Boone Area Cyclists gears up for meeting

Boone Area Cyclists will gather for its annual members' meeting Tuesday, Feb. 19, and new and renewal memberships will be available.

The meeting happens at the Watauga Medical Center’s Councill Auditorium from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Boone Area Cyclists is a bicycling club for all ages, abilities and styles of riding – commuters, mountain bikers, road cyclists, leisure riders and anyone else who just likes to ride bikes. The club’s mission is to develop, coordinate and promote safe and accessible bicycling opportunities in the geographic area of Boone.

A signature accomplishment of the club has been the partnership with Watauga County to build the new Rocky Knob Park. BAC volunteers contributed nearly 3,500 labor hours to complete mountain bike trail work at Rocky Knob between summer 2010 and 2012.

In the area of advocacy, the club worked along with the town of Boone and the N.C. Department of Transportation to establish bike lanes on the recently completed U.S. 421 road improvement project. According to BAC members, the bike lanes are a welcome addition to the roadways in the area.

The club continued to engage cycling enthusiasts of all ages by leading a Kid’s Bike Rally and the Rocky Knob Mountain Bike Fest in April, organizing the Cyclovia event in downtown Boone in June and leading a Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day event in October.

The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce honored the club with the L.E. Tuckwiller Award for community development at the 2012 Farm-City Awards Banquet. Further evidence of the club’s growing influence can be found in its membership numbers. Membership in Boone Area Cyclists exceeded 200 total members for the first time in the club’s three-plus years of existence.
For more information, visit http://www.booneareacyclists.com.