If you rode Chilly Hilly you might have noticed the “No Bikes – Do Not Enter” sign at Manitou Beach Drive and Falk Road.

What a nice welcome from our community to the thousands of cyclists that ride along this route every year! (NOT!)

I don’t know why it suddenly appeared last summer, but this sign needs to go. I suppose that someone complained to the city after a close encounter with a bicycle where the street has been closed to traffic.

There is a trail, half the width of the roadway, leading up the hill. It is wide enough for pedestrians and bicycles, but it is not maintained and has become a narrow rut, covered with mud and overgrown with blackberries. I will volunteer to clean it off if the city will remove the sign.

Whoever authorized the sign was obviously not a bicyclist. This impediment blocks off the best northbound route on the island, and forces cyclists to climb up Falk, which is a very steep grade.

The Manitou trail is much more gradual and doesn’t compete with traffic. Besides, it rewards the cyclist with a fantastic view looking out at Rolling Bay.

I’m sure that nobody consulted bicycling advocates before they put up the sign. The barricade dangerously forced bikes off the edge of the pavement in order to get around, but for years at least we were permitted to do so. Now it is prohibited.

I hope that riders will step up and take some initiative to reverse this decision.

Steve Grassia

Bainbridge Island