Bike Pittsburgh

Reposted from an email we received:

—–Original Message—–
From: Sharon Gretz [mailto:sgretz@gotoskn.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 5:05 PM
To: ‘Sharon Gretz’
Subject: Lose The Training Wheels Needs Volunteers!!!
Importance: High

Dear Folks,

I would appreciate it if you can forward this volunteer appeal to anyone that you may know who has some time next week to volunteer for the first ever Pittsburgh area Lose the Training Wheels Bike Camp

Youth with disabilities and special needs are learning to ride regular two wheel bicycles independently. These are older youth,ages 8 - 18 , many of whom gave up on ever learning to ride independently. We are changing that next week at the Iceoplex of Southpointe, right off of I-79 in Canonsburg

We need volunteers to come daily, July 21 - 25, for the following sessions:

11:30 AM - 12:45 PM

1:45 PM - 3:00 PM

We can also use a couple more voluteers at:

3:15 PM - 4:30 P

Each session lasts 1.5 hours. These youth are counting on us so hope you might have some ideas of additional volunteers

Here is information about the Lose the Training Wheels Organization:

http://www.losethetrainingwheels.org

Many of the 70 children who attend the CHS Summer Camp program do not have working bicycles.

CHS has arranged to take ten of these student to Free Ride for a once a week, eight session course in choosing and fixing up a bicycle. The educational experience is very much enjoyed by the students and in addition to increasing their knowledge everyone gets to take home a bike! Due to limited funds, the money to support these sessions must be sought outside of the general, sliding scale tuition which only covers 20% of the basic funding for the summer camp. That is why we are asking for your help!

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/lose-weight-wit.html

Keeping gas in the family truckster is slimming more than wallets these days and could have Americans tightening their belts — literally. According to Charles Courtemanche, an assistant economics professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, rising fuel prices are the ultimate crash diet for a nation that grew fat on cheap gas.

Courtemanche says a $1 increase in the price of gasoline could cut the obesity rate by 10 percent, saving 16,000 lives and $17 billion in health care costs each year. He makes the case in “A Silver Lining? The Connection Between Gasoline Prices and Obesity,” his doctoral dissertation in health economics. The paper, currently being peer-reviewed, can be summed up in the simple idea that people walk more, bike more and dine out less when gas prices rise.

Evidence suggests he’s on to something. Read more»

Back by popular demand (and we ran out of the last batch)

We’ve reprinted our ever popular stickers, this time with some new slogans and updated designs. It’s satisfying to say that we’ve seen these all over town. New for this batch include “PIEROGIE POWERED,” “LIVE FREE OR DRIVE,” and “KEEP FIT RIDE A CYCLIST.” We’ve also printed two new ones commenting on the current state of affairs over the gas prices: “GAME OVER,” (for video game fans) and “WHAT ME WORRY?” (for those who grew up reading MAD Magazine). We kept some of the more popular ones with a bit of an updated design.

Make sure to grab some when you see us in person, or if you don’t want to wait, simply send us $6 bucks (shipping included) and we’ll send you one of each.

You can send us a check or well concealed cash to our office, or simply click below to order through google checkout.

The downtown art space, Future Tenant, will be screening a bicycle-inspired film each Friday night at 8pm from July 18 through August 15. Come by bike (or car, or bus, or foot!) to enjoy great movies, snacks, and the company of fellow bike-lovers!

…and best of all, it’s FREE!!

JULY

Friday, July 18th Bike-In Movie Night: B.I.K.E, 8pm - B.I.K.E. follows its director’s attempts to join the Black Label Bicycle Club, a group driven by anti-materialism and a belief that the impending apocalypse will render cars useless.

Friday, July 25th Bike-In Movie Night: The Bicycle Thief, 8pm (also Critical Mass)- Vittorio De Sica’s masterpiece about a poor father in postwar-ravaged Rome who finally finds work, only to have his precious bicycle stolen the first day on the job.

AUGUST

Friday, August 1st Bike-In Movie Night: Quicksilver, 8pm- Kevin Bacon stars as a young stockbroker who loses it all, then quits his job to become a city bicycle messenger

Friday, August 8th Bike-In Movie Night: Il Postino, 8pm- Pablo Neruda stays in Italy while exiled from CHile, and postman Mario delivers his mail by bike. The men become friends, and Neruda introduces Mario to poetry, romance, and revolution.

Friday, August 15th Bike-In Movie Night: The Triplets of Belleville, 8pm - When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her dog team up with the Belleville Sisters to rescue him.

All screenings at Future Tenant
819 Penn Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
412.325.7037

Monday, July 14, 2008
By LaMont Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When the weather is favorable, Terry Plowman can get from his West Mifflin home to his Downtown job in about 45 minutes.

Not by car or bus, but by an increasingly popular mode of commuting — bicycle. And after a quick change from his biking gear to business casual, Mr. Plowman is ready for another day of work at Verizon.

There are signs that more Pittsburghers, and Americans in general, are commuting to work on bikes, a trend fueled by warm weather, environmental concerns and the rising cost of gasoline.

“It’s unbelievable to me the change that has gone on over the past two or three years,” said Brad Quartuccio, editor of Urban Velo, a local cycling magazine.

Mr. Quartuccio has been biking to work for more than a decade — currently a 15-mile trip from Bloomfield to Robinson — and has noticed more and fuller bike racks at sites ranging from office buildings to grocery stores.

Sean Brady, assistant executive director of Venture Outdoors, a local outdoor recreational outfit, agrees. “It’s gradually increased in the last seven years, especially the last year or so,” he said. “Gas is probably the biggest inspiration, but the riverfront trails taking shape are part of it. And the culture around here really seems to be responding to outdoor opportunities.”

Whether rolling along special trails, designated lanes or crowded streets, for bike commuters heading to work there’s the added question of how to dress.

Most people who bike to work don’t do so every day because of inclement weather or schedules. But when they do, it takes planning because there’s usually a need to groom and change clothes when arriving at work.

Mr. Plowman, 54, is among those who takes a change of clothes with him each day.

Others, like John Burgess at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, keep a mini wardrobe at the office to avoid added weight on the bike. In nearly five years of biking from Point Breeze to the East Liberty campus, the professor has discovered that it’s best not to wear your work trousers on the 15-minute trip.

“You’ll get grease on your pants, even when you’re being careful,” he said. “And on a hot day, you get sweaty.”

There’s an added dimension for professional women, who may find it more difficult to manage a bike in a skirt or dress.

Barbara Brewton of Oakland wears shorts or capris and a T-shirt and carries a change of business casual work clothes on her bike. Kim O’Dell of Mt. Lebanon, her coworker at the Heinz Family Foundation, keeps business suits and heels at the office to change into.

Both began biking to work this summer a couple of days a week and are fortunate that their office — unlike most — has the convenience of showers, an iron and an ironing board.

Mrs. O’Dell, 47, who commuted by bike in Washington, D.C., before moving to Pittsburgh in 1993, said her family of four “sat down in January and decided we were going to reduce our energy usage and waste.”

The many hills of Pittsburgh can be daunting, and they intimidated Mrs. Brewton into putting her bike in storage when she and her family moved to Pittsburgh from Virginia 27 years ago.

But she recently began biking again when she and her husband began looking for more activities to do together as their children age. And it wasn’t long before she was enjoying a breezy 15-minute bike commute to work.

Getting home can take 20 to 45 minutes, she said, depending upon which of several routes she takes.

“The more I do it, the less overwhelming it seems,” said Mrs. Brewton, 48. “I have this mantra now: ‘The hills are my friends.’ I have to somehow embrace these hills or I’m not going to [bike] at all.”

Whether one wears casual clothes or high-tech biker gear, some sort of clothing change at work is almost inevitable for everyone who works in an office setting.

Mr. Brady, the Venture Outdoors vice president, who bikes from his Observatory Hill home to his Downtown office several times a week year-round, said comfort and being visible are the two key factors in dressing for bike commuting to work.

He and other observers expect a continued rise in the number of people biking to work.

“It’s a nationwide trend, and you’re seeing increases all across the country,” said Eric Boerer with Bike Pittsburgh, a nonprofit that promotes bike safety and public awareness and believes that Pittsburgh is ahead of many cities in being biker-friendly.

“As a society,” added Mr. Quartuccio at Urban Velo, “I don’t think we’re going to have any choice but to rethink our total reliance on cars for short trips.”

Post-Gazette fashion editor LaMont Jones can be reached at ljones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1469.

First published on July 14, 2008 at 12:00 am

Wednesday, July 09, 2008
By Joshua Welsh

Two years ago, I built a bicycle. I collected the parts from several local and online stores. Then, with several boxes of parts and a golden yellow frame, I went to Freeride, the nonprofit bike recycling shop in Homewood.

The people at Freeride let me use their tools to assemble my bike after I donated my time to teach others what I had learned about bikes and bike maintenance. I was building my bike for my daily commute of eight miles from Friendship to the South Side, primarily to address health issues.

Two years later, both my heart and my lower back are stronger because of this decision, a decision that was made on the eve of our city’s winning its prized “Most Livable” recognition.

Today I am faced with a new health issue. Air polluted by soot can increase the risk of cardiovascular death by 150 percent, and Pittsburgh is now known as the “sootiest” city in America, as recently ranked by the American Lung Association. Due to one modest coke plant a few miles from Downtown, we have relapsed into a reputation that plagued our city until most of the steel mills closed in the early 1980s.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dozen Bakeshop in Lawrenceville is seeking support to be the first business to install on-street bike parking in Pgh (see video below). An innovative idea that has already happened in NYC, on-street bike parking usually means the sidewalk is extended out the length of a typical parking spot. Bike racks are then installed and allowed to park in what otherwise was a spot dedicated to a vehicle. We are currently seeking support from the community to show the city of Pgh that this community is progressive, forward thinking, and environmentally conscious.

We believe that this project will help change the way we think of transportation in the city of Pgh and legitimate the use of bicycles and those who depend on them for real movement throughout the city of Pgh. In addition, we do not believe the loss of the single parking space will affect the parking needs of this area.

Advantages:
-encourages more biking. taking a few more cars of the street.
-sets a precedent for biking as a genuine form of transportation.
-takes bikes off the sidewalks, street signs, and trees and gives them a dedicated parking area.
-reduces pollution.
-encourages physical activity and wellness.
-supports the project of lower butler in becoming the next boutique and entertainment district in the revitalization of our city.
-there is a dearth of bike parking in Lawrenceville

We ask that the city of Pgh and the involved offices investigate this project.

Go down to the shop today and sign the petition!

First video: How biking can get you to work cheaply, and the cities that are investing in bicycle infrastructure
Second video: How biking is fantastic for your health and mood
Third video: How you can easily commute and shop by bike

July 6, 2008

So Americans bedeviled by $4-plus-a-gallon gas want more transportation choices? They have no idea of what real choices are.

For a taste of our necessary future — driven by rapid energy cost inflation and climate emergencies — check the streets of Amsterdam.

Sure, cars still function here. But by our standards, their numbers are remarkably modest. Especially on center city streets, another king reigns: the bicycle.

Bikes, indeed, swarm around by the thousands. With reserved lanes on practically every street, they’re ridden by passengers of both sexes, virtually all ages, from necktied gents and high-heeled ladies to jeans-clad youth and uniformed police officers.

And what the busy Amsterdamers accomplish on their two-wheelers defies imagination. They read maps, talk on cell phones, window shop. They “walk” their dogs, carry kids or canines in baskets great or small. Still rolling, they text message, eat ice cream, drink coffee, carry huge packages and musical instruments, sometimes a second rider. I even saw lovers on two bikes, holding hands as they cruised the streets. Read more»

Here’s an excellent article that ran in the Times on Sunday, July 6th about how “over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries.” We’ve hit hard times, people, and we are going to need to make monumentally life-changing decisions and soon. We need to immediately abandon our outmoded ways of planning our communties, our outmoded ways of thinking about transportation, and our outmoded celebration of car-culture.

For the rest of the country, the feeling is more like shock. As gasoline prices climb beyond $4 a gallon, Americans are rethinking what they drive and how and where they live. Entire industries are reeling — airlines and automakers most prominent among them — and gas prices have emerged as an important issue in the presidential campaign.

Read the article here»

Cyclist relishes dream come true
By Karen Price
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, July 5, 2008

One day after being named to the United States Olympic cycling team, Peters Township native Mike Friedman still couldn’t quite believe the dream had become a reality.

“It’s just an honor,” Friedman said by phone Wednesday from Colorado, where he has been living and training for the past year. “I just can’t believe I’m going to the Games. It’s the Olympics, you know?”

Friedman, 25, will be racing on the track in the Madison, a team event in which two riders relay for a specified number of laps. It will be his first trip to the Olympics.

On Thursday, Friedman flew to Italy for a race that takes place Monday, beginning the official warm-up for Beijing. On July 21, he and a group of other Olympic teammates will go to the White House for a dinner with President Bush. Read more»