Editor's Statement
Something I hope we can all agree on is that we’d like to see more people on more bikes. How to get there isn’t so clear, with layers of problems with sometimes circular or even conflicting proposed solutions. Take dedicated bike lanes and facilities—they clearly increase bike usage and safety, but without adequate people giving cyclist’s a voice at the table in the first place how do such public works projects first get off the ground? Even with infrastructure improvements, how do we get more bikes on the road when the entry level seems so expensive, and so far from the bikes that people really want or need to urban riding?
Through decades of advocacy efforts, funding at the federal level for bikes and other non-motorized transportation has been on the rebound after some time, with the United States Secretary of Transportation seriously addressing cycling as legitimate transportation, and its users as legitimate tax-payers, for one of the few times since the automobile was created. Racks in business districts are full and big-box stores are carrying bikes that only a few short years ago were in the sole domain of those in the know. As our numbers and visibility has grown, so has the influence of the urban cyclist’s dollar and it is something that even the most stubborn are being forced to recognize.
Besides Merckx or Coppi perhaps, few are born a cyclist. People turn on at different times, through different means. As the numbers grow and urban cycling moves out of the sphere of the underground faster than ever it’s my feeling that it’s important to embrace rather than fight the growth through false bravado or a sense of ownership of the scene. We’re all in this together. The kid on the Walmart bike today could be the local fast guy or ace mechanic tomorrow—better to be the one who encouraged them along the way than to be remembered as the jerk that thought they invented two wheels.
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