Summer 2010 Spoken Wheel
The Summer edition of our newsletter is coming soon… Stay tuned.
FREE Bicycle Education Workshop
Interested in riding you bicycle to get to work, run errands, or just for fun? Not quite sure what the best riding practices are around town? Join us for a FREE Bicycle Confidence Workshop and feel empowered on your bike!
Our Street Skills workshop is designed to teach you how to take on the road with confidence. Learn simple and innovative techniques to ride safely, get noticed, and gain the respect of motorists on the road.
After a short time inside, we’ll go over some bike riding basics in a traffic free space before we take to the road to put your new skills to use! Riding as a group will certainly have you feeling more comfortable on the road right away, and you’ll leave feeling better than ever about taking on traffic!
Registration for the workshop is FREE and can be done online.
Brought to you by the SLO County Bicycle Coalition and the City of San Luis Obispo.
Saturday, September 25th | 860 Pacific St, San Luis Obispo | 8:30 am – 1:00 pm | FREE
Biking Trips Double Since 1990
Great news from US Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, since 1990, the number of trips made by bicycle have more than doubled! The statistic is part of the National Biking and Walking Study: a 15 Year Study Report, aimed at decreasing the number of fatalities, while increasing the number of biking and walking trips in the United States.
From 1990 to 2009, the number of bicycle trips went from 1.7 billion to 4 billion, while walking trips increased from 18 billion to 42.8 billion:
This increase in bicycle trips is a great sign for the future of bicycle infrastructure and safety in the US, and something that the Coalition works hard to promote all the time! Increasing our bicycle trips will have positive effects in the health, sustainability and community interaction throughout the country.
Along with these major increases in bicycle and pedestrian trips, comes increased funding as well. As you can see below, funding nearly doubled from 2008 to 2009, with major thanks to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for understanding the importance of these modes of transportation.
More funding for bicycles and pedestrians is great, but as you can tell from the graph, they still only make up 2% of the total transportation budget. LaHood understands and promotes these forms of transportation for many reasons, and the more of us there are on the road, the more likely we are to get more funding for better facilities and programs in the future!
Kudos to everyone that rides and walks to contribute to these benefits, and we hope to see more of you out on two wheels soon!
You can view the original post from the Transportation Secretary here.
Bendable Bike
This bendable bike doesn’t require a lock, mainly because the bike can wrap ITSELF around whatever post you might need to lock onto! The frame is rigid when riding, and with a simple pull of a lever, becomes flexible and can contort to lock to itself!
Designed by UK industrial designer Kevin Scott, who is currently looking for investors to help him develop the idea further and perhaps push it into production.
electric bicycle concept
Ralf Kittmann recently won major accolades among the design community for his electric bicycle concept HMK 561. Below is the fully functional prototype made from “conductive carbon fiber, which is not only an excellent conductor of electricity, but also acts as a capacitor that can store energy.”
Traditionally, e-bikes have a battery stored in the bulky frame somewhere, but this new concept allows the carbon fiber frame to create and transmit power to the motor & lights between the rims. With this new idea, you sit essentially on the battery, which is charged through the frame when you’re pedaling! BRILLIANT!
bicycle sidecar
Have you ever wanted to be able to safely transport two people on one bicycle, without having to have a tandem bicycle all the time? Now’s your chance! Check out this website to see some construction tips on how to build yourself a slick looking sidecar and roll around in style.
copenhagen bike share program
the winners of the design competition for the new copenhagen bike share bicycle have been announced. taking top prize is erik nohlin of LOTS design. the new bicycles will be placed at bike share stations throughout one of the world’s most bike friendly cities, allowing users to swipe a credit card in order to ‘check out’ a bicycle for their personal use.
an incorporated front rack will allow users to run errands easily, thus encouraging alternative transportation for simple trips like to the grocery store or dinner.
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