Bike Culture on The Huffington Post

Dion Morgan, Biking Bank Robber, Captured Within A Mile Of The Crime Scene

2009-11-17T17:49:08Z

A gun-wielding Dion Morgan allegedly held up Liberty Savings Bank in Lakewood, Colorado Tuesday morning. He then proceeded to hop on his bike for a not-so-speedy getaway.

According to The Denver Post, the suspect was found shortly afterward:

Lakewood police agents spotted Morgan on a bike at Florida Avenue and Carr Street and pulled him over. In his possession were both the gun and money.

Channel 7 reports that Morgan was only on the "run" for about six minutes. He was taken to the Lakewood Police department where he was booked for investigation of armed robbery.

Snowy Denver roads may have hampered his exit: Morgan made it a little under a mile before his capture.

What's Stopping Teenage Girls From Riding Bikes?

2009-11-17T11:13:38Z

Teenage girls don't ride bikes [...] On average, boys cycle 138 miles a year and girls only 24 miles.

Top 10 Tips For Winter Bike Riding

2009-10-20T08:50:49Z

1. Winterproof your bike

To help your steed cope with gritted roads and grimy puddles, you need to prepare it for the horrors ahead. Clean it properly and then apply an all-weather lubricant to the chain and any other parts where metal meets metal. Don't go mad. The oil should not drip and must under no circumstances must it touch your brake pads or wheel rims.

David Sacher: Riding My Bike To Give Bikes To Others

2009-10-16T22:24:41Z

On July 25th, I left for Prudhoe Bay on the north shore of Alaska to begin a solo bicycle journey 15,000 miles south along the Pan-American Highway to Tierra Del Fuego, the bottom of South America. I will travel through the vast Alaskan wilderness, into Canada and cross into the forests of northern Washington. From there I follow the coast down, all the way through the deserts of southern Baja, where I take a ferry to the mainland. I continue to follow the coast south through the rain forests of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Then comes South America: Colombia, Ecuador, the endless deserts of Peru, Northern Chile and then finally Argentina. I will end in Ushuaia and the bottom of the Americas.

This ride is a reminder of what can be accomplished through perseverance and a little hard work. It's a reminder of what we as people are capable of, of what the human mind, body and spirit can achieve. I hope that I can help people realize that while it may take time, and it may be harsh and lonely at times, we can make our lives how we dream them to be. I do not want to be guilty of owning a life devoid of any living. Comfort and convenience are not synonymous with happiness!

For some reason I am under the impression that I will find both myself and God somewhere along this road. Maybe I won't find either, but I must look! I want to allow the light of introspection a pure and undiluted chance to examine my soul. I have found greater value in thoughts born in solitude than those that spring from the fray of ordinary life. I hope this trip will be the beginning to a life full of experience, beauty and understanding. I don't ever want to forget the way the world felt when I was a child: magical and huge, full of possibility and hope. I won't let go of that. I am an artist at heart, and this, I hope, will be my first great work.

I am riding to raise awareness for Acirfa, a non-profit organization which provides quality bikes to the people of Zambia, giving them the means to help themselves, rather than depend on charity. A bicycle changes the life of a Zambian in ways that are difficult for Americans to imagine, allowing doctors to see more patients, parents to make a living and teachers to get to school.

To clear the air and clear your head, ride a bike once a week!

Read more: South America, Trip, Acirfa, Alaska, 00 Miles, Bike, 15, Impact News

Will E-Bikes Be The New 'Commuter Cool'?

2009-10-16T18:03:11Z

Electric bikes are still somewhat of a novelty in the United States, but in China they're everywhere.

In fact, Chinese electric bikes number more than 100 million -- which is about four times the number of Chinese private cars, according to Electric Bikes Worldwide Reports. The bikes are popular in Europe as well.

Alexia Parks: A Free-Bike Solution to Traffic Congestion

2009-10-05T18:23:14Z

I took a test drive of the new B-cycle, at the Hill Flea. It's the free bike system coming to Denver next April, and the first thing I said when I returned the bike was: "OK, I'm in. Here's my $50." Then, "How soon can we bring this transportation system to Boulder?"

In 2010, Denver will be the first major city in the U.S. to launch a "Paris-style" free bike program. Minneapolis, Boston, and Miami will come on-line soon after.

So, what does $50 get you? Fifty dollars is the annual fee, per person, to participate in the free-bike program. Next April, Denver residents will be able to pick up a white Trek bike at any of the bike stations around the metro area. Insert your B-cycle card, and the first 30-minutes are free. However, the next 30 minutes will cost you $1. The next 30-minutes, $2 ... and so on.

The goal, says Lewis Wolman, Director of Planning and Deployment for B-cycle is to get you on and off the bike quickly. Use it to get from A to B, then park it at a station, and let someone else use it. The longer you hold onto it, the more expensive it gets. Every time you use it for 30-minutes or less, then return it to a bike station, it's free.

And free may be better than buying your own bike. In Boulder, for example, $500,000 worth of bicycles are stolen each year.

B-cycle is a collaboration between Humana, Trek Bicycle Corporation, and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. The idea of creating it as a for-profit business that markets a free-bike system to cities grew out of the free bicycle programs used for both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Denver and Minneapolis.

The business was also catalyzed by the experience Humana had with its 10,000 employees in Louisville, Kentucky. When Humana first experimented with offering free bicycles to employees to make it easier to travel to and from work, they thought the program would probably be used by the more athletic employees.

To their surprise, they discovered that the free bike program had universal appeal. Everyone wanted to try it out. The end result was the improved health of their employees.

So what did my power ride show me? That it is easy to get citizens to move around from home to town and work when you provide them with a free bike that includes: a woman's style bike (easy on and off), skirt and pants guard on the bike chain and back tire, front and back tire fenders to protect clothing from wet road conditions, front and back lights powered by pedaling, no-flat tires, and a big basket with a bike lock and bell.

Women Cyclists: 5 States Where Women Barely Dare to Bike Commute

2009-10-05T17:50:17Z

Dedicated bike commuting is grew about 38% in the last eight years. But if women are truly the indicator species for a successful bike infrastructure, lots of states aren't getting it right.

Move By Bike: Is Moving By Bike The Latest Eco Trend?

2009-10-05T10:46:41Z

The point made is that in places like Boulder, where people rent smallish apartments and semi-frequently move short distances to other apartments (lookin' at you, New York, Portland, Austin and other compact renting cities), if you get enough folks together, you can skip the truck. And we all hate renting moving trucks. Especially in New York.

Mireille Guiliano: Hate the Gym? How Very French

2009-09-30T15:01:36Z

From the 15th floor windows of my New York City apartment, I have a clear view of a big and many windowed "health center," (aka a four-story gym complex). September is one of the gym's busiest months. Right after Labor Day, active women, who I hope are incorporating daily outdoor activities with a seasonal summer flavor into their daily routines, flock indoors to the gym and an artificial routine of treadmills, exercise bikes and medieval torture devices. I see them sweating early mornings and late at night from my windows. I see them going and coming from my daily walk as I pass the gym.

It is a sign of the times -- but also our American culture -- that many women seem to have only two modes: sitting or spinning. They're either avoiding even the slightest heart rate increase (like those women in my apartment building who take the elevator to the second floor) or they're sentencing themselves to hours at the gym as punishment for their indulgences throughout the day. So often I see the begrudging look on women's faces and hear the phrase, "I don't want to go to the gym, but I have to." Pourquoi? If you are eating mindfully, and eating the correct portion sizes, you don't have to torture yourself on those metal contraptions or run a marathon to stay trim. French women reject the notion of "no pain, no gain," opting for a more pleasurable notion of mild, sustained exertion. We prefer all-day movement, what I like to call "the slow burn," and we practice it as second nature instead of attacking it like boot camp.

Exercise requires the same sense of balance we require in other aspects of our life. We know by now that most dieting has a yo-yo effect and fails; we must recognize that too little and too much exercise meet the same fate. Overexertion at the gym may actually sabotage your weight loss goals. Too many women I know go overboard on the treadmill, and then eat more as either mental or hunger compensation. Eating a protein bar loaded with chemicals and calories just to burn them off seems silly. Or is it just to moi? The overheated workout also often leads to defeatism (I give up!). My window survey confirms those overcrowded gyms in January are half as crowded in February and March. Those New Year's resolutions may provide us with the motivation, but after a few weeks of killing ourselves on the elliptical, we burn out.

French women see exertion as an integral part of the day. I encourage you to look at everyday movement (what you do in street clothes, not spandex) as essential to your overall wellness, and not to see exertion as something assigned to the gym. Here are a few French tips on how to stay fit without ever setting foot in la gym.

1.) Don't save your steps, multiply them! Instead of driving your car around in circles to find a close spot, purposefully park far away and walk the couple extra feet. Do you know burning a mere 50 extra calories a day equates to five pounds a year?! Burn those calories creatively; think thrice about using interoffice mail, walk that memo to your coworker's office. Take an extra few laps around the block at lunchtime, take the long way home when walking your dog at night. The principle is to squeeze as much physical exertion as possible during a few intervals a day into what were once routine tasks tied to avoiding any physical efforts.

2.) Incorporate simple resistance movements into your daily routine. Use your own body weight as resistance wherever possible. Isometric exercises, discreet but effective, are very French. This can be done before you even leave the house in the morning. For example, while waiting in traffic or on the subway, contract your abs for 12 seconds with your back pressed against the seat (it's better for you than road rage). When reading a magazine at home, try sitting on the floor with your legs stretched and apart in a V and your hands on each side; this is a great stretch for your inner thigh muscles.

3.) Take care of your core. I'm a firm believer that we need to attend to our abdominals as we age. These are the muscles that hold all our vital organs in place; they support good posture and a healthy spine, something we must take care of as we get older. Do a few sit-ups as part of a little stretch/exercise/yoga routine in the morning -- it's never too early or too late to start this ritual.

4.) Acquaint yourself with small to moderate free weights (3-5 lbs.), especially if you're over 40. A bit of extremely simple resistance training is an antidote to hours spent on gym machines. Short but focused movement with small weights is a good way to preserve upper body tone and bone density and supplement the cardiovascular benefits of an active lifestyle. A little goes a long way, and that only increases the older you get, so don't let extremism overtake you.

5.) Get en vélo. Americans tend to see bicycling as recreation, and often either as a child's pastime or a hobby for only the most serious triathletes. But French and European women see cycling as a mode of transportation. I encourage those who can bike to work or shopping to do so. One of my pleasures in Provence is taking my bike to run errands. Riding my bike is one of my favorite warm weather routines and is, of course, environmentally clean and efficient, so I am happy to see bikes and bike lanes increasing in New York and other cities. Cycling has well-known health benefits: it's a low-impact, mild aerobic exercise that strengthens your heart and lungs; tones the large (read: fat-burning) muscle groups; keeps joints, tendons and ligaments flexible; builds stamina; and is generally fun, reducing stress and boosting your mood. And the view from a real bicycle ride beats the view from a stationary bike in a white-walled gym any day of the week.

6.) Yoga. If there was ever a fountain of youth, it might be the practice of yoga. Not only does it reduce stress, improve your posture and help to develop longer, leaner limbs, it also speeds up your metabolism, works nearly every muscle group and promotes an overall bodily wellness that no other sport or class can compete with. I practice yoga religiously, usually in the comfort of my own home. I am no yogi; I do not spend hours upon end on my head -- I simply have a handful of mastered poses and movements that make me feel good and keep me limber and trim. Most women can find 20-30 minutes a day to practice if they make it a priority. No equipment necessary.

7.) Vive l'escalier! Taking the stairs whenever possible is one of the main tenets of my philosophy. It always astounds me to see people who live no higher than the fourth floor and with nothing more to carry than themselves taking the elevator. In France, walking up and down stairs is a perfunctory part of our day. We rarely spend an hour stair climbing, but you should know that climbing stairs burns a stunning 1100 calories per hour. Climbing a couple flights a day will surely go a long way. A few times a week I choose to walk up the 15 flights of stairs to my apartment for some healthy fun -- and yes, I do enjoy it.

In the end, remember that those who overexert themselves inevitably burn out, but those who know how to stay fit while enjoying life come out ahead, mentally and physically.

Originally published on wowOwow.com. To read more of Mireille, visit her website. Her upcoming book Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire: Business Sense & Sensibility will be published in October.

Recycling Bike Parts: 8 Unique Metal Furniture Designs

2009-09-29T08:10:16Z

Contemporary yes, modern sure, sustainable indeed, but above all these furniture designs are just plain cool.

Study: Cyclists Cause Less Than Ten Percent of All Car And Bike Accidents

2009-08-23T10:08:45Z

Whenever we write about bike/car "interactions" we get a lot of complaints that cyclists bring much of this upon themselves by blowing through red lights and stop signs, and generally cycling aggressively. [...] The study concluded that cyclists are the cause of less than 10 per cent of bike-car accidents.

Copenhagen To Spend $47 Million To Build Bicycle Superhighways

2009-08-22T09:56:52Z

"Each and every day 500,000 people ride their bicycle to work or school in Copenhagen." Whereas in North America we are, as one writer puts it, "fighting for infrastructure a few hundred metres at a time", Copenhagenizing tells us that they are now installing "bicycle superhighways" stretching far into the suburbs.

Darryle Pollack: Hate to Exercise? Don't Sweat It.

2009-08-17T09:58:05Z

Not only do I have a sister who's a personal trainer and a brother-in-law who recently biked across the state of Iowa -- I also live with a husband who runs gazillions of miles a week, whose family business is fitness. Life can be so unfair. I definitely never signed up for this one.

Personally I don't need to sweat to feel satisfied. At this point, I'd rather walk -- to the beach (or to a bakery.) And mostly I'm okay with my slacker attitude. But sometimes I feel guilty that I don't exercise like a maniac so I can eat like one. That my personal happiness can be in complete opposition to my body fat percentage.

I recently joined my sister and her husband on vacation. While they spent two hours a day bonding over back-breaking bike rides, I spent the same time bonding with brownies. So it was incredibly validating to come home and find this issue of TIME magazine. My salvation was right on the cover.

Inside, it's even better.

The title is a beauty. I couldn't have written it better myself.

If you can't read the subtitle, here's the important part: Physical activity... doesn't always melt pounds -- in fact, it can add them.

That's the gist of the whole article right there. And it goes on to build my case very effectively. Click to read the whole piece here.

The basic theme is found in a sentence simple and short enough to fit on Twitter: Obesity research shows that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated.

The author, John Cloud, is my new hero:

A standard bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you're hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it's easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds... From a weight loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.
( How can you not love this guy?)

It's no joke -- his article is based on the very latest -- and serious -- research, which indicates that the more you exercise, the more you eat.

It includes some complicated stuff about scientific studies -- involving people and of course, rats. Due to a particular substance in their bodies (scientific name= "brown fat") rats have a far greater capacity to process excess calories. Even when force-feeding them, scientists have discovered it's very difficult to make a rat obese -- unlike a human female who can gain 10 pounds merely by opening a container of Haagen Das. The essence of these complicated studies is simple: When it comes to losing weight, exercise is good for you -- if you're a rat.

I am not making this up. Here's what the experts say:

"In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless," says Eric Ravussin, Chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher.

I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it, too. Louisiana State? A state with probably one of the highest obesity percentages? Not to mention (no offense meant) -- are those the best academic credentials TIME magazine could come up with?

I sat up a little straighter when further into the article there's a quote from a guy at Harvard -- Steven Gortmaker, head of Harvard's Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity: "If you're more physically active, you're going to get hungry and eat more."

The solution seems obvious: be less physically active and you'll eat less. You don't even need a Harvard degree to figure it out.

Yale weighs in, too. Psychologist Kelly Brownell ran a lab treating obese patients, where he found that exercise did not lead to long-term weight-loss success. Today, Brownell says : "I would probably reorient toward food and away from exercise."

Harvard and Yale -- that's good enough for me.

Case closed. All I can say is: It's about TIME.

Adam Hanft: A Bicycle Built for Us: Will this Weekend's "Summer Streets" Program Launch Our Bike-Sharing Revolution?

2009-08-07T13:15:56Z

Tomorrow is the start of New York City's "Summer Streets Program" - where some of our arteries will be temporarily un-clogged, and handed over to pedestrians. As part of that event, a bunch of companies who are running successful bike-sharing programs in cities around the world - or have visions of becoming the city's self-propelled transportation vendor - will be demonstrating their two-wheeled wares and trying to convince New Yorkers to implement the program.

The eco-hawking happens on 26th and 47th Streets, between Park and Lex. Check out Biria and Batavus from Manhattan Hub, a local bike store. There's also a tire-kicking demo from Collegiate Bicycle Company, whose bikes are used in Montreal's Bixi and Rio's Samba programs. They use the same technology that's incorporated in Velib, the Parisian system that was launched in the summer of 2007 and is generally viewed as a success.

I'm rooting for this two-wheel experiment to work and that a bicycle culture takes hold in Manhattan, and beyond. Its benefits are broad, from reduced emissions, to a healthier population, to increased productivity. And it's been said that drivers in Paris have actually reacted to sharing the streets with velocipedes.

There are all sorts of knotty issues to scaling a bike-sharing program, as you can imagine. There's the delicate supply/demand balancing act. There's the fight over colonizing a lot of street parking. There's vandalism and cost. (The French system is theoretically funded by advertising revenue, but the government had to kick in some funds due to unexpected vandalism.)

It's fitting that the test coincides with this summer's publication of "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City." The book documents the battle between Jane Jacobs - the fierce advocate of small-scale urban living - and city-slasher Robert Moses who never saw a public works project he didn't like. As Alice S. Alexiou noted in "Urban Visionary", her biography of Jacobs, "Instead of riding the subway to work, she rode her bicycle from Greenwich Village."

I was in Paris in September and from what I could see, Velib has taken the town by storm. The racks are ubiquitous in large areas of the city, and the streets are well stocked with furiously pedaling Parisians. There are young people going to school, shoppers balancing baguettes, businesspeople with briefcases sitting atop neatly folded suit jackets (grown-up French people still carry old-school attache cases: backpacks are for schoolchildren.)

Cities are complex collisions of the communal and the private. Sweaty proximity and the hot press of humanity create an urban public theater of shared experiences. But that kind of continuous exposure also turns us into zealous defenders of whatever private space remains free from mass hegemony.

The French are clearly more private than Americans; as many observers have pointed out, you can know someone for years before you get invited to their home. But paradoxically, they are very much a culture of sharing, possessing a loosely socialistic view of the world that's consistent with the Velib experiment.

Whether New Yorkers will adopt bike-sharing depends on how these conflicting sociologies get sorted out. We are faster to change than the tradition-bound French. That's a plus. We are mad about speed and convenience. That's a plus.

But we're defined by the remnants of that rugged individualism thing, and don't like to share. That's a minus. We don't like government programs with their attendant rules. Another minus. We are more spoiled than the French; we like our taxis and our cars and don't want to be out there with our coat flapping in the cold and the rain. Big, perhaps fatal minus.

"People are hungry to use their streets differently," Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of our Department of Transportation, was quoted as saying in a news conference. "This is the first time that we'll have a bike-share program in the city."

I don't know how ravenous that hunger is. But if bike-sharing ever happens in New York in a big way, I propose that we ditch those neologisms and portmanteau words and call it "Murray" after Murray Kempton, the legendary, lapidary columnist who died in 1997 and was famous for navigating the city exclusively from bicycle height. I quote the first paragraph of his obituary from "The Independent" at well-deserved length.

"New York is in mourning for Murray Kempton, the reporter on his bicycle, negotiating in his seventies the hazards of Manhattan's avenues, moving between assignments as though they were his first and only and listening, always, to his classical compact discs that hung around his neck like some kind of tribal necklace, a sign that he was of a different caste. And what a caste it was. 'The man has brought more honour to newspapers than anyone in my lifetime,' said his fellow columnist Jimmy Breslin, who should know."

Subway. Bus. Taxi. Murray. We'd be richer for it.

Cameron Sinclair: Another $2B for Clunkers? How About Bling for Bikes?

2009-08-03T15:07:40Z

Throughout the nation car lots are dotted with "cash for clunkers" signs and the auto industry are licking their chops to help get those with rusty gas guzzlers traded in for a slightly more efficient new ride. As the Cash for Clunkers program hits its projected target, and is now re-upping for another $2B of taxpayer money, one wonders if non-car or truck owners are getting the shaft.

As a mid-30s city dweller I neither have a drivers license or do I use a car. With public transportation and my trusty two wheeled "clunker" I seem to function pretty well without one. Why is it that tax paying bike owners are helping foot the bill for our gas guzzling colleagues? I'm sure there are various official bodies and auto-execs that can provide data sets up the wazoo over the positive impact of the clunkers program but I wonder if, before using another few billion dollars, whether supporting the United States bike industry might help offset a little more carbon, create better livable communities and help hire a few more hands in this troubled economic downturn.

So what about a "bling for bikes" (re)cycling campaign. Give a $500 voucher to trade in your old granny bike for a US made 'energy efficient' cycle. Heck, throw in a US made messenger bag like Rickshaw Bagworks and let's get the US textile industry a little boost.

Here's a few US manufacturers that you might want to consider;

Aegis
Calfee
Cannondale
Electra Bike
Klein
LeMond Bikes
Merlin
Serotta
Stowe
Trek

I'm sure an enterprising member of Congress or the Senate might want to take this on. Just imagine all the credit you'd get from your constituency if you save one of these companies and all the jobs attached to it. It ain't GM -- but a job, no matter who the employee, is still a job.

Waylon Lewis: Money Magazine Names Eco-Hipsterless Louisville, Colorado Best Place to Live

2009-07-29T18:45:22Z

Some towns nestled along the Rockies are full of pretentious eco-hipsters. Not Louisville.

Money Magazine names Louisville, Colorado, the number one US town to live in.
Egads. While Louisville "has a Conoco-Philipps facility," it's also mercifully free of "pretentious eco-hipsters" -- unlike some towns (yes you, Boulder and Ft. Collins) we assume Money ain't referring to Colorado Springs, full of meth & gay escort-loving Focus on Family Old Testament Christians (we like old timey New Testament Christians who are into things like mercy, compassion, prayer).

So what's wrong with being an eco hipster? Nothing. Better than being a Willy-style trustafarian drug-addled fixie-luvin' dirty boy band hipster who don't know where the term hipster originated (Beat generation; jazz). So what's pretentious about being "eco"? Oh, right, it's uncool, man -- to be vegetarian or vegan and bike around, shop local and organic, care where your clothes are made...it's downright uptight to care about anything, for that matter. Sorry, Money.

All that said, Louisville is a great town -- I spent first three months of my life there, after coming to in the Boulder Hospital and can attest to its vibrant old downtown, its ready access to the Rockies, its deliberateness in how it grows instead of sprawls, its sense of vibrant, safe community. (And Money does give it extra points for being near to Boulder, confusingly).

"Conoco-Phillips is building a huge facility there; there are a lot of employers in the area; it's near Boulder, so that's all great for them."

With thanks for the tip to 5280.

~

Waylon Lewis is the founder of elephantjournal.com

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Graham Hill: Should We Make the 'Yield, Not Stop' Bike Practice Universal?

2009-07-28T04:34:29Z

Because it is summer, cyclists are out in force. That means more encounters and chances for anti-cyclist road rage or other unfortunate incidents, like the Colorado man shot this week for riding with his child on a busy street.

If you love the freedom of using a bike to get where you want to go, you want to protect that freedom and protect yourself from harm.

Car drivers and pedestrians tend to say that bike riders 'need to respect the rules.' This is true, but doesn't mean the rules shouldn't be changed and adapted for the growing numbers of cyclists.

Earlier this year, bike haven Portland, Oregon tried to pass a law to bring what is known as the 'Idaho Stop Law' to the Rose City. The law specifies that cyclists are not required to come to a full stop but must roll up to and yield right of way at stop signs or blinking red lights. Cyclists must stop at solid red traffic lights.

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

Portland's measure ultimately failed, though its supporters will try again. And the idea -- that cyclists by law be allowed to approach an intersection with caution, and yield but not make a full stop -- deserves more attention.

Urban cycling is one of the fastest growing forms of inter-city transport -- New York, San Francisco, Austin -- and handfuls of other cities are experiencing lots of new riders on the roads.

To encourage this CO2-free form of transport without enraging motorists requires tact and planning. And it takes time.

What Idaho found from implementing its yield, not stop legislation (which it did all the way back in 1982) was that 1) traffic court became less clogged, and 2) injury accidents dropped around 14.5% a year after the law came into effect.

That last seems a bit counter-intuitive. But if cyclists use their energy for carefully anticipating what's happening in traffic rather than coming to a dead stop at every intersection, and if cars begin to see cycles as part of the vehicular landscape instead of as an unexpected nuisance, maybe the improved numbers are understandable.

Most people want a safe and smooth commute for all city dwellers. Talking more about the benefits -- and also the detriments -- of Idaho's choice would seem to be a positive step forward.

Read more about urban biking at TreeHugger and Planet Green
::More Bike Commuters on the Road, But Are They Being Safe?
::Higher Fuel Prices Increase Bike Sales (And Bike Sharing)?
::6 Ways to Defuse Anti-Cyclist Road Rage
::Spare Yourself From Road-Raging Bike Haters
::7 Ways to Create a Bike-Friendly Atmosphere at Work

For more articles by Graham Hill click here.

Kenyan Students Invent Bicycle-Powered Mobile Phone Charger

2009-07-24T08:08:29Z

Jeremiah Murimi, 24, and Pascal Katana, 22, said they wanted their dynamo-powered "smart charger" to help people without electricity in rural areas.

Dennis Markatos: New Rochelle Biker Friendly

2009-07-23T13:40:58Z

Most of the time we think of NYC innovating policy and then sharing it with the local suburbs and beyond. But this summer, New York City's suburb of New Rochelle has passed a groundbreaking policy for the region that will hopefully make its way to NYC. The policy helps New Rochelle and Westchester County take the lead toward becoming a bike friendly community.

As Michael Oliva of the East Coast Greenway Alliance (ECGA) staff recalled, the ECGA got involved in local bike-ped advocacy efforts years ago to complete the region's section of a 3,000 mile long greenway route from Key West to Canada. The ECG brought attention and awareness to making all areas surrounding the ECG a safer place to bike and walk. From their work sprang the Westchester-Putnam Biking and Walking Alliance -- a group dedicated to making cycling and walking safer in the County.

Their recent accomplishment was the passage of a law that requires all new developments to provide bicycle racks. For every 10 car parking spaces, one bicycle parking space must be provided. Mayor Noam Bramson celebrated the measure as one of many to help lower greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health in his New Rochelle community. Other initiatives include bike parking in public spaces and a growing bike lane infrastructure to increase the safety of riders.

It will take much more work to help a majority of New Rochelle's ~70,000 residents embrace bicycling and walking as a legitimate means of transportation. But the effort of local citizens (the Biking and Walking Alliance) in collaboration with regional organizations (such as the East Coast Greenway Alliance) is already making great progress and is a model for bike-ped advocacy in other communities.

Here's to much more progress in New Rochelle that breeds progress here in NYC during the months and years ahead!

Schweeb: Is The Human-Powered Monorail The Transportation Of The Future? (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

2009-07-23T12:19:47Z

The Schweeb, the world's only human powered monorail, is a futuristic attempt at eco-friendly transportation. These pedal powered pods resemble a recumbent bicycle but ride much more rapidly and require only fifty percent of the energy necessary to power a racing bicycle. The Schweeb is currently only used as a racing vehicle at the Schweeb campus in New Zealand. But get your pedals into gear because the Schweeb could be migrating to a city near you soon.

Treehugger quotes Schweeb inventor Geoffrey Barnett:

The result is the most efficient vehicle on earth, the most inexpensive infrastructure of any proposed urban transit and one of the highest capacity systems available - potentially delivering thousand's of people per hour in a very small airspace. All this with zero carbon emissions and no parking worries or cost!

Watch this profile of the Schweeb.

Top 8 Bike Trips in the U.S. (PHOTOS)

2009-07-22T09:34:48Z

There's no better time than summer to get outdoors and experience natural beauty. One low impact way to see the sights and get some sunshine is a bike trip, and what better inspiration is there than the Tour de France which just finished its 16th stage? To get you started, we've created a list of the top eight biking trips that take place across the United States. So get out that helmet and start pedaling! But before you do, check out this slideshow and vote on your favorite trip.

And while we're talking bikes, the Boston Police Dept. just started using Twitter and Facebook to find bike thieves. Push your local police station to do the same!

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