I fucking love bikes! (and the twin cities)

Seriously, I fucking love bikes. Bikes are sweet. They are just so awesome. I've missed riding my bikes so much. . I'm gonna talk about bikes in a minute but first let me tell you about my day. Today I borrowed Ice's bike while he went to work. It was just an okay mountain bike but it was so nice. He offered me his car but I said no way. There is no better way to get to know a city then on a bike
I took it to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a great museum. It should have been about a 10 mile ride. However, on the way there I got incredibly lost. Like super super lost. It was great. I love getting lost while riding a bike. It's how you learn new roads and the ins and outs of the city. I somehow ended up at the University of Minnesota, which was kind of neat actually. School starts there on Tuesday so it was a busy day. The streets were packed with confused and lost looking freshman, I'm sure I fit right in being confused and lost myself.

Eventually I found the river, which you wouldn't have thought was that tough, but it was. I rode down the river path to an awesome thing called the Midtown 'Greenway' . It is like a bike freeway, similar in a way to the Rillito river path or the the aviation highway path, except in a way more useful spot, and therefore much more used. It runs along an old railroad track, it is 5.5 miles right through the middle of town, it's great. It connects to other bike paths so it's really useful. There were a lot of people on it, the most people I've seen biking since I was in Copenhagen.

I eventually made it to the museum. I had been there before and didn't spend a super long time, just looked at some stuff I wanted to see again. It is in a beautiful building and I could go back countless times, I just don't spend a long time in art museums at once. On the way back I stopped on the famous 'eat street' of Minneapolis. It is a stretch of road famous for it's wide variety of ethnic restaurants and markets. I ate at a Pho restaurant. Pho is a traditional Vietnamese soup made with beef broth, rice noodles, and other stuff.

The ride back was far less eventful, having learned a few things I was able to make the 10ish mile ride from eat street to Ice's place in St. Paul with a great route. I stopped at a used book store I saw, mostly because I am a sucker for used book stores.

The Twin Cities are rated as one of the best places to bike in North America (Tucson is also often on these lists) and I can see why. It lacks the sheer number of bike lanes as Tucson (though pretty much every city does) though it makes up for it with more really nice bike paths with good road separation. Also although their aren't as many bike lanes, there is a good amount of riders which is more important. When cars are used to seeing bikes on the road they know how to deal with them and it becomes an awesome self perpetuating process. I stopped inside of a bike center they have along the greenway and it looks like they've got some really cool bike culture stuff going on. It is certainly one more plus for me as I don't think at this point I could live in a city where I couldn't bike as my primary form of transportation.

I have become really committed to the idea of bike commuting for not only myself but American society in general. Biking won't solve any of the major problems facing our country today but it will take a bite out of a lot of them. Some facts:

- The average person loses 13 lbs. their first year bike commuting
-3 hours of biking a week can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by 50%
-Each rush-hour auto commuter spends an avg of 50 hours a year stuck in traffic
-60% of the pollution created by automobiles happens in the first few minutes of driving before pollution control devices start to work
-25% of all trips are made within a mile from home
-40% of all trips are made with within
-50% of the working population lives within 5 miles of work

2 of the biggest issues today, the environmental crisis and the obesity crisis can both be attacked by promoting biking for short trips. Plus it is fun. It turns a chore (driving) to a recreational activity, something to look forward to. It gets your energy going to start the day. You meet cool people who sometimes have sick tattoos. It is one of the best life choices I think I have ever made and it is hard to imagine going back. I really hope the rest of the country will catch on; there is good and bad news here.

The good: bike commuting is increasing almost everywhere. Numerous studies have come out showing a steady increase in city ridership over the past 5 years with a recent spike due to high gas prices. Cities around the country are committing to making their cities more bike friendly with trend setters like Chicago and NYC investing millions. People and communities are starting to realize this is a good thing and are studying Amsterdam and Copenhagen (in which about 1/3 of the population bikes to work) to find how to make this work. Bike shops are opening and electric and recumbent bicycles are gaining popularity.

The bad: The numbers are still dismally low. About 1% of all trips are made by bike. At 2.5% Tucson has the highest rate of work commuters in the country, 2.5%. This is a city with 300 miles of bike lanes/paths/routes, completely flat, and has year round great weather, and still only 1 in 40 people are biking to work.

More good: Still with all things it may not continue at this gradual rate. As more people slowly trickle onto the roads and it gets more visible, safe, and hip, some people believe we may be approaching a critical mass point and that biking is on the verge of exploding in this country. I hope so.

In closing let me echo something said a long time ago by H.G. Wells:

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the human race

I Heart Bikes,
Joey