This has been another one of those weeks with too many indoor activities and few chances to be outside, but there’s still some good stuff going on – and a little bad.

I’ll dispense with the bad news first and work up to a little walk that’s always good for the soul.

Some bonehead – probably besotted – ripped up one of downtown’s new bike hitches on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 2. The hitches, installed in several locations downtown this summer to encourage more bicycle use, are sturdy metal poles with a thick loop in their midsections to facilitate locking.

They’re bolted to the sidewalks, meaning it takes substantial force to wrench them from their moorings and bend the thick base plate, as a vandal or vandals did last week.

We can decry such behavior as much as we want, but it’s probably more useful to point out that Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza and two members of the Stevens Point Bicycle and Pedestrian Advising Committee have personally pledged $120 in reward money for information leading to identification of the culprit.

Maybe the scoundrel who did it could seek mercy, turn himself or herself in and use the reward to take care of the damage. That’s unlikely, so maybe somebody who knows the miscreant could file a police report – I suspect that for that kind of money, somebody could get at least four or five better friends than the one who attacks inanimate objects after dark.

Local group works on UWSP bike plan

There’s also some good bike news.

Almost four dozen people showed up for a 350 Stevens Point meeting Nov. 30 to hear about major steps forward for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s (UWSP) biking culture.

They heard from Trevor Roark, a member of the Stevens Point Bicycle and Pedestrian Advising Committee. He has played a key role in an attempt to get UWSP named a “Bike Friendly University,” or “BFU,” as UW System schools in Madison, Milwaukee, Eau Claire and La Crosse have been.

While the effort is still quite some way from being realized, Roark told the crowd that the university’s administration is supportive of the plan’s general objectives.

It will certainly take some effort to reach more specific objectives, such as building bike shelters or even adding enough racks, adding bike lanes, and deprioritizing parking (in part by increasing parking costs and de-emphasizing parking expenditures, such as new lots or garages).

The university is now considering a bike and pedestrian plan that started making its way through governance bodies in early December.

Roark detailed a number of actions those at the 350 Stevens Point meeting could take to support the plan and bike culture in general. Those include engaging in social-media conversations to support biking, communicating with members of governance bodies, encourage workplaces to support bike-friendly options, and most of all, biking to work and play as much as possible.

“In thinking about riding year-round, I’ve thought about ‘what are the barriers to more students riding bicycles,’” Roark said after the meeting.

Perceived barriers like cold weather, too many things to carry and costs of a bike can be overcome, Roark said, by investing a little in good gloves, panniers or a bike basket, and a bike as opposed to a parking pass. Long-term costs and health benefits then outweigh the barriers to biking, he said.

The group is a local chapter of 350.org, an international organization focused on action and policy regarding climate change and the quality of life on planet earth. It was founded by noted author and longtime environmental activist Bill McKibben, whose work I have admired for many years.

Roark estimated the local chapter has between 30 and 40 active members and between 60 and 80 total members.

The group was named for the number it considers a safe upper concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (350 parts per million). That worldwide number was 400.16 ppm for November 2015, according to data released Dec. 7 from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory.

That’s a scary number indeed, and it doesn’t make me or many others horribly confident about a white Christmas this year.

Even if that doesn’t spin your wheels, though, the thought of more exercise, less congested streets and a more pleasant campus environment is plenty of reason to support 350 Stevens Point’s bike efforts.

Lost in Schmeeckle? There’s an app

Despite its outsized awesomeness, Schmeeckle Reserve’s 280 acres are pretty manageable to get around in, and it’s not likely that too many folks will get lost there.

Still, there’s a great little online app that offers wonderful geographical learning opportunities for Schmeeckle visitors – and if you have to, you can look on your phone to see where you are.

Put together by UWSP students Mason Johnson, Chase Bayer and Krista Kamke, the mobile-friendly application combines overlays of the reserve’s primary trails and sites with historic aerial photos to provide a new experience of the reserve.

The map is available near the end of the page at www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/schmeeckle/Pages/visit/map.aspx.

It’s the second version of the map and the first to have mobile compatibility. Anybody who’s read this column regularly knows that I have a love-hate relationship with technology, and I believe one of the primary reasons for going outside is to get away from tech.

This app, though, has potential, especially for teaching purposes. Although my initial response was skepticism, after fiddling around with the app a bit and talking to the students’ adviser, geography faculty associate Christine Koeller, I’m sold.

Depending on your own computer operating system, Internet connection and browser interactions, you might get mixed results, as I have depending on time of day and whether I’m at the office or home.

I have accessed the website on my smartphone, and it also looked good. By clicking on the settings menu in my Android phone’s URL box, I could add an item to my phone’s home screen to quickly access the map.

Touching an icon on the right side of my screen allows me to send the phone’s geolocation information to the app, which will then show a dot on the Schmeeckle map for the phone’s current location (assuming the phone is in Schmeeckle, of course).

The app has other functions, such as the option for users to draw, print or do measurements. A viewer can look at soil types and all sorts of other overlay information.

I haven’t figured out how many of these things work, but the app is pretty intuitive to explore and for now, I’m content to think about how I’m going to try the app out with my children on our next family visit to the reserve.

I suspect it will help both our kids read maps and understand the relationship of the physical place they see to the abstract representation on the screen, in addition to providing an interesting lesson in the area’s history to see that erstwhile farmland may now be forest.

Visitors can see that Lake Joanis was once an open field and that other open spots are now forested, as well as watch the surrounding community grow in different years of map layers.

That is, of course, one of the primary reasons for the app, which was developed in part to help Schmeeckle’s professional staff understand the history of the reserve’s land use.

The College of Natural Resources and the university at large send hundreds or even thousands of students through Schmeeckle each year, and Koeller said, “For us, it’s a wonderful teaching tool, because we can talk about different issues. I like to talk to students about wetlands mitigation and restoration.

“There are some fun things, too, like earth caching,” said Koeller, who has two young children of her own who she also plans on using the app with.

“I haven’t done it with my own kids, but I will,” she said.

I gave it a quick test run on a recent morning, visiting a portion of the reserve I actually hadn’t been to in my years in Point – the amphitheater and observation tower.

For some reason, my phone’s own GPS locator was acting up, but that’s of no consequence, as I already knew where I was, and the other map functions were fine.

I quickly turned off the phone and thought about where I’d be, with any luck, at some point in the very near future – out watching the kids learning and growing in a great outdoor part of this fine community.

Got a favorite Christmas lights walk?

The holidays are always a magical time in the frozen north, although I like them better with a little more frosty white covering. Still, it’s always a wonderful end to a day at the office when I can walk home through the Old Main neighborhood and enjoy the Christmas lights gracing various homes.

One of my favorite houses over the years has been a place on the corner of Briggs and Phillips streets. A bunch of lighted snowflakes hang high in a tree, making a lovely sight from a couple of blocks away in several directions.

This season is always my favorite for my evening hike to the house – only about 10 minutes from door to door, and I recently started wondering what favorite walks some of our Gazette readers have. So this is a call to send me a short note at the e-mail address below about your favorite holiday walk, and I’ll share those with other readers before we get to Christmas.

Feel free to also share other comments, suggestions and feedback to me at [email protected]