7 reasons to participate in the 30 days of Biking Challenge



A 30 days of biking participant bikes along the West River Parkway.  Cool shot, no?

Around this time last year, bicyclists Patrick Stephenson and Zachariah Schaap created the 30 days of biking challenge to spark interest in biking among their friends.   The rules are this: Ride your bike for 30 days in a row, and share your experience online.  It doesn't matter how far you ride, just do it.  Their challenge went viral, and the challenge this year is getting about 100 tweets per hour (Star Tribune).  I saw this and immediately thought I should participate.  You should, too!  Here are 7 reasons why (I know I should have done 30 reasons, but that seemed like too much work):
1.  Exercise: Biking is good exercise - it gets your heart pumping, builds muscle in your legs, and can help you lose weight (though I'm a scrawny motherfucker, so I don't worry about that).

2.  Pollution / Fossil Fuels: Riding your bike doesn't pollute the air or use fossil fuels.  'Nuff said.

3.  Price:  The price of gas is about $3.50/ gallon and rising.  Not to mention thousands of dollars to insure and maintain a car.  And paying for accidents.  A bus pass in Minneapolis will cost $2/trip, or like $90/month.  A bike just costs a couple hundred initially, and then a few bucks every couple months to maintain.

4.  Convenience: You don't have to wait at a particular stop for a bus coming at a particular time.  You also don't have to deal with quarters for a parking meter or pay for a spot in a parking garage.

4.  Sharing is Caring: Sharing your pictures and stories will help motivate you to do something you like more often.

5.  Commutes: Bicycle commuters are part of an efficient transportation system.  Bikes take up less space than cars, and can ease congestion on crowded streets.

6.  Habits: Automatic habits take around 66 days to form (link).  Biking every day for 30 days will get you well on your way to forming a healthy and cheap habit.

7.  Fun: Riding your bike is fun!

CRA-A-A-A-ZY Driver in Brazil hits 20 Bicyclists!!

(Hat tip to Brian DeMarco for showing me this video)


The above video took place at a Critical Mass gathering in Porto Alegre, Brazil.  (If you're not in the know, Critical Masses are large bicycle rallies where bikers take over an entire street).  Here's a link to a more detailed article about this...

Thankfully, no one was killed, but 12 people were hospitalized because of this crazy motherfucker.  Almost as disturbing as the driver's lack of empathy were the Porto Alegre police chief's remarks:

"This is no Libya," said the chief, Gilberto Almeida Montenegro. "Here we have complete freedom to protest, as long as you tell authorities. Do your protest, but don't interfere in the flow of automobiles. If you interfere, there will be confusion, chaos and accident."
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bicycle/detail?entry_id=84019#ixzz1FPbuoLRi

Can you believe that?!  Some nutcase runs over a bunch of people peacefully riding bicycles, and the police chief blames it on "confusion, chaos, and accident"!  Un-be-fucking-lievable.  Imagine if someone had taken a gun out, shot, and wounded 12 people - hard to imagine that being called an accident.

To be fair, sometimes I get a little annoyed at people riding on bikes on the road, too.  For example, for a while in Minneapolis, every Friday afternoon there was a "Critical Mass" during rush hour that just happened to be on my way back from work.  These bikers held up everyone's commute every week for an extra 45 minutes, and for what?  I support their right to be on the road, but I don't think they accomplished anything but pissing a bunch of people off.

But I wouldn't drive my car through a bunch of them.  As ODB would say, that's enough to make someone go CRA-A-A-A-A-ZY

Bikes in the News: Nice Ride MInnesota

Hey readers, my last post was about economics in the news, so today I am posting about bikes in the news.  Today I am going to discuss Minneapolis's Nice Ride Program.  Read the full post to see what I think!