Bike Month is a month to get more people on bikes. But as I biked to work this May it seemed more like Everybody Drive Month. Maybe it’s cheap gas or the season- but the roads were jammed with cars and and everyone was stressing more than usual. It’s clear that prioritizing private cars is not working for the city- and trying to […]
Sometimes when I see “Share the Road” on signs I think there needs to be a silly cartoon character to go with the message: Don’t get me wrong, in a world without cycle tracks sharing the road is obviously a necessary thing. But on a sign it’s a little simplistic. It isn’t actually clear what […]
Recently there was a report how to sell people on biking. Turns out that even though safety is a real concern, dwelling on safety messages kind of turns people off. Is this really that surprising? Any salesperson would understand why. (That’s why fine print was invented.) So this got me thinking about advertising bicycling. What kind […]
Because I bike everywhere and that is odd to many people, I get a lot of odd questions. Explaining the difference between utility cyclist and sport cyclist has gotten old. So I’ve just started playing dumb and asking them if they do this when they drive: Just for the fun of making them explain the […]
You’ve just parked, turned off your car, and given a sigh of relief that you’re no longer stuck in traffic. You reach for your things, kick open your door and CRASH! Okay, so you didn’t “door” a cyclist. But you very well could have! Just because you stopped driving doesn’t mean you can stop looking. Dooring […]
Whenever a person first discovers I bike, they reply with a story. And it’s always the same story. “I was driving down [insert any road name] when all of the sudden I saw a cyclist in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!” Inevitably it always ends with them saying they “just tapped on their horn” or […]
I was waiting for an appointment the other day when I struck up a conversation with another woman in the lobby. She noticed my bike helmet and the conversation quickly turned to a discussion of cars versus cyclists. It was just on of those casual conversations you have with a stranger in passing. After voicing […]