My morning routine

Last Thursday, Justin Chappell from Link filmed me as I rode to work. From the shots on the road and some interview footage that he filmed in my driveway, he put together a short video titled “A bike commuter's morning routine.” His idea with the video was to briefly explain the logistics of a typical bicycle commute to those who are interested, but have not yet tried riding to work. I really like the way the clip turned out; nice work Justin.

A few of my coworkers watched the video today and immediately started poking fun at me for saying that a shower isn’t always necessary in the morning and that I often just “clean up with deodorant.” Yeah, I admit it was a little funny the way I phrased it. Maybe I should have been clear and said that it isn’t always necessary to shower at work (for the record, I do shower at home before I leave). All jokes aside though, I think it was an important point to mention because I have heard people use the “lack of shower facilities at the workplace” excuse as a reason for not commuting by bicycle. In many cases with a short commute, a pre-ride shower followed by a post-ride cool down and clean-up in the sink is sufficient. Showers at work are nice if you have them, but as with most other obstacles to bike commuting, there are viable alternatives. If you are interested in bike commuting, I suggest you give it a try before deciding whether or not it works for you. I think you will find that the benefits outweigh any minor inconveniences that you have to overcome.

Bike2Work survey results

Results of the Bike2Work survey are now posted on the city’s website. See them for yourself here. Just over half of the respondents said that they had not ridden a bike to work in the past year. Still, almost half of you who took the survey did ride to work in the past year. That is great.

What stood out to me when I saw these results though, was the fact that over 20 percent of respondents had only ridden to work once or twice. Those people obviously have an interest in bike commuting, but, for whatever reason, don’t feel comfortable doing it on a regular basis. As I expected, the biggest obstacle chosen was “not feeling safe riding with traffic.” These results just confirm that there is work to be done on the local advocacy front. Improving the infrastructure for cycling is part of it, but educating drivers and cyclists about sharing the roads is at least equally important. Stay tuned here for more on that subject in future posts.

BTWD pictures

Yesterday, I requested pictures from the BTWD event. Jonathon emailed me a link to a post on his blog that features three pictures he took with his camera phone. Here you can see a few riders assembling at Hincapie Sportswear for the morning ride with the Mayor (I am right in the middle of this picture scratching my neck or something). Jonathon has two other pictures on his blog. The bottom one shows the crowd at Piazza Bergamo, but it looks like it was taken after people had already starting clearing out.

Anyway, Thanks again for the pictures Jonathon. If anyone else has shots from the event, please send them to me or let me know where I can find them on the web.

We had a great BTWD event

Greenville’s Bike to Work Day event last week was a great success. Over 60 cyclists showed up at Hincapie Sportswear early Friday morning for the ride with Mayor White and city council members to Piazza Bergamo. I want to thank those of you who got up early to participate in the ride on Friday. I think that Mayor White was impressed with the crowd as well. In his speech, the Mayor mentioned that it was a good turnout, but that next year we would shoot for an even 100 participants. Building on the success of this year’s event, I think that we, as a cycling community, can reach that goal for BTWD 2008.

I also want to again thank the sponsors for this year’s event. Atlanta Bread Company, Carolina Triathlon, Great Escape, Hincapie Sportswear, and Pulze Fitness all donated items that helped make this event a success. While I am thanking people, I should mention Greenville’s urban designer Andrew Meeker, who did the bulk of the work in putting this event together. I was glad to help him out a bit, but he deserves the credit for pulling this all together. Also, of course, thank you to Mayor Knox White for his participation and his continued dedication to making Greenville a bicycle friendly community. The Mayor mentioned a few projects in the works, including a planned underpass below River Street for the Greenway trail. This will link the busy path by Riverplace with the newest section of trail that currently begins at Linky Stone Park (the section that was part of the route on Friday morning).

If you were unable to attend, you can download a copy of the handout here (front and back) which has some basic commuting information. I would love to post pictures of the event, but somehow I forgot to pack my camera before I rode down on Friday. If any of you have pictures that you took on Friday and wish to share, please let me know.

Bike commuting in the Greenville News

The Greenville News profiled 5 different local bike commuters yesterday (I was one of them). If you missed the article, check it out here. My primary reason for riding to work is that it is “free” riding time that I would otherwise have to spend in my car. The commute is perfect for me for many reasons, but the main one is that I just love to ride. By riding to work, I get miles in during the week and the riding doesn’t take time away from work or family. Other commuters cited different primary reasons for riding to work including personal health, environmental concerns, and saving money. Overall, I think it was a great article, but I felt the need to clarify my quote with a comment at the bottom of the page. In general, Greenville is a great place to ride a bike and it is getting better all the time.

Also in Tuesday’s paper were two other cycling related articles, one about the Ride of Silence, which will place tonight, and one about Greenville’s Bike to Work Day event on Friday morning. Take a look at all three articles if you haven’t already seen them. It is great to see this kind of press coverage of cycling in the upstate.

Bicycle Commuting links

National Bike-to-Work week is officially underway, so I want to point you toward a few good resources for commuting information on the web. Whether you have been bike commuting for a while or you are just thinking about trying it for the first time, you will probably find some helpful information on these sites:


Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips
One of the first and best places on the web for general commuting information

Bike Commute Tips Blog
Helpful suggestions for commuting by bicycle from Paul Dorn of the above site

Ken Kifer's bike commuting and transportation pages
Full of great information. Check out the links to commuting articles.

Raleigh Commutes Blog
An entertaining blog about commuting from the folks at Raleigh Bicycles

Commute By Bike blog
Another great blog about bike commuting

Bike Commuter
An interesting site with commuter stories and a calendar of events

Cyclelicious
A great blog about bikes in general. Fritz is a dedicated bike commuter and he writes about commuting issues fairly often.


Enjoy the links and don’t forget Greenville’s Bike-to-Work Day event at the end of this week. I’ll see you there.

The Ride of Silence

Next Wednesday, May 16th, Greenville and Spartanburg cyclists will participate in a combined Upstate Ride of Silence. This ride, which will take place on the same day in over 200 U.S. cities and 6 countries, was started in Dallas, Texas in 2003 to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways. Cyclists of all abilities are encouraged to attend. The ride is free to take part in and will proceed silently at a pace no faster than 12 mph. Unfortunately, many of us know someone who has been seriously injured or killed while cycling, so I hope that you will all consider participating in this ride next Wednesday. In addition to paying respect to fallen cyclists, the Ride Of Silence helps to raise public awareness about the presence of cyclists on the roads in our communities.

Thanks to Kimberly Morgan, Greenville co-chair, and Richard Dillard, Spartanburg co-chair, for organizing this event. More information about the Upstate Ride of Silence, as well as pictures from last year, can be found on the Freewheelers site. Here is the general information about the 2007 event from the ride organizers:


NO COST!!! Next Wednesday!!!To "register" please click here to send an email and simply list yourname, and/or the names of family members who will participate.

What: Upstate RIDE OF SILENCE (For ALL abilities) We need/want veteran cyclists and beginning cyclists.

Why: Bring attention to the huge population of cyclists in the Upstate and need for safe roads. Tribute to fallen/injured cyclists

Goal: 200+ cyclists riding single file 10 yards apart, stretching over a mile.

Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2007Time: 7:00 P.M

Place: Bruce Group Auctions - (2.5 miles south of I-85 on Highway 101 in Greer.)

Pace: Maximum 12mph

Route: South on Hwy. 101 bike lanes toward Woodruff for 6 miles to Bellview Church and return.

Course: Flat, Flat, Flat !!!

Helmets Required

“Fast” Freddy in Greenville

This isn’t exactly advocacy news, but I can't resist passing it along. It sounds like “Fast” Freddy Rodriguez of the Predictor-Lotto team is going to be the next professional cyclist to take up residence (part of the time anyway) in Greenville County. Freddy just bought a home site at Pla d'Adet, George Hincapie’s real estate development near the Saluda reservoir. According to an email announcement from Pla d'Adet, “Freddy will also be a consultant to the Hincapie Performance Group at Pla d'Adet and we will be introducing a Fast Freddie Coffee Shop, his very successful west coast coffee franchise to the Pla d'Adet Training Center.”

I think this is great news for Greenville and I can’t wait to hear about more pro riders buying property in the development. Now I just hope to see the county’s greenway plan link the Pla d’Adet development to the proposed downtown greenway network.

More downtown bike parking

Twenty four new inverted U type bike racks were recently installed in downtown Greenville. You can download a map of the new rack locations here. The locations don’t exactly match this September 2005 proposed bicycle parking map from the Spinners advocacy group, but these new racks are at least partly a result of those early efforts. If you are thinking about getting involved in local advocacy efforts, I can tell you that it is a good feeling to see projects take shape like this.

Also, the city now has an official webpage up for Bike-to-Work day. You can read more about the Greenville BTWD event, view the city council resolution to endorse the LAB Bicycle Friendly Community action plan, download an event poster, or download a route map for the ride with Mayor White. It is going to be a great event so plan to be there. See you downtown in less than two weeks.

BTWD poster

It’s hot off the presses, so to speak. We just put the finishing touches on Greenville’s 2007 Bike-to-Work Day poster. Double click the image to see a larger picture and print a copy for your office or wherever else it is that you post flyers. If you need a high-res version, email me and I will be glad to send you a copy (I just hope the good people over at Phil Wood don’t mind me using an image of one of their track cogs to frame the picture of Mayor White).

Also regarding Bike-to-Work Day, please take a minute to take the short survey that Andrew Meeker set up on the city’s website. Speaking of Andrew, check out the recent Link article about him if you haven’t already seen it. Andrew is the city’s sole urban designer and is the driving force behind BTWD and many other bike related projects going on in Greenville. As a cycling community we are lucky to have him working for the city.

Lastly, I want to point you to a few fairly recent articles about bike commuting. I’ll post more general commuting information in the coming weeks, but check these out for now:

The cycle commute gets chic - So says this May 11, 2006 Wall Street Journal article. No argument from me.

Why Should I Commute by Bike? -Read a short excerpt from roadbikerider.com's e-book about bike commuting.

Bicycle Commuting Enjoys a Rebirth- This September 2006 article comes from the nonprofit group Environmental Defense and has some good general information about bike commuting.

L.A. bicycle resource guide –Nobody rides a bike in Los Angeles. Not true, but that is the first myth that this downloadable pdf booklet dispels. This guide is intended to get people riding in L.A., but it is a good resource no matter where you live.

Greenville’s Bike-to-Work Day

Greenville’s Bike-to-Work Day will take place this year on Friday, May 18th. At 7:30 am, Mayor Knox White will lead a short ride starting at the Hincapie Sportswear’s office (45 Pete Hollis Boulevard Greenville, SC 29601) and ending at Piazza Bergamo downtown. At Piazza Bergamo, a coffee and bagel breakfast will be served to all bike commuters and the Mayor will be on hand to update us on the progress that has been made this year toward making Greenville an LAB designated “Bicycle Friendly Community”. There will also be drawings for great prizes and lots of good information about bike commuting and advocacy, so don’t miss it.

More information about the event will follow, but for now mark your calendars and plan to attend to show your support for bike friendly initiatives in Greenville. Even if you can’t make it downtown for the event, plan to ride your bike to work on May 18th. Between now and then I will post links to some great bicycle commuting resources on the web to help some of you get started. I have been commuting to work by bike off and on for about 15 years, so if you have specific questions about bicycle commuting, feel free to email me at jctdesign@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer them.

I hope to see many of you in a few weeks downtown.

Photo: Mayor White (in the helmet) talks to Jason Van Driesche at last year’s BTWD event

Why the new blog?

If you followed a link here from the Spinners e-mail list you may be asking that very question. Those of us who reside in Greenville already know that this area is a great place to live and ride. Some of you may remember a 2005 CyclingNews article where George Hincapie said “People are always asking why I live in Greenville and I think it's my little hidden paradise. It's the best place to ride your bike in the country." I couldn’t agree more. Many people have worked hard to make Greenville cycle friendly in recent years, but there is still work to be done to make it even better. This blog is meant to serve as a place for those of us who are interested in bicycle advocacy to discuss issues that we all consider important. I’ll try to keep you up to date on the progress of the Greenville Spinners advocacy committee, and I hope that you will provide feedback through the comments section on each post. If any of you have ideas for topics to post, feel free to pass them along. I can’t promise that the frequency of posting here will always be consistent, but I will try to update it as often as I can. I hope you will bookmark the site or add the feed to your RSS reader and check in from time to time.

In this first post, I should probably mention BikePortland.org, which inspired me to give this a try. If you have never seen the site, check it out. Don’t expect this blog to be as elaborate or comprehensive as that one anytime soon, but I do hope to take a few cues from the format that has been successful there. Like I said before, this is a work in progress so suggestions are welcome. It will be fun to see how this blog evolves. Stay tuned.