Palm Beach Bike Tours

Ken Steinhoff spent more than 40 years in the ink-slinging newspaper business where he had a license to be nosy. Palm Beach Bike Tours renewed that license in his retirement years. The blog is ostensibly about cycling, photography and using GPS technology to figure out where you're going and where you've been. It's really an extension of his lifelong effort to tell the stories of "ordinary people doing ordinary things", which sometimes turns out to be pretty extraordinary. If all that sounds like something in which you might be interested, please sign up for the PBBT RSS feed to keep in touch.

I have been pleasantly surprised to see how responsive Florida’s Department of Transportation was when I pointed out two drawbridges that had “Walk Bike Across Span” signs on them when they weren’t justified.

When I explained that the signs sent the wrong message to motorists, they took one of them down. The other was changed to a slippery when wet sign, which is appropriate.

I got an almost immediate e-mail response to my message and results within several weeks. (The delay was for them to investigate if there was any real reason for the signage. After several email exchanges, they agreed that there was no need for a warning on a concrete deck bridge with wide shoulders. On the other, I agreed that the steel deck was dangerous to ride when it was wet, so they put up the slippery when wet sign.)

I went to the Florida DOT web site last week looking for traffic studies so I could see if there were any good roads to ride. Within 15 minutes, I got a message saying that the stats were available on CD at no cost and that they would be in the mail that afternoon. They thought it was a cool use for the work they had done.

It’s refreshing to find folks who are willing — actually eager — to listen and help.