All Posts Tagged With: "bicycles"

League of American Bicyclists is a non-profit organization working to make this country better for cycling. Their website and events provide a forum for cycling in your area, why people ride, and how to take action on a bike. Some recent work has included a “conserve by bike” amendment to the energy bill and the Bike Commuter Act. Read more about this act.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELa5CHsUepo[/youtube]

Greg Cantori, Executive Director of the Knott Foundation, and an avid bicyclist, discovered “Ciclovia” while visiting Bogota, Colombia. Every Sunday, they close 70 miles of streets from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Up to 2 million residents bike, rollerblade, walk, do group exercise classes, and generally enjoy themselves.

Greg immediately set about importing this community-wide exercise program to Baltimore. Here is what he envisions that Sunday Streets will mean for Baltimore:

• Increased activity -physical activity, economic activity and tourism.

• Youth engagement and employment opportunities

• Clean air and some quiet for a day

• Free exercise classes – Frankly few people can access health clubs, and what’s so fun about being stuck indoors when our whole city is available and waiting for us? Let’s get out and spin, dance, stretch, twirl, run and jump!

• Social re-engagement – This is our physical INTERNET. We provide the network (routing) and our entrepreneurs and communities go from there. Imagine the possibilities…..

• Putting Baltimore on the map nationally for something extremely positive that fosters real Happiness.

Already thousands of people know about it – let’s make it 10,000, 100,000 and then a million. Isn’t this a perfect, visible program to help promote Mayor Dixon’s “cleaner, greener” Baltimore? Tell everyone you know about this, and if you have any questions, contact Greg Cantori (gcantori(at)knottfoundation.org) or Carol Silldorff (carolsilldorff(at)comcast.net).

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6792669971272526732[/googlevideo]

Velocipede Bike Project is a collectively-run non-profit organization dedicated to helping people use bicycles as transportation. They collect donated, second-hand and landfill-bound bikes, which they use to teach people how to repair and build their own bicycles, while also providing affordable and safe refurbished bicycles and parts. They seek to provide transportation to people of low and moderate incomes, encourage healthy lifestyles, reduce the waste flow into landfills, and decrease dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels.