Got lunch plans today? If not, treat yourself and eat your sandwich alongside Santa Rosa Avenue in southern Santa Rosa while you take it the city’s soaring, gorgeous new piece of public art.

There’s a couple things going on here, well more than a couple, and Mickey Smith has nailed it. The internet evolution continues as image quality comes up, compression rates go down, and the web platforms get easier to use… All of these wonderful advancements in technology mixed with the creative freedom of the internet are merging to produce wonderful images and unique stories. This video is both wonderful and unique.

This week in the letters to the editor, Rob McSkimming laid down some credit where credit is due. Here’s the letter from Rob posted in The Pique Newsmagazine.

Many biking visionaries

I would like to thank Stephen Smysnuik for his “The Culture of Crankworx” article in last week’s paper. The article provides a good overview of the growth of the bike park and Crankworx but in so doing allocates far too much credit for the success of both to one person.

First, there have been many visionary people involved in the ongoing development of the bike park. At the risk of leaving some key people out, the park was originally built by Eric Wight along with Dave Kelly, Paddy Kaye and Chris Winter. Once WB took over its operation in 1999, it was Dave, Marty Gautry, Blaine Taylor and Dave Murphy who provided the inspiration for the trail development that has resulted in the amazing growth that the park has experienced since. Along the way, the park’s development has been guided by many talented people, including Jason Roe, Tom Prochazka and Brian Finestone.

The same can be said for Crankworx. Its success has been inspired by so many people, one of the least significant of which is me. Crankworx has grown out of the innovative events that preceded it. Acknowledgement should be accorded to Marika Koenig and Claire Bonin for Summer Sessions, to Paddy and Chris for Joyride and to the late Richard Juryn for Summer Gravity Festival, to name but a few. The current Crankworx team is also an amazing group of individuals led by Jeremy Roche, Mark Taylor, Darren Kinnaird and Seb Fremont and their teams of incredibly dedicated and talented people.

Lastly, the role of professional riders and key influencers cannot be underestimated. In particular, Richie Schley, Derek Westerlund, John Cowan, Tyler Morland and Andrew Shandro have provided many invaluable insights.

Space and time requires me to leave out many other people who have paved the way to make mountain biking such a success in our community - thanks to all of the trail builders, mountain bike guides, patrollers, volunteers, policy makers, businesses and passionate riders who have made this the best place in the world to ride bikes.

Rob McSkimming

Whistler