if you rode a bicycle, you’d be home by now


The Freeway Ride I on Channel 4 News from RichToTheIE on Vimeo.

Looks like I-40 between RTP and Raleigh, doesn’t it? That’s because Raleigh has some of the worst commuting traffic in the country. Reader Dave Wofford notes, “I bet Raleigh doesn’t tout being on this list.”

 

The perfect commute is easy, inexpensive and reliable.

In cities boasting such factors, like Buffalo, N.Y., Salt Lake City and Milwaukee, the trip to work is a breeze. But for commuters in Atlanta, Detroit and Miami, the daily grind is just that, thanks to bad traffic, insufficient infrastructure and drivers who resist carpools and public transportation.

Other spots that came out on top include Oklahoma City, Okla., Pittsburgh, Corpus Christi, Texas, and Eugene, Ore. At the bottom: Orlando, Fla., Dallas, Birmingham, Ala., and Raleigh, N.C.

Thanks to Dale and Tino for the heads up on the video set. The Crimanimalz vimeo channel has more.

reminder, Critical Mass tonight

By way of reminder that Durham’s Critical Mass is tonight, check out (and vote for) this photo of the week. It’s from a recent Critical Mass in Budapest, Hungary.

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hat tip to Dale for the link

As usual, meet at Major, the bronze bull statue downtown, at 5:35pm for the Durham ride.

Yehuda Moon

Reader Seth tipped me off to this great cycling comic, Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery. From the website, “Yehuda Moon lives on his bicycle, works at the Kickstand Cyclery, and dreams of a day when everyone does likewise.”yehuda_moon.jpg
I identify with the strip from March 17th (pictured above), as people always ask me why I carry so much stuff to work.

Gears and Cheers bike ride, May 31st

In French Revolutions, British comic author Tim Moore lays out the case why drug use will never cease to be a part of cycling: simply put, it’s been there from the beginning. To Moore, the history of the Tour de France is the history of drug use in cycling. And early on, that drug use had very little to do with performance gains and had a lot to do with pain endurance. Riders would stop for lunch (with each other), drink copious amounts of wine, and then remount their trusty steeds for the remainder of the day’s pain.

Elizabeth Page, ride coordinator for the Gears & Cheers Bike Ride, wrote to me to let readers of this website know about a local cycling event that recognizes the civilized place wine has in cycling’s traditions. “This is the second year Grove Winery is hosting the ride which benefits the National MS Society,” says Page.

mmm… bikes and wine. Wine and bikes.

Wine tasting comes after the rides, however.
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Grove Winery proudly presents

2008 GEARS & CHEERS BIKE RIDE
The only ride where wining is allowed!

Saturday, May 31st

Fully supported 25 and 40-mi routes
Historic Chinqua Penn Plantation featured on the 40-mi route

$35 registration includes ride support, lunch, event glass,
complimentary beverage, music by Expresso Brazil ($40 after 5/21)

$15 Non-rider package includes lunch, event glass,
complimentary beverage and music

New this year – Pre-ride Party and Registration Pick-up
Friday May 30th – 2 locations
-Trek Bicycle in Raleigh
-cycles de ORO in Greensboro

Cycling, picnicking, live music, wine-tasting, vineyard tours, and more!
Fun for everyone!

Grove Winery is located north of I-85/I-40 between Greensboro and Durham on the Haw River Wine Trail near Elon. Ride benefits the National MS Society

Elizabeth Page | Ride Coordinator | 919-787-7706 | lizdan@nc.rr.com

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There will also be some local artists at the winery this year during the Gears & Cheers ride, so May 31 sounds like a real cultural event.

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Register here.

Raleigh developing bike plan

The City of Raleigh, like Durham and Chapel Hill/Carrboro before it, is developing a comprehensive bike plan. Read on…

The City of Raleigh is developing a Comprehensive Bicycle Plan that will guide future bicycle improvements in Raleigh and we want YOU to be part of the process.

The plan is intended to reflect the needs and wishes of the community; therefore, the City is asking for your input: the first public workshop will be held on April 2nd, 2008 at the Glen Eden Pilot Neighborhood Center (1500 Glen Eden Drive, Raleigh). Please stop by anytime between 4:00 – 7:00 PM to learn more about the project, talk to City staff and project consultants, and provide your input to the process. The City wants to hear the citizens’ priorities for bicycle facilities and programs. Attached is an advertisement flyer for that meeting. Please feel free to distribute this so that all Raleigh citizens are informed.

In addition, please take a few minutes to fill out an online comment form for the project.

Online Comment Form

Please pass the word along to any and all cyclists in the Raleigh Area!

Thank you for your time. Happy and safe bicycling!

Brian Scott Bergeler
Bicycle Planner
Greenways Incorporated

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Asheville’s Citizen-Times Editorial: Greenway benefits surely outweigh the costs

Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times
published March 4, 2008

Buncombe County’s plans for a series of greenways promises benefits to residents and visitors that will more than outweigh the costs.

Whether used for recreation or to get to work, school, shopping or some other destination, outdoor pathways for walking, jogging and riding bicycles give people the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of the county’s mountain vistas while garnering the benefits of healthy exercise.

The need for parks and greenways increases as the county’s population grows and previously open spaces are gobbled up for development. Ironically, as the demand is increasing, so is the cost to buy land to create such facilities.

But, as we have noted previously, it’s not too much of a stretch to argue that money spent on parks is money saved in health care and law enforcement costs.

Health benefits

Studies have found that in a greener environment (more parks and opportunities for recreational activities) people report fewer health complaints and more often rate themselves as being in good health and as having good mental health. With 57 percent of Buncombe County residents overweight or obese, the need for places to participate in healthy physical exercise is undeniable.

Studies also have produced evidence that young people who live in communities rich in recreational opportunities experience less risk of anti-social behavior and higher rates of positive development.

Greenways, like parks, help build strong communities. Residents living near public green spaces report being more familiar with their nearby neighbors, socializing with them more and feeling safer than residents with no nearby green areas.

Devoting tax dollars to greenways not only improves residents’ lives, it may well save them money and grief in the long run.

Time is now

The county manages a number of parks, but doesn’t maintain any greenways. Fortunately, commissioners appear to recognize that it’s time to remedy that.

Commissioner David Young said parks and greenways spur economic growth.

“Companies are looking at what quality of life you have and how healthy your citizens are,” Young said. “It makes our community a more livable place for our citizens and those who want to come here.”

With the constantly rising cost of health insurance, it’s easy to understand why companies might look at whether a community’s residents are generally healthier than average before deciding to locate there.

Exercise access

Lower obesity rates correlate with “having things within walking or biking distance and having safe and direct ways to get there,” Kelly Evenson, who teaches epidemiology at UNC Chapel Hill and specializes in the effects of physical activity, told a Citizen-Times reporter recently.

“The one consistent voice I’ve heard from the community is that people want more parks, greenways and trails, and I think as leaders we have to find ways to make that happen,” Commissioner David Gantt said.

Planning for a system of county greenways is still in the early stages, so no cost estimates for the purchase of easements have been created.

Gantt said he’d like to see the county hire someone to seek grant funding and partnerships for greenway development. Doing so could move the process of developing a plan, acquiring easements and constructing the greenways forward more quickly.

As with the City of Asheville’s greenway plans, timing is critical.

Development in the region continues to move at a brisk pace. As more land is developed and prices rise, there will be less and less opportunity to create greenways and contiguous trails at an affordable cost.

We commend commissioners for recognizing the need for greenways and the benefits they would bring. We urge them to move forward with all due haste.

WUNC story on cycling for transportation

NC Voices: Growth & Transportation
Rose Hoban

As a part of our ongoing coverage of Growth and Sustainability — this week on Morning Edition we’re featuring a North Carolina Voices series on Transportation. One form of transit stands out for it’s energy efficiency, health benefits and fun – that’s people-powered transportation. But in the Triangle, that can be tough. It’s a place that’s been built primarily for cars — and many bikers says it’s just too dangerous to consider getting to work on two wheels or feet. Rose Hoban takes a look at the state of bicycle and pedestrian access in the area.

Download the mp3

A Ripon Velorution

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Over the last two years, both Duke and Carolina have initiated community bike programs. Through these programs, students, faculty, or staff of the universities can enroll in bike sharing (Duke Bikes and Blue Urban Bikes respectively), and “check out” a bike much like a book from the library.

Ripon College, a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin, has taken bike-friendliness to the next level. As the Washington Post reports, the school will give a new bike to each incoming freshman who opts to leave the car at home.

Wis. College to Give Bikes to Freshmen

The Associated Press
Thursday, February 14, 2008; 6:38 AM

RIPON, Wis. — A tiny liberal arts college here hopes it has found an answer to a nagging shortage of campus parking: a bicycle giveaway.

If incoming freshmen promise not to bring a car to campus for a full year, Ripon College will give them a Trek 820 mountain bike, a helmet and a lock _ a $400 value.

“We’re a residential college with a beautiful, historic campus in the middle of a small town,” said President David Joyce, an avid cyclist. “Paving it over was not an option I was willing to consider.”

He hopes the 1,000-student campus’ “Velorution Program” will protect it from building more parking lots.

“We obviously live in a car culture. That’s not about to change,” Joyce said. “But if a significant number of students learn that a car isn’t a necessity at this stage of their lives, that’s good enough for me.”

Last fall, for the first time in Ripon College history, the number of parking permit applications exceeded the 400 permits available, Joyce said. The city approved a measure to close overnight street parking on every street through and adjacent to the campus.

The college, founded in 1851 and located about 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee, teamed with Fond du Lac/Oshkosh Cyclery, Trek and other companies to start the bicycle program.

Friends, trustees and alumni donated about $60,000 to buy 200 bicycles to give away to an expected 300 incoming freshmen, said Cody Pinkston, a spokesman for the school.

Historically, about 100 freshman arrive without cars, so accepting the bike will be a “no-brainer” for them, he said.

“There is not a strong bicycle culture here with students. That is what we are trying to engender.”

© 2008 The Associated Press

Remember, the velorution will not be motorized.

Local “Bike Man” makes national news, again

Lewis Days, Durham’s “Bike Man,” has been profiled by the Herald Sun (see bottom of this post), Bicycling magazine, and now ABC World News.

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Dec. 21, 2007

Lewis H. Days, 74, is a hero to kids in his Durham, N.C., neighborhood, and one boy gave him a nick name that stuck — Bike Man.

“If I go to a grocery store and I see a kid and I ask him, ‘do you have a bike,’ and he tells me no, I say, ‘Well, you got one now.’ And I give him a bicycle.”

A retired maintenance man living on Social Security, Days doesn’t have a lot himself but he’s an expert on giving — his time, talent and passion for kids and bikes.

Days has been restoring broken or abandoned bicycles for years, making them as good as new, and giving them to children who don’t have one. He gives away up to 150 bikes each year. His granddaughter does the test driving.

Everyone in town knows the Bike Man — from the firehouse to the sanitation department to the dog pound.

And every Christmas he makes the rounds to firehouses, foster homes, churches, and the local Boys and Girls Club.

“Any time you see the smiling face of a child that you have given a bicycle to … I’m a soft heart. It brings tears to my eyes when I see a kid enjoy something that I have worked on,” Days said.

But this Santa’s not always a softie.

“I had one little girl down the street from me, she was cussing her mother. And her mother said she wasn’t going to get a bicycle, and I didn’t give it to her.”

But that doesn’t happen very often.

Ever since Days taught himself how to fix bikes when he was only 9, his rewards, like the bicycles, have only multiplied.

“The little fellow I gave the red bicycle to — that did my heart all the good in the world. To see him enjoy that bicycle, even though he couldn’t ride. But the fellow knowing that he did have a bicycle.”

“When I see a smile on their face, that’s a blessing … It’s a blessing that comes from up here,” Days said as he pointed to the sky.

 

———–

 

Spry retiree keeps kids rollin’ with bikes he fixes up and gives away

By GINNY SKALSKI, The Herald-Sun
August 28, 2005 8:32 pm

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images courtesy of The Herald Sun

DURHAM — When Lewis Days was a boy, his parents couldn’t afford to buy him
the bicycle he longed for.

So, at 9, Days took matters into his own hands.

He found an old frame in a ditch near Maplewood Cemetery and some wheels at
an old baseball field. It took about a month, but he finally built himself a
bike.

Now 72 and retired, Days still has bikes on the brain.

He spends his days on his front porch or hunched over his workbench in his
back yard, repairing bicycles for children from cash-strapped families.

Last year, he says, he restored 150 bikes that he gave away to neighborhood
youths at the John Avery Boys & Girls Club. He’s fixed up about 65 bicycles
so far this year, most of which were crammed into two spare bedrooms inside
his Fay Street house.

“I’m the neighborhood bicycle fixer,” Days says, spinning the front wheel of
a rusted beach cruiser flipped upside down on its banana seat and
handlebars. “I just get a kick out of working on them. This right here, I
can’t wait to get through with it and see how it looks.”

The former carpenter began mending bicycles in 2002 while working part time
as a van driver and security guard for the Boys & Girls Club. Many of the
used bicycles people donated to the club had flat tires or broken chains, so
Days began repairing them.

Now he works on his own, refurbishing used bicycles neighbors give him. Some
mornings, Days steps onto his porch and finds a bike sitting in his
driveway. He stockpiles many of the bikes he fixes and, come Christmastime,
turns them over to the Boys & Girls Club.

“It means a lot, because if they weren’t getting it from Mr. Days, there’s
no telling, they might not have one,” said Fred Bennett, director of
operations for the Boys & Girls Club.

Hazel Davis’ five-year-old granddaughter, Jada, was three when Days gave her
a pink bike with training wheels. When Jada visited her grandma on the
weekend, she would ride it up and down the driveway.

“I felt that it was a godsend, because the mom of my grandbaby could not
afford a bike for her, so that gave her an opportunity to have one,” Hazel
Davis said.

Days also fixes flat tires, replaces popped inner tubes and reconnects
broken chains for bike riders. He says he doesn’t profit from the repairs
because he doesn’t charge for some of the supplies he uses.

“Sometimes you come out on the short end,” Days said.

Since he’s on a fixed income, financial worries sometimes creep into his
thoughts, Days says. Instead of getting worked up about it, he turns to his
bikes.

“It’s just something to keep my mind occupied,” he said. “If something
starts to worry me, gets on my mind, I go and get a bicycle.”

One thing Days doesn’t want to worry about is a child getting hurt while
riding a bike he’s given away. So when neighborhood children come calling
for a free bike, he urges their parents to buy them helmets.

Christmas isn’t the only time Days acts like Santa Claus.

When the Albright community association sponsored an Easter egg hunt earlier
this year, six plastic eggs contained a voucher for a free bike.

“It’s a big inspiration to a lot of the youth because they did not have a
bike, they wanted one and many times the parents was not able to purchase
one for them,” said association president William Thomas.

Even the city’s Impact Team has pitched in to help Days.

The team, which cleans up illegal dumps, sets aside bikes or bike parts it
comes across, then delivers them to Days’ house. Days has barrels and bags
in his yard filled with old bike seats, tires and other parts.

“It reduces the city cost to put them in the landfill,” said city
spokeswoman Amy Blalock.

To make sure he puts those used parts on correctly, Days takes off down his
driveway on every bike he fixes — except for the itty-bitty ones made for
teeny-tiny tykes.

“They want to call me ‘bike man,’ ” Days said. “I say, ‘I’m Lewis.’ “

ATT ride on Durham Bull Pen

Durham Bull Pen, a new Durham blog, has up a photo essay of a January bike ride down the American Tobacco Trail. Take a look.

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