These two tots belong to a good friend of mine who incorporated the 1world2wheels art into the jersey design.  The kids are sporting the “Support Global Cooling” and “Weigh less, Wait less” jerseys in kiddly sizes.   Word is they’ve not taken the jerseys off for days and they want to ride their bikes all the time.

I haven’t convinced the buyers that either jersey would sell for kids.  Any thoughts on that?

So last weeks winners in the Go By Bike Challenge are:

August 18 - Jane Rogers

August 19 - John Fossett

August 20 - Lindsay Stonebrook

August 21 - Tom Duvall

August 22 - Rita Shorba

August 23 - Kyle McGinnis

August 24 - Maria Novilla

Here’s a question for all of you Challenge takers: how is it going? Are you replacing your car trips by bike and what’s it been like?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Another week has gone by in the Go By Bike pledge drive.   The photo above is a “commuter shot” sent in by a 1w2w reader, David Wilkins.  Wilkins had no idea how much his photos would be useful in making the case for complete streets.  More on that in a minute.

 David lives in a lovely area of Alabama and what a great reason to make it more bike friendly.   Looking at the photos you can see the potential for becoming bike friendly.  

I’ve been wanting to write about complete streets for awhile and this is a great entree.  Complete Streets does exactly what it sounds like it would: helps communities remake it streets to accocommodate multiple modes of transport; cars, bikes, pedestrians.   This brilliant program is making waves around the country with its simple, economical street redesign.  Find more here: www.completestreets.org.

Back to David.  Here’s his ride, waiting at the YMCA at the bright hour of 5am.

 

After David gets through the first bit of highway (seen in the top photo) he comes to this:

 This is a lovely scene but note the lack of striped bike lanes.  

 His commute takes him through a newer looking subdivision, also lacking striped bike lanes.

 And here’s the finishing stretch.  Let’s give it up for a bike lane!

Thanks for sending the photos, David.   You’ve got one of the tougher commutes I’ve seen and good for you for going to work on two wheels.  

And the winners from last week are:

August 11: Sara Myers

August 12: Julie Bower

August 13: Manuel Margine

August 14: Linda Mason

August 15: John Sutter

August 16: James Hagen

August 17: Henry Ma

Btw, I have to say that the boxes of postcards I get everyday are a side benefit of the Challenge I didn’t anticipate.  Leading the “most commonly received postcard” is none other than Gumby.  I am not kidding.  The second most popular card is a hotel from Vegas.  Third most popular, Florida.   After winners are drawn from the postcards and on line, I go through and save the wackiest postcards.  That’s a whole ‘nuther blog entry!

It’s Wednesday and I’m just now posting last week’s Go By Bike Challenge winners.  Apologies for the delay but it’s Trek World this week, our annual reveal of new bikes and riding said new bikes with 5,000 of our best friends from all over the world.  Trek retailers descend on Waterloo and Madison, Wisconsin and it’s a week long love-of-all-things-bike celebration.   The best part about Trek World is being amongst like-minded people who’ve not forgotten how to play.  And there’s no better playing than riding a bicycle with other grownups.

Speaking of grownups, last week a reader from Tucson sent me her commute pics.  Amy Grey has an interesting commute and the photo above is of her vehicle, ready for duty.   Here’s Amy’s ride:

My name is Amy and this is my four mile daily commute. Although we live just a quarter mile from the Santa Cruz River Park, the various builders of the Tucson neighborhoods along the river apparently did not envision people wanting access to the river path and they surrounded our suburbs with walls. The first part of my commute is along a back alleyway.

To cross the drainage ditches between neighborhoods I use the utility access ramps. It is invigorating to do a little off-road riding first thing in the morning. The only other people I see back here are dog walkers and gangs of Junior High boys on dirt bikes.

The Santa Cruz river used to have water most of the year, now, except for the August and September rainy season, it is mostly dry. When the water runs it is rapid enough to sweep cars and people down river. As you can see, no traffic jam here. 

 

I cross three major grid streets, but each time the bike path goes under the street and I never have to stop for cars. I do see the traffic backed up on the bridge and I am always glad that I don’t have to hurry up and wait like the poor car drivers. The city very kindly put in several elegant little bridges, like this one below, along the several miles of the path. A handful of us enjoy them very much. The park staff have nurtured mesquite trees and dozens of different flowering bushes along the path. There are always lizards dozing in the sun and bunnies in the shady places. When the cicadas or frogs are singing, I can’t even hear the far-off traffic.

I take this third underpass and then a tiny paved path, through a parking lot, and up the street to my office building. I rarely see another set of bike tracks in the sand that drifts across this path. I think kind thoughts about this company that clearly paved a path to the river just for me.

-

The campus does have a large bike rack neatly tucked away in a spot shady and private enough to attract all the passing bike thieves. I am lucky to be able to park in my office.

Thanks, Amy, for sending your Tucson area commute.

So back to our winners.  As usual, we have seven winners from Aug. 4 - Aug. 10.

August 4: Larry Horton

August 5: Karen Ruth

August 6: Betty Swain

August 7: Jonathan Sawn

August 8: Josh Minix

August 9: Craig Shryock

August 10: Shirley Chamberlain

Congrats, winners! You’ll get a phone call or email any day to get the prize wheels in motion (pun intended).  Stay tuned for more winners, more commute pics and pcitures of the CRAZY postcards I’m getting as entries for the Go By Bike challenge.  Yesterday’s box of postcards featrued a stuffed doggie card.  For real.

We are up to 6.5 million miles and counting in the challenge with 19,900 people pledging to replace some car trips by bike! The theme of last week’s barrage of email was “where can I get a “Support Global Cooling” jersey? I’m happy to announce that the jerseys will be available later this month on this very site or at your local Trek retailer. Men’s and women’s sizes too and if I can convince the bean counters they will sell, we’ll get some kids jerseys in the line up.

Before I give the names of last week’s bike winners, I want to explain the photo above. That’s my uber pink bike and my backpack waiting for me to hop aboard for my ride to work. I got a great idea while riding to work one day: “Show and Tell your Bike Commute!” The idea is to get you all to take some photos of your ride and send them to me with some brief narration. I’ll post the best ones for all of us to enjoy and/or get inspiration from. Send your commute pics to me at info@1world2wheels.org and try to keep your photos small so my laptop doesn’t crash.

My commute to Trek is 8 miles. When I turn out of my driveway I see this scene. Buccolic, non?

Being in THE dairy state it’s quite common to see a bunch of dairy cows lazing in the grass, nibbling on flowers. Unlike California where the cows are watered by sprinklers to keep them alive in the summer, our Wisco cows are laying in knee deep grass. Real grass. I have a photo of my neighbors –the Brown Swiss variety– but I’ll have to post that tomorrow as I seem to have
left that photo off the thumb drive. Trust me, they are very nice neighbors and only smell now and then when the wind is from the east.

So after the cows I make a right turn at Hwy I, and see evidence of hay and straw making. We had perfect hay making weather last week and as the saying goes, “make hay when the sun shines.” The other part of the saying you don’t hear unless you live amongst farmers is “otherwise you get bricks.” What that means is if it rains on your hay after you cut it, it probably won’t be worth keeping. That’s a bummer if you bale hay.

Just up the road from the hay field is the town of Waterloo sign. Being a former bike racer a town sign means “sprint” but with no one to sprint against I took a photo of the sign I would have sprinted for if there was anyone around to sprint with. Someone needs to weed whack the sign.

After that it’s another 1.5 miles to Trek where we have a room to store our bikes, showers, and it’s A-OK to walk around the office with helmet head. It’s the norm, actually.

Alrighty, here are week 3 winners of the Trek 7.2 FX:
July 28: Henrik Lind
July 29: John Wright
July 30: Heather Walker
July 31st: Catrina Hare
Aug. 1: Lynn Vanderloop
Aug. 2: Jeannine Sweet
Aug. 3: Randy Phetteplace

Stay tuned for that photo of the Brown Swiss.

Not until I worked at Trek did I get to know an incredibly nice bunch of people at a company called Sram. Sram is out of Chicago and they make parts for bikes, with a speciality in componentry for mountain and road bikes.

F.K.Day was Vice President of Sram and in that role he co-founded an organization called “World Bicycle Relief.”   WBR is now his full time vocation.

WBR got started in response to the 2005 tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean. Sram and Trek Bicycle partnered with World Vision Sri Lanka to provide 24,000 locally produced bicycles to people in extreme need. The result of this simple gesture was an accelerated recovery for the region. Where cars could not go because the roads were destroyed, people could use bicycles to restart their businesses. Sram kept WBR an independent agency to monitor results and the results –2 years after the disaster–were incredible:

- 88% of recipients depended on bicycles for livelihood activities
- Bicycles can save a household up to 30% of its annual income for transportation costs
- The bicycle program enabled households to resume livelihood, education and service activities

The program was so successful that WBR turned its sights to another area in need, Zambia. The goal is to get 23,000 bikes to this nation that is reeling from aids. The bikes will take aids workers into remote villages with necessary medicine and education.
Without the bikes, healthcare information would not reach these people. Simply put, World Bicycle Relief works. For about $134 a person can “buy” a bike that will get shipped to Zambia. WBR works to document the impact of the bikes which in turn can impact other areas.

A bicycle: a simple solution to complex problems. Bravo, F.K. and to all of Sram and the WBR team. Thanks for the inspiration and showing that tough problems can be handled effectively with good team work and a great vision.

You can find stories and wonderful photos of the program here: www.worldbicyclerelief.org.

We are in week two of the Go By Bike Pledge event with 4.5 million miles pledged by 14,000 people. (I haven't looked at the site since this morning so we're likely well beyond those numbers). The best thing about this Go By Bike Pledge event is the comments I'm getting from all over the world. What is the theme of most of the emails? "I've been wanting to do this for a long time, thanks for giving me a kick in the pants!"

Well, those aren't exactly the words but that captures the spirit of the most common response coming by this desk. And is it me or am I seeing a WHOLE LOT of news stories about "going by bike?" CBS ran a very thoughtful piece yesterday on its Sunday morning show. In the story the city of Portland gets props that it rightfully deserves; over 6% of its population is "going by bike."

Speaking of Portland, that's Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland, with bow tie) in the above photo posing with a 1World2Wheels jersey, yours truly, and from left to right, Patrick Seidler of WTB, Mike Mercuri of Sram and Chris Kegel of Wheel & Sprocket, a Wisconsin Bike Retailer. We were all at a bike advocacy reception and I couldn't resist bringing the jersey with me to see who I could get in a photo. The reception was across the street from the Oprah Studio in Chicago and I got the bright idea to show the jersey to Oprah. I walked over and knocked on the door but the cleaning person didn't seem to want to unlock the door and let me in. So much for shameless promotion.

So we have more bike winners from week 2. Each of these people has won a Trek 7.2FX bike. I'll post more winners in a week so check next Monday to see if your name is on the list.

Monday, July 21: B. Phifer
Tuesday, July 22: Jeremy Woodhouse
Wednesday, July 23: Samuel Johnson
Thursday, July 24: Pat Scanlon
Friday, July 25: Cindy Crawford
Saturday, July 26: Greg Christie
Sunday, July 27: Sanjdy Kimerer

The Go By Challenge on the 1 World 2 Wheels website caught fire last week. We launched the promotion on Thursday and by Friday afternoon needed to add a digit to the home page to accommodate the number of miles being pledged.

The comments sent this way from the pledgers are inspiring and back up what we’ve been thinking for some time now: the time is right to go by bike.

Speaking of which, we pulled names of pledgers as part of the contest. Starting last Thursday, Trek is drawing one name a day from all the pledgers to win a 7.2 FX bike. Check here to see if you are on the list, and check back often as the list will be updated frequently.

July 17 - R. Miller
July 18 - S. Schindlbeck
July 19 - T. Williams
July 20 - S. Vybrial

New winners announced in a day or so. I heard that the Trek site crashed. Is that because the bike revolution has begun? Stay tuned for more from 1 World 2 Wheels.

A prototype Trek Stop Cycling Convenience Center was assembled on June 30 just off the bike path in Madison, Wisconsin.

Trek Stop is a 24/7/365 convenience center for cyclists which provides access to cycling products, information and a safe place to work on your bike. Need a tube at midnight? Need some air on the way to your morning commute? Not sure of the best route to get where you’re going? Need a poncho, some wetwipes, or a power bar?

Trek Stop’s got you covered . This full service vending machine is stocked with bicycle products, food and cold drinks, and features an information center which includes maps, a message board, and advertising space for local events and announcements. There’s also a covered maintenance area with a work stand, free air, and even how-to videos a cyclist can play with the push of a button just in case their having trouble fixing that flat or repairing their chain.

The idea for Trek Stop came about a few years ago, when the Advanced Concept Group (ACG) at Trek Bikes, a crew of industrial designers led by Mike Hammond, began thinking of ways to make bicycle commuting more viable.

“Motorists have it easy,” says Hammond. “Gas stations, convenience stores, auto parts stores, tow trucks—you name it. The support network for cars far outclasses cyclists. The Trek Stop aims to change that by breaking down some of the ‘worries’ attached to cycling.”

“We got a budget together and started sketching out ideas. At that time, we found out that Aaron Goss and his wife (of Aaron’s Bicycles in Seattle, WA) had already set up a vending machine so that was encouraging,” added Hammond.
.
Trek Stop’s construction consists of a regular vending machine, a small air compressor and a PC which runs the two video screens. All of this is housed in a weatherproof box made locally by Hoffman Manufacturing Corp. Add a repair stand and aesthetics, and you’ve got one very cool, very functional Cycling Convenience Center, a.k.a. Trek Stop.

Trek Stop was designed to be an extension of a real bike shop, not to replace one. Cyclists will still need the services and products found at local bike shops, but will have the convenience of 24 hour access to specific products and information.

For more information on Trek Stop contact Mike Hammond at mike_hammond@trekbikes.com or Rebecca Anderson at rebeccca_anderson@trekbikes.com.

If you read the post about Brian Shields, the Go By Bike Poster Guy from Kansas City, you’ll like this one from Kristin in Omaha. Kristin was the female Go By Bike winner in Omaha who agreed to take her shorts trips by bike in May. She got her new bike and took to it like a champ. She’s hooked. It’s June 12 and she’s still riding (loving it!) and blogging. Thanks, Kristin and Brian for the inspiration to “Go By Bike!”

Bikes and a pair of 3 inch heels

Last night I wore a little black dress with a gorgeous pair of patent leather, three-inch heel, Nine West beauties. Today, me and my tennis shoes are soaked in mud from a good, long ride on the Keystone trail before stopping at the Starbucks at 72nd & Dodge to journal and enjoy a frosty frappachino. The funny thing is, I used to put my bike in the trunk of my car and drive out to the Keystone for a ride. Now, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that fact.

I love contrast and opposites–yin & yang–being girly and flirty one night and tough and muddy the next. Cycling has opened me up in a way I hadn’t expected and sorely needed. For that, I am incredibly grateful and achingly sad that this “challenge” has come to an end. That’s not to say I won’t continue to ride, but there’s nothing more motivating than feeling as if the “world” is watching. I can see why those television reality shows work.

This experience has taught me a lot: that I am capable of surviving Dodge Street on a bicycle; that I can shower and be ready for work in about 15 minutes; that I can enjoy riding through puddles and the feeling of mud spraying up my legs; that I have a lot of fantastic and supportive people in my life; that men really squirm at references to menstruation.

What’s been interesting is the unexpected changes that have come about effortlessly. I’m recycling more, walking if I don’t have my bike (i.e. instead of having a friend drive around the block to drop me off at home, I walk) and I’m craving healthier foods. My body has changed significantly in the last month, as evidenced by the fact that I am now wearing clothes I haven’t been able to wear in four years. Shopping just got a lot more fun.

I’m also ready for a serious cycling revolution to occur. It’s time for this country to surrender its reliance on automobiles and suburban strip malls. Omaha desperately needs a better trail infrastructure for commuters and a much more cycling-friendly driving community. When I took on this challenge, I had no idea I’d been joining the ranks of these underappreciated rebels who are more than entitled to their fair share of the road. Now, I’m proud to be even just slightly on the periphery of this courageous bunch of crazy endorphin addicts.

Meet Brian Shields of Kansas City.  He is a new poster-guy for “Go by Bike.” 

 Back in March we cooked up a promotion to challenge non bike riders to take up the bike again.   The “we” is 1world2wheels and Jay Thomas, owner of the Trek Store of Kansas City.  Jay was willing to pilot the promotion and with the help of the City of Kansas City staff, the “Go By Bike Challenge” was launched.  

 The contest was open to non-bike-riders and entrants had to explain how they would “go by bike” for short trips in the month of May.   The winners got a bike to use and had to write about the experience.    The contest ran in Kansas City, Omaha and St. Louis with two winners in each city, one male and one female.

Within days of posting the contest rules we had 250 entrants.   Reading the short essays brought a few things to light.

First, we heard that a lot of people want to ride but need some help getting started.  Second, a lot of people who are willing to ride now don’t have a place to put their bike at work or wherever they are going.  Third, a lot of people want their communities to be more bike-friendly.

Besides these consistent themes we learned from our 250 entrants that each could readily name 4 or 5 destinations they could bike to that were under two miles.  I was surprised to see so many people list “work” as a destination option.  I was not surprised that “habit” was cited as the most common reason for taking a car instead of a bike for short trips.

When asked why the person wanted to take the challenge, almost all of them cited “concern for the environment” and “wanting to improve personal health” as reasons.  

 We read through all 250 essays and picked six people for the Go By Bike Challenge.    You can find all the entries from the winners at www.trekbicyclestores.com.  And for fun, below you’ll find the blog posts of Brian Shields, our Go By Bike Guy from Kansas City.

Post #1,   Thursday, May 8, 2008 The big day finally arrived.  About two months ago I entered a contest designed to challenge people to take short trips by bike.  To my amazement I was one of the lucky few chosen to receive a new Trek bike and see if I was up to the challenge.  So today I went to the local Trek store in Kansas City and picked up my new alternative mode of transportation.  The folks at the store were just incredibly nice and very customer oriented.  I bought a few ‘extras’ and they added on the equipment while I waited.  The main thing I wanted was some type of carrier on the back in case I needed to haul something (like a sack of groceries from the store or a basketball when I go to the community center nearby). It’s been a long time since I actually owned a bike.  When I got married 22 years ago my wife and I bought bikes as our wedding gifts to each other (how romantic, you’re probably thinking!).  For the day, they were really nice Schwinn 12 speeds (my wife still has hers by the way … I wonder if that qualifies as an antique yet?).  Mine, on the other hand, ended up being stolen one night when we lived in

California.  So, for the last 18 years it’s pretty much been just me using a car for transportation. I’m looking forward to the first ride.  We’ll see how easy it is for an old dog to change!  

Post #2  Ridin’ to Church

Today we had beautiful weather for Mother’s Day.  In the evening I had to go to church because I teach Sunday school for the fifth grade class.  This made for another perfect opportunity to go by bike so once again I convinced my daughter to tag along with me.  I’m thinking if I can instill in her ever more deeply at this early age the importance of taking care of our planet and making smart choices when it comes to life, at least she’ll be headed in the right direction.  One thing I have come to realize is that there are not a lot of bike racks near most places I go (other than at schools).  Such is the case at our church.  I understand a couple of weeks ago they borrowed a bike rack from a nearby school for Earth Day but they didn’t really see a need for one other than that one time.  With that being the case, we decided to lock our bikes on the handrail where everyone entering and exiting would see them … kind of a reminder that there is more than one way to go places. I received a couple of comments from folks at church … one of the staff members couldn’t believe that I rode 2.5 miles to church (wonder what she was implying … it’s not like Dr. Kevorkian is going to be paying me a visit anytime soon!).  I made sure she knew all about National Bike Week (she thought I was kidding that we actually have such an event).  Later when I was leaving one of my fifth graders saw me with my bike helmet and started asking questions.  I told him it was a great way to be healthy and eco-friendly.  Who knows, maybe I’ll start seeing more people riding in the near future. I have been trying to promote Bike Week activities at work … we’ll see how it goes this week (which, by the way, is National Transportation Week too). 

Post #3 I have not been able to ride for two days, but this morning I was ready to go for my first try at a weekday commute to work.  I hopped on the trail near our house so I could head over to Fire Station #3 where Overland Park was sponsoring an energizing station for morning bike commuters.  I got about a mile from home when my carrying bag became dislodged from the back of the bike and started dragging on the ground.  I stopped and fixed it real quick but when I got back on something else had happened.  Apparently during my shifting to come to a stop the chain had become kinked between the front gears and the bike frame.  I quickly found there was no easy fix to this problem (at least for me).  So I headed back home pushing my bike along the trail (luckily I had not gone too far) so it was only about a 10 to 15 minute walk back home.  On my way back home I was thinking about the whole notion of riding a bike for short trips or to work.  Was this an omen of things to come?  But then I started thinking about something that had happened with my old Toyota one afternoon.  I was about two miles from home when a belt broke in the engine and similarly, I was out of commission.  The difference was that I had to wait for a tow truck (for an hour) and then spend several hundred dollars to get the car fixed.  At least I was under my own power right now, got to avoid the cost of a tow, and figured that any repair cost would be minimal. Once home I called one of the bike experts that I work with (Lisa actually was the one that got me to enter the Go By Bike Challenge) and I described what had happened.  She gave me the technical term for it … it’s called ‘chain suck’.  So later in the day I made a visit to the Trek store.  Dean was the person that helped me and it seemed to take him no time at all (having the proper tools sure is a big help … probably something I’ll need to invest in soon … maybe for Father’s Day, hint, hint).  Anyway, Dean also explained that I shouldn’t be using the smallest gears on the bike very often since that puts a lot of wear on the chain (so that’s my tip for the day for the rest of you novices in case you’ve read this far).  I especially liked it when Dean said ‘No charge’ for his time!  They definitely know how to keep a customer wanting to come back to their store. Well, I’m all ready now for tomorrow when I’ll once again try this commuter bike challenge.  For what it’s worth, I hear there was a good turnout at the fire

 station. 

Post #4 Great Ending to National Bike Week  After my chain suck problem on Wednesday, I’ve had three straight days of great biking.  On Thursday and Friday I rode my bike to work (about 8.5 miles one way).  Along the way I stopped at the Tomahawk

Ridge

Community Center on 19th Street and then the Matt

Ross

Community Center in Historic Downtown OP (Friday) where the city was sponsoring energizing stations.  It was great to see other riders there and also to check the sign in sheet to see how many had already stopped by.  It’s interesting to see what’s happening at work this year … a couple of my employees car pooled this week, another rode the bus and another rode his bike to work.  That’s a lot of change since last year (when we did nothing), and I hope we all will be able to keep it going.  My trips to work are north-south oriented from where I live.  That means crossing over or under I-435 (which means there are a limited number of crossing points).  I opted to go up Antioch the first day and Metcalf the second day.  Now I’m not crazy enough (yet) to actually ride on either of these streets since they carry about 40,000 vehicles per day so I stayed on the sidewalks (I have to confess that I had to ride in the travel lanes across the bridge just north of 103rd and Metcalf since it is under construction and there is no sidewalk yet … try that in the morning rush hour to get your heart pumping).  I have developed a mental shortlist of things to watch for … broken glass, people jogging with their ipods and not paying attention, drivers exiting driveways or turning right … I’ve also developed a shortlist of irritations like people that plant bushes that encroach into the sidewalk and people that don’t keep their trees pruned up high enough so I can ride under  them.  One other thing of interest has been the continuity of the sidewalk system … it looks great 95% of the time and then in the blink of an eye there will be a short piece missing.  Both days I had to be home rather quickly after work so I rode part way and caught the JO for the remainder.  It was only $1.25 to ride on Thursday and free on Friday.  I was mildly surprised to actually see 20 other people riding the bus (that’s actually a pretty amazing number for the burbs). This morning my daughter and I rode to have breakfast … what a beautiful morning … nothing like a little fresh air to build up your appetite.  After chowing down on pancakes, we headed back home with a brief stop along the way to see a friend who had just had surgery and was home recuperating.  If next week is anything like this week, I think I will be well on my way to a permanent change in my car only lifestyle.  Post #5: Now that’s something I didn’t know … Recently the folks from Trek were in Kansas City to help promote becoming a Bicycle Friendly Community.  I had a chance to meet Rebecca Anderson, Trek’s Director of Advocacy who was hired to lead the OneWorld, Two Wheels effort.  She brought along a group of folks from

Omaha … what an amazing group!  The folks from Omaha told me how they had raised $600,000 in private donations to get the city started on creating a better bicycling environment in

Omaha.  That is quite impressive …way to go

Omaha!  With employees like that being active in the community Trek can certainly be proud of their accomplishment. The same night I met Rebecca and the gang from

Nebraska, we also heard from the League of American Bicyclists about their awards program thatrecognizes communities that actively support bicycling(www.bicyclefriendlycommunity.org).  As they went through the presentation, they talked about how the awards program had changed since it’s inception.  For a community to be recognized (at either the Bronze,Silver, Gold or Platinum levels), various criteria are evaluatedcovering the five “E’s” … engineering, education, encouragement,evaluation and enforcement.  There are only two cities at the platinum level … Davis, CA and Portland, OR.   Post #6: That was a long ride … Another week has passed and I am still at it (bicycling, that is).  On Saturday I decided to bike to my daughter’s soccer game (10 miles one way).  My wife and daughter would still have to drive out there, but I would have a chance to test out my bike on the open country roads …well, at least part of the way.  We have some pretty good bike paths that I was able to use except for the final three miles. On my way there I passed near a site currently under construction where our city is building a new outdoor youth soccer complex.  Next year when it opens my ride will be about half as long (and maybe I can have my daughter ride there too).  I made the mistake of going down one of the few roads that leads directly to the current soccer park … no shoulder and lots of soccer parents eager to get their kids to the tournament on time.  Luckily, no close calls. Once I got there, I had an easy time finding parking … right next to the field as a matter of fact.  After the game was over, I took a different route back home.  The two main roads I used had fairly wide shoulders (five feet on one and probably three feet on the other) so I didn’t feel like cars were ready to run me over everytime they went by.  The real killer was the wind, however.  Somehow it blew in my face almost the whole way home (first from the east, then from the north),and fairly strong, I might add.  At least I got to take in some new scenery.  By the way, for you long time bikers, have you ever tried to pass the time while biking solo? After awhile I decided to start keeping count of all the dead animals on the side of the road … 18 by journey’s end (better them than me, I guess).  Maybe you can let me know what works for you!  Post #7: The family the rides together, stays together. Finally, I got down my wife’s old bicycle from the top of the garage. For 22 years old (the bike), she’s in great shape (my wife looks great too).  We went on a short ride together which seemed to be uphill most of the way (coming home was a lot more fun).  I am finding out that my new Trek bicycle is very easy to ride up hills of all sizes.  In a previous post I mentioned that my wife’s bike only has 12 speeds … my daughter’s bike has 21 and my bike has 24 (my wife may need a new bike soon if we really embrace this bicycle commuting lifestyle).  She did spot a place near our destination that actually had bike racks out in front of their business (Winstead’s near 135th and Roe … kind of like a throwback diner).  I’ve started to mentally track things like this more closely.  If anyone out there wants to start a list of places in the KC area that support bike riders with bike racks or discounts, leave a message.  Post #8 Joel’s Ride … Today I had an opportunity to participate in the first annual Joel’s Ride for Social Justice.  Joel Winston was a local bicycle enthusiast that died from stomach cancer in June 2006.  He biked to work on a regular basis and was known to take his bike along on vacations (disassembled in a special suitcase).  He even went to his chemotherapy by bike.  To honor his memory and love for bicycling, his family held a 25-mile charity bike ride and a bike safety rodeo.   The event drew a lot of people for both the ride and the rodeo.  The local NBC affiliate was also there to cover the start.  The weather was great for the ride, but somehow I went through all of my water before I got back … guess I need a bigger bottle or a second one.  It was nice being out among other riders for a common cause.  I am quite sure if Joel were alive today he would be a strong advocate for the One World, Two Wheels campaign.  If you want to read about his life, you can google the Kansas City Star for an article that appeared in the Saturday, May 31st edition.