BICYCLE RACKS

International volunteers stand next to the bicycle racks they painted.

What good does a bicycle map and guide do to draw bicycling tourists to an area if there are not special amenities to make towns look like they really want this type of business? If you bicycled in two different areas, and one sported bike racks in front of stores, pleasant parks, a place to fill up water bottles, and lodging establishments that invited you and your bicycle in out of the weather, and the other one didn't, which would you recommend or return to?

That is a question many communities and groups pondered when the Lake Champlain Basin Program invited proposals for "Bikeways" funds. Fortunately, people in Essex County - and especially the Boquet watershed - not only thought about amenities but requested money for their realization.

BRASS asked for and received funds to make unique bike racks and purchase picnic tables for towns in the watershed. Essex Community Heritage Organization was awarded money for a public drinking fountain with water spigot and a weatherproof brochure rack for the kiosk in the Norma Jackson park near the Essex ferry. And, the Cooperative Business Network was funded to print a "sites and services" insert into the Adirondack Coast Bicycling guide published by BRASS in order to list sites of interest and businesses with bicycle-friendly services such as repair shops, lodging, farm stands, banks with ATMs, etc.

Paul Spooner from Westport designed and made the bike racks for BRASS, two each of which were given to the Towns of Elizabethtown, Willsboro, Westport and Lewis. The Town of Essex already had bike racks so Essex Industries made the two picnic tables that are now in Beggs Park.

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