You Know You're A Cyclist When...

You use your helmet as a hair-styling device.

You think nothing of walking into public places dressed in tights like a super hero.
You can give instantaneous directions to any corner in the city, but only for those using bike paths and public transportation.
Multi-ton cars and trucks are tearing along in front, alongside and coming up behind you... your pulse rate: 66.
All of your pants have frayed cuffs and chain-grease marks.
You keep deodorant and baby wipes at the office.
You are polite to most everyone, you blush at some rap songs, but you swear like a drunken sailor when a grandma in an SUV cuts you off.
You've been asked if you're a tap dancer.
Although you speak only English, you're perfectly capable of pronouncing several words in Italian.
The friend who was so happy to see you on his morning drive wonders why you gave him the finger when he honked.
You know the location of all the major potholes between your home and office.

Click on link to see more. http://pedbike.net/articles/you-know-youre-a-cyclist-when...-pg63.htm

The Most Compact Urban Folding Bike Ever

and now....the rest of the story...CLICK HERE

Pedaling to Prosperity: Biking Saves U.S. Riders Billions A Year

New data highlight that bicyclists in the United States save at least $4.6 billion a year by riding instead of driving.

The analyses were released on Friday to coincide with National Bike to Work Day, part of National Bike Month, which occurs each May.

The average annual operating cost of a bicycle is $308, compared to $8,220 for the average car, and if American drivers replaced just one four-mile car trip with a bike each week for the entire year, it would save more than two billion gallons of gas, for a total savings of $7.3 billion a year, based on $4 a gallon for gas.

The findings were announced by the League of American Bicyclists, Sierra Club, and the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy organization for the Hispanic community, to reflect the strong economic and health benefits of bicycling, and its importance as a safe and efficient mode of transportation.

“There are so many reasons more people are riding, from improving their health to protecting the environment,” Andy Clarke, the League’s president, said in a statement. “But, especially in tough economic times, bicycling can also be an economic catalyst, keeping billions of dollars in the pockets of American families.”

More Americans are choosing to bicycle for everyday transportation. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of bicycle commuters grew 40 percent nationwide, and was even greater — 77 percent — in the some cities, according to the report. Yet “government funding of safe bicycling projects is not keeping up. Though biking and walking account for 12 percent of all trips in theU.S., these transportation modes receive only 1.6 percent of federal transportation spending.”

The average American household spends more— 16 percent of its budget—on transportation than on food or healthcare. Low-income families spend as much as 55 percent of their household budgets on transportation, the report noted.

Making it easier and safer for people to walk or bicycle “is a matter of fairness,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote on his blog Fast Lane on Friday. “Many Americans cannot afford a car or are physically unable to drive. According to a recent Brookings Institute report, more than 10 percent of Americans not only don’t own a car, but don’t even have access to a car. In our cities, that number is even higher.”

LaHood noted that walking and bicycling are options people want, citing a national poll released by Princeton Survey Research Associates International in March that indicated that “more than 80 percent of Americans support maintaining or increasing federal funding for biking and walking.” “The benefits of bicycling are real, and there’s no arguing with the impressive ridership data,” LaHood said. “Bicycling is an important part of the 21st century transportation mix.”

Click here for the full fact sheet and more about National Bike Month, and here to read: New Report Finds That More Biking and Walking Do Not Increase Crash Rate.

Bike to Work Week

Hi Everyone! Don't forget....next week is Bike to Work Week! Come join us on Monday morning for the Kick-Off Ride. We will be meeting at 7:30am at Riverstone Park and we'll be riding down NW Boulevard (with a police escort) to City Hall. For more info on bike to work week and all the other activities go to our website...
Bike to Work

How nice would it be to have this in CDA?

What Is Capital Bikeshare?

Capital Bikeshare puts over 1,200 bicycles at your fingertips. You can choose any of the 140 stations across Washington, D.C. and Arlington, VA and return it to any station near your destination. Check out a bike for your trip to work, Metro, run errands, go shopping, or visit friends and family. Join Capital Bikeshare for 24 hours, 3 days, 30 days, or a year, and have access to our fleet of bikes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The first 30 minutes of each trip are free. Each additional 30 minutes incurs an additional fee.

Happy Bike to Work Month!

Safe Riding Video....this is in New Zealand they ride on the opposite side of the road. Not ok here!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Pure Awesomeness

Bicycle-Safety Tips

Warm weather is just around the corner, and soon it will be time to dust off those bicycles. Here are some tips for safe riding:


Bicycle-Safety Tips

• Always use hand signals when turning at intersections. There's nothing motorists pay more attention to than hand signals from bicyclists.
• Leaving your bike out in the ice and cold all winter may cause serious damage. But it makes a nice subject for the cover illustration of a short-fiction quarterly.
• Always wear a helmet. If this makes you uncomfortable, think of the helmet as a crown and yourself as King Dorko.
• Placing your feet firmly on the pedals of the bike will help reduce the "Wheee" sound emitted from your mouth while going downhill.
• Insist on a bicycle made of solid matter. Liquid and vapor bikes are a passing fancy; argon frames are particularly shoddy.
• Taking your bike in for a professional tune-up is a great way to waste $25.
• Be sure to wear your seatbelt, even if just biking down to the corner store.
• Fat-bottomed girls may be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh, yeah.
• Visibility is crucial when biking. Ride with a lit highway flare in each hand.
• Every three to four weeks, lightly oil the chain. Then dip it in flour and fry it for a real taste treat.
• As soon as you buy a bike, talk to your friends about how great Shimano crank sets and STX hubs are.
• Does your city have adequate bike paths? If not, consider complaining about it to your local government for the next 40 years.
• If rich, spoiled Francis Buxton steals your bike, go on a hilarious and heartwarming journey through the American Southwest to get it back.
• Bike safety can never be stressed enough. If you doubt this, try stressing it as much as you possibly can. It won't be enough–guaranteed.

Please Watch This Video...It may Save Your Life!

Another reason to ride bikes!
Please take the time to watch this video...it is an report on the dangers of old car tires...that you thought were new!

I Love It!

A "Green" Bike

The Crisis in American Walking

A few years ago, at a highway safety conference in Savannah, Ga., I drifted into a conference room where a sign told me a “Pedestrian Safety” panel was being held.

The speaker was Michael Ronkin, a French-born, Swiss-raised, Oregon-based transportation planner whose firm, as his website notes, “specializes in creating walkable and bikeable streets.” Ronkin began with a simple observation that has stayed with me since. Taking stock of the event—one of the few focused on walking, which gets scant attention at traffic safety conferences—he wondered about that inescapable word: pedestrian. If we were to find ourselves out hiking on a forest trail and spied someone approaching at a distance, he wanted to know, would we think to ourselves, “Here comes a pedestrian”?

Of course we wouldn’t. That approaching figure would simply be a person. Pedestrian is a word born from opposition to other modes of travel; the Latin pedester, on foot, gained currency by its semantic tension with equester, on horse. But there is an implied—indeed, synonymous—pejorative. This dates from Ancient Greece. As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the Greek πεζός meant “prosaic, plain, commonplace, uninspired (sometimes contrasted with the winged flight of Pegasus).” Or, in the Latin, pedester could refer to foot soldiers (e.g, peons), “rather than cavalry.”

Click here for the entire article

The Man Who Lived On His Bike

One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss

 

Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen.

Copenhagen, the bicycle-friendliest place on the planet, publishes a biannual Bicycle Account, and buried in its pages is a rather astonishing fact, reports Andy Clarke, president of the league of American Bicyclists:

“When all these factors are added together the net social gain is DKK 1.22 per cycled kilometer. For purposes of comparison there is a net social loss of DKK 0.69 per kilometer driven by car.” 1.22 Danish crowns is about 25 cents and a kilometer is 6/10 of a mile, so we are talking about a net economic gain to society of 42 cents for every bicycle mile traveled. That’s a good number to have in your back pocket.

And what are all the “social gains” that bicycling grants the city of Copenhagen?

A number of factors are included in the equation such as transport costs, security, comfort, branding/tourism, transport times and health.

Considering that both sitting and car exhaust kill you, it’s a safe bet a lot of the net benefit to society is simply that cycling makes you less of a drag on health insurance and the safety net.

Since the total health benefit of Copenhagen residents’ healthy cycling habits is DKK 5.51 per km, the annual benefit is worth the equivalent of approx. DKK 2.0 billion.

Which means that Copenhagen, a city of 1.2 million people, saves $357 million a year on health costs because something like 80 percent of its population commutes by bicycle, even in winter. That’s $300 per person per year. Clearly, the reason the new Danish minister of the interior said she’d “rather invest in cycle tracks than freeways,” is that only one of those has a positive return.

From the Netherlands to America

From the Netherlands to America: Translating the World's Best Bikeway Designs from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Good message....

Excellent Video on Bike Theft....
Remember.....thieves won't be caught if you don't report them.
Also....it was interesting to note that it took 9 minutes to cut through the tougher U-shaped locks.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/03/12/opinion/100000001423494/bike-thief.html

Cher the Road

Cher the Road....because bikes are out there all the time....not only when it's Sonny ;)

Our poll asking what kind of cyclist you are has closed and the results are:

#1 I have a bike for every occasion                   44%
#2 I don't know....as long as it has wheels         27%
#3 Road Bikes and Spandex all the way!          16%
#4 I believe bikes are for mountains                  11%

Participate in our new poll...Which type of bicycle facility would you prefer?

Bikes Belong

Would you prefer to live in a community where you had to drive everywhere for everything, or would you prefer to live in a community where you could walk, ride a bicycle, take public transportation, or drive to get to where you want to go?
This question is at the heart of the current debate over how transportation funds will be spent over the next few years. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted on February 2 to eliminate funding for nonmotorized transportation (e.g., bike paths and sidewalks) from the federal transportation bill working its way through Congress. The “wildly imbalanced transportation bill” also imperils federal support for public transportation systems.

Click here for the complete article