October bike to work challenge - 4th place!

Okay, our team is rocking it! We are 5 folks in Decatur who dont even bike that far, but we ride every day and 4 of us are new to logging it. And those are the things that this contest rewards and encourages. So go team and lets pull ahead in the final days and take 4th place!

Go Decatur Active Living Wheels: Zach Ray, Laura Gary, Paul Lantinga, Cheryl Burnette, and Tracie Sanchez...team beers soon! Full scoreboard at www.ATLbiketowork.com

passing the torch

well not entirely, but I am passing the bike commuting fever on to my women friends. laura was already jumping in to try it and i talked her into a challenge and a team and out of the gate she went! that's what a little encouragement, support, and camaraderie can do for a beginner. so the challenge was for the whole month of october, across GA. simple, bike to work, log your miles, get credit. to make it interesting you could get points if you had a team and you ALL rode every day, and if you took a team photo, and if you went to cycling classes, think safety clinics. and so on and so on. so as of today 27 days in of 31, laura is not only in 1st place in the photo contest, she's also in 3rd place. she's been interviewed twice by various media for different forms: blogs, newspapers, radio and her story is full of enthusiasm for not only her experience but sharing it with her family, her students, her coworkers, even the crossing guard at school.
she rides a pink fuji commuter with lovely orlieb waterproof panniers. her commute is a mile across the downtown to the local school and she hugs the crossing guard maxine who lets her walk her bike thru the morning chaos once she arrives at school.
so i'm passing the torch, laura you can write the blog for a while. pictured in the center is laura.
roll model,
trace

betty or bridget? new cycling panty

love this idea, check it out. a new stylish cycling panty.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cguzman/urbanist-cycling-chamois-panties

a chance to be a big fish in a small pond

it only lasted a year but i made good use of it. plop yourself down in a town where you dont know anyone, have only your dog as company every day, work with non-social, non-outdoorsy, uninterested coworkers, and you find yourself alone, on a bike, exploring, a LOT.

and that's a good thing. i wanted to simplify my life, slow it down, and focus on what i love doing, while adjusting to menopause symptoms, slight as they are, thankfully. so i took a gig in griffin, georgia, an hour south of ATL and served only by rural shuttles. no bus, subway, train, but lots of trucks and interstate highways. may thru september i just biked to work, ate in the 3 local downtown cafes, walked my dog on looooong walks to the creek or park nearby, or both. called my honey on the phone in the evenings and exhaled.
after a few months of learning a new job, forming a mobility council and getting out in the 10-county area i began biking on weekends to new parks, trails, and in community events. in no time i found the cycling community, out on the road where they belong. that led to the big fish moment.

a local shop owner wanted to do some advocacy but felt he was trapped in a stale town that would never change. he heard i was good at bike/ped advocacy but others told me to steer clear because he was a bit of a bull in a china shop and needed direction. i'm good at directions.

but i coasted another month without getting involved and then the october bike challenge began. i looked around for a team and at first didnt find one, so i competed as an individual. then suddenly they came out of the woodwork, and indeed October is a fine month in georgia to come out, of anything. its gorgeous outside and temps are crisp and delightful. suddenly i was on the 4Ps team out of griffin and we were logging miles every day, all 5 of us, and going gangbusters. we went on to place 7th in the state, well ahead of plenty of ATL folks. why? because we rode every day. because we all rode, all 5. and even my measly 1.5 route counted because it wasnt about miles, it was about commuting! our team ringer placed 5th in state.

needless to say, that set things in motion and with the support of a colleague who was the city transportation planner, a quasi governmental/advocacy bike/ped committee was formed. my teammates were all on it. then the local indie newpaper, the GRIP called and did a story, first on us commuting and then on the support from city hall which followed in March. then clean air campaign asked me to blog about the economics and lifestyle choice of commuting by bicycle. then our local radio station at UGA campus put me on the air to talk about it. and we rode in local parades including a newly refurbished GDOT bridge over the tracks smack in downtown that the mayor and all citizens north and south were relieved to finally see open again. bikes on the historic bridge! that had never happened, in griffin.
fast forward 6 months, we won grant funding for share the road signs, seed grants to launch our advocacy efforts, held events like bike rodeos, georgia rides to the capitol (a local version where w ride to city hall), and a resolution was signed and presented by the city/county to support bike/ped friendly efforts in their community! front page of the griffin daily news.
and that folks, is how you get things rolling in a sleepy small town, that had the advocates, but they werent connected, they didnt know how to organize or what steps to take first, they didnt know the sources of bike/ped funding and the power of a relationship with the city/county...but really wanted to be on bikes and get others out there too for health, for fitness, to save $$, and to make it safer for all.

griffin bicycle coalition is on the map people. they are rolling with bike cops back in force, share the road signs in place, new bike racks popping up all over downtown and at workplace destinations, safe route to school in the works, commissioners who bike, city/county support, a logo, a facebook page, and stickers! check them out and go ride in griffin. slow spokes sundays from blue moon bicycles.

https://www.facebook.com/griffinbicyclecoalition

new business cards to hook me up in ATL/Decatur

i used to design these all the time and print them real quick like, a sheet of 10 for a conference, a few for interviews etc. but nowadays vistaprint.com (in the netherlands for goodness sakes) still manages to do it more cheaply, quickly and with more current design styles than i can. so i give.

Premium Business Cards by Vistaprint

a tipping point for bike commuters and a silver lining

Post Hurricane Sandy blog 11/2/12
Okay i've resisted for 4 days, but now that Mayor Bloomberg suggests biking as a way to move through the city (NYC) i'll share the others who are jumpin on that wagon train. i also did so on the frankenstorm worry page i set up while the storm was brewing and no one could reach anyone. 2 links are articles and 2 are videos that all suggest that right now, a bike is a perfect solution to the logjam that is NYC. with subway, airport, and transit lines still underwater and connections impossible to lower manhattan, one is faced with long lines to wait for cross town busses, ferries from the docks, or waits at working petro stations for fuel, to only then sit in gridlock while folks figure out how to circumnavigate their city given the obstacles. oh, new yorkers can do it if anyone can, and some have already figured out a better solution and are even boasting about how quickly they can arrive for work, BY BIKE. what? yep by bike. so when i say silver lining or tipping point, it is not without concern and appreciation for the loss and devastation that the super storm victims are feeling, but it is with some hope that an idea's time (a perfectly good one in fact), has finally come.
bicycle commuting.
not bike racing, not spandex, and certainly not tour de l@^(* armstrong. no i mean bikes as transportation, and the freeing, economical, healthy, unscheduled, zen-like, creative, and practical solution to how to get to work. or school. or the doctor. or the transit museum (i hear they are open and free to visit).
now certainly the ground work was already laid for bicycles as transportation by J.Sadik-Khan - NYDOT, Ray LaHood - USDOT, NYC Mayor Bloomberg, Mike Lydon - Street Plans Collaborative, ALTA bike shares and many other advocates. so to know that the city has been acclimatizing to bikes on the streets, bike facilities have increased exponentially, and citizens have become more aware are all great foundations for a moment when all else fails except the bike. and then what does the city do?
just hop on a bike, pump up the tires, and take off, as usual. to know that NYC might, from this day forward, or for many months currently, rely heavily on and dedicate space to and make policy for bikes/pedestrians as a preferred way of travel is why i say that it is the silver lining in Sandy and possibly a tipping point to set us on the path to look and function like copenhagen or amsterdam one day. and with all of that will come better health, less diabetes/obesity, cleaner air, less stress, alternative commutes, and fatter purses.

1 http://go.bloomberg.com/hurricane-sandy/2012/10/31/advice-for-post-sandy-new-york-traffic-take-the-bike/
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/with-transportation-snarled-in-brooklyn-bicycles-roam-free.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
3 http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/11/02/nyregion/100000001880180/after-sandy-two-wheeled-commute.html
4 http://player.vimeo.com/video/52640864