Main Street.

Last year’s casualties

The Atlas utility bikes were designed for running errands in factories. They’re rugged and easy to ride — single speed, coaster brakes, fat tires for stability. But they have their limits.

A few, which he now refers to as “carcass bikes,” were found in such bad shape that they were good only for spare parts. Somebody gave one bike a new paint job — Wildcat blue. Another bike was found personalized in a south Lexington neighborhood.

“Some kid had written his name all over it in magic marker,” Rowe said. “I don’t think he’s going to be a very effective bike thief.”

Rowe said he spent much of his time last year searching for wayward bikes. They frequently ended up near the University of Kentucky campus — and as far away as Nicholasville.

A surprising number of missing bikes were found because of tips to the Yellow Bike Hotline — (859) 425-2008.

“One thing I’ve learned in terms of sociology reminds me of the legendary Old West attitude toward horse thieves,” Rowe said. “I’m here to tell you that if you take one of these yellow bikes and put it behind your house, your friends, your neighbors, your landlord, your girlfriend … they are looking for an opportunity to rat you out.”

This year, Rowe hopes to spend less time “scouring alleys for lost bicycles” and more time maintaining the bikes and doing community outreach.

Rowe credits part of the Yellow Bike program’s success to support from Mayor Jim Newberry, Vice Mayor Jim Gray and Urban County Council members who are trying to make Lexington a more bicycle-friendly city.

When cyclists staged a protest ride last year after state transportation crews ignored the city’s request to paint bike lanes on Vine Street after resurfacing, the vice mayor showed his support by riding along on a yellow bike.

“I was riding behind him,” Rowe said. “I noticed that, by coincidence, he was riding bike No. 2. I thought that was so funny.

“And, you know, I’ve never found bike No. 1; that’s one of the ones that’s missing,” he said with a laugh. “So, Jim Newberry, I’ve got my eye on you.”

BORROW A YELLOW BIKE

Beginning late next week, Yellow Bikes will be available for loan to program members at these five locations:

• High Street YMCA, 239 East High Street.
• Third Street Stuff, 257 North Limestone
• Pedal Power bicycle shop, corner of Upper and Maxwell streets.
• The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, Gratz Park, corner of Second and Market streets.
• Downtown Lexington Corp. offices, corner of South Limestone and Vine Street.

Other downtown businesses interested in sponsoring bikes or becoming loaner stations may contact the Yellow Bike program at (859) 425-2008 or www.lexingtonyellowbikes.com.
ID cards may be purchased for $10 at the Yellow Bike booths at Mayfest on Saturday in Gratz Park or the Peace and Global Citizenship Fair on Saturday at Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s Cooper Drive campus. They also may be purchased at the Downtown Lexington Corp. offices in the Phoenix Building at the corner of South Limestone and Vine Street.

May is bicycle month: Have fun, be safe

As an avid cyclist, I’m pleased to see Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry and the Urban County Council embracing pedal power.

Lexington is joining cities across the country - even New York City, of all places - in making safe cycling for recreation and transportation a top priority. Cycling’s time has come, even if gas didn’t cost more than $3.50 a gallon.

Newberry has appointed a 17-member task force headed by bike enthusiast Brad Flowers to help the city accomplish recommendations that came from a bicycle summit meeting last fall.

Those initiatives include a variety of events in May. The highlight will be the Bike Lexington Rally downtown on Saturday, May 17. The Rally is a car-free, 10-mile family ride around downtown Lexington. I went last year, and it was a lot of fun. The mayor was there, too, and rode the whole way.

A new Bike Lexington event this year is a three-day stage race, May 16-18, that hopes to attract racers from around the country. Beginning that Friday evening, racers will compete on a two mile course along the Avenue of Champions/Euclid Ave. There will be activities for spectators at Memorial Coliseum. It should be fun to watch.

Go to Bike Lexington’s Web site for more information.

Another local resource is the Bluegrass Cycling Club, which sponsors rides every week for cyclists of all experience levels. The club’s big annual event, the Horsey Hundred, is coming up Memorial Day weekend.

Some people ride bikes for fun; for others, it’s a form of transportation. Sadly, a Louisville commuter cyclist was killed early Sunday on his way to work when he was hit by an off-duty police officer. Read about it here.

You’ll see a lot more cyclists on roads throughout the state now that the weather is warming. Here are some links to help cyclists and motorists ride more safely:

Safety information for cyclists

Safety information for motorists

An overview from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

And for more information about Kentucky’s cool “Share the Road” license plate, shown above, click here.