Bike to Work week is scheduled for May 14-18 nationally. Many communities have a specific day in which they encourage or celebrate cycle commuting.
However, it’s easy to cycle commute in May. Here in Minnesota, we’ve received 10-14 inches of snow in the last two days. With that in mind, I’d like to salute both the well-equipped guy on a mountain bike with tire chains I saw this morning on the roads, and the guy on the rusty 10-speed tentatively navigating the sidewalks on East 7th Street, Saint Paul.
Those guys both get full credit for dedication and need. It’s easy for we the spandex-clad and well-equipped to forget the people who need to cycle commute based on finances or legal issues (lack of ID, DUI conviction, etc.). Work for cycling-friendly communities benefits these ‘hidden’ workers of our economy just as much as it does families out for ice cream on a sunny summer Sunday, or the die-hards who will ride in any weather by choice, not necessity.
March 6, 2007 at 10:21 pm
While I applaud any and all bike advocates, I cringed at your notion that people who bike in the winter only do so because they are unable to drive. DUIs?!?! Is that a joke? There are people out there who feel passionately about biking because of political and environmental issues as well. I may add that I have a driver’s license, car, and the money to drive. I just choose not to. I hope your attitude is not unanimous within your “spandex clad” cult. You see it as a hobby while many in the Twin Cities see it as a bigger piece of a much needed cultural revolution.
March 12, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I did not mean in any way to suggest that only those with… ahem, issues… cycle-commute. I know many people who do for the pure joy of it, or for political/social reasons (belief). Many of these people are spandex-clad, although I wouldn’t say all are, or that it’s a need.
I would count the guy with the tire-chains into the well-equipped category, although I can’t speak for his passion for it.
The guy on the rusty 10-speed, though, on that given day? He may have any number of reasons for needing to cycle-commute. He certainly wasn’t equipped for it on a day that threw down a foot of snow.
I don’t remember where I saw the stat that a major cause of bicycle accidents is DUI-on-bike, or the stat on how many people take to a bicycle after losing a license. That’s where the concept of DUI came in, though. It’s not a universal thing.
March 12, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Wait, found one source:
http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm
“Twenty-four percent of bicyclists killed in 2003 had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08 percent.”
It’s from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, so take that with a grain of something, but 24% would be a pretty decent percentage of fatality stats.
February 1, 2008 at 7:37 pm
If you’ll be doing a bike to work event this year, please stop by http://biketoworkweek.org and have your event (or blog) added to the map.