Little did she know that they would hit the jackpot with bicycling By:  Carolyn Szczepanski Pat Brown was just hoping to hang on in a tough economy. When she relocated her art gallery in 2008, it was the rock-bottom rent that drew her to a still struggling strip of downtown Memphis, TN. “We were just trying to survive,” she said. Brown was betting on a small core of community members determined to transform Broad Avenue from a fast-moving thoroughfare, where traffic whizzed past boarded-up storefronts at 50 mph, into a bustling arts district. Little did she know that they would hit the jackpot with bicycling. Shortly after Brown opened T Clifton Gallery, Sarah Newstok walked in. The local nonprofit Newstok led, Livable Memphis, had a vision for Broad Avenue, too. They wanted to build a protected bike lane that would pass right by Brown’s door, creating a vital connection between a popular multi-use trail and the city’s largest park. “We’re a retail business, so any time ther...

It's starting to catch on across the country as more and more major corporations see the future in biking and are investing in safe biking infrastructure, siting "bikes are the way to go in reducing traffic, pollution and other mayhem caused by auto's." Separating cars from cyclists will be turning point in getting people on bikes and out of cars. The city of Cupertino, CA has received a $1.8 million donation from Apple Inc. that will help fund the first leg of a protected bike lane project. The City Council accepted the donation, and staff plans to work early next year with a consultant to design bike lanes separated from vehicular traffic. The planned bike lanes are called Class IV lanes, and according to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, they are “physically separated from the vehicle travel lane by more than the white stripe. This can entail grade separation, flexible bollards or permanent barriers.”   READ >>

From the Colorado Office of Economic Development "By now, you’ve probably seen the headlines exclaiming that “Cycling is the New Golf.”  Business Insider  and the  New York Times  have covered the trend, and while golf has long been the go-to activity for business meetings outside the boardroom, there’s a new way to network. More and more business people are investing in bikes and hitting the pavement. This trend isn’t just on the rise in Silicon Valley or on the East Coast—thanks to its sunny weather and panoramic views, Colorado is home to dozens of top-notch golf courses, and has made a name for itself as a prime cycling destination, too. These days, it’s no longer just an after-work hobby—a cycling meeting is now a fairly standard way to network in Colorado."  READ  >>

By Mark Cramer, retiree, cycling advocate, regular contributor to  Freewheeling France   22 percent of the net growth in U.S. bike trips from 1995-2009 is by people ages 60-79. Their biking quadrupled in those 14 years, the fastest growth of any demographic. During the past 17 years I’ve been cycling on a regular basis. As I’ve aged (I’m 72 now), I have observed an increasing population of senior cyclers around me, especially in France, my home base. Recently in Paris I presented a slide show on Cycling in Bolivia. The canyon city of La Paz, Bolivia, where I live for six weeks each year, is 12,000 feet above sea level, has no bike lanes and if you find a rare flat street, it’s never going where you need it to. Given the challenge of cycling in an area with sometimes many thousand foot variations in altitude, I expected a younger crowd to attend the presentation. Instead, the audience was comprised mainly of seniors. Mingling with them I learned that their retireme...

JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION The University of Colorado Boulder study has buried the myth that electric bike users are “cheating”, demonstrating that riders do indeed get an “effective workout” and the  associated health benefits  associated with pedal powered bikes. Published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, the findings lent weight to a decision on whether or not to allow electric bikes on bike paths in the city of Boulder, which partially funded the study alongside the National Institutes of Health. Pete’s Electric Bikes, Republic Cycles and nutrition label  Skratch Labs  also donated to the funding. In delivering the study, researchers recruited a pool of twenty sedentary commuters, conducting tests of their overall health, blood glucose regulation and fitness. These commuters were then asked to shift their transport to work to the e-Bike fleet, using a speed and intensity setting of their choice for a minimum of 40 minutes three times per week. E...

For decades, smoking was one of the leading causes of cancer, but that's about to change. Obesity will likely claim the lead spot as the principal cause of 10 different types of cancer within the next decade. Cancer once seen as a disease of old age -- now increasingly being diagnosed up to to two decades earlier than in the past. Fortunately, researchers are also starting to recognize the  power of lifestyle changes  over drug prescriptions. It's been well documented by experts that  exercise  was such a 'potent' force against cancer that it should be prescribed as part of disease treatment, and at the top of the list is CYCLING! Recent studies continue to shed light on how everyday cycling is not only good for our cardiovascular health but also a way to save billions in health care costs. While everyday cycling is starting to be recognized as a low-impact form of exercise there remains resistance to accepting riding a bike as a form of preventive health ...

Susan B. Anthony said, "cycling did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world." By Natalie Angier, July 13, 2015 On May 10, 1884, midway through his 48th year, Samuel L. Clemens reluctantly “confessed to age” by wearing glasses for the first time. That same day, the celebrated writer better known as Mark Twain sought to reclaim his youth by mounting a bicycle for the first time. Only one of these first tries succeeded. “The spectacles,” Twain later recalled, “stayed on.” Bodily contusions notwithstanding, Twain promoted the new sport of cycling with characteristic rhubarb tartness. “Get a bicycle,” he urged readers. “You will not regret it, if you live.” Over the next decade, millions of Americans of all ages, trades and visual acuities would heed the pedaler’s cry. They would not only live, but would learn to stay majestically, propulsively upright, too. They would start cycling clubs, collect cycling paraphernalia, compose cycling...