Thanks to @heidiswift on Twitter for calling my attention to this great video by People for Bikes. It reminds the writer of this post, how the other night around 6:30PM I rode my bicycle (basket and fenders and light – check!) through the streets of Downtown Charleston in the diminishing light. I caught the scent of a sizzling steak as I rode by South End Brewery, then the heady perfume of some incredible dish that the Barbados Room was cooking up, and then as I passed by 82 Queen, the aromas of shrimp and grits fled to my nose. Now some of you might not like those smells of the city humming, but I do. I love having every one of my senses alive and fulfilled when I am on a bike. That’s why I ride.
Why do you ride?
Filed under: Infrastructure, News | Tags: Bike-friendly, Biking Lifestyle, News, Video
Way back in October, a little birdie told us that Google Maps was going to be launching Bike There directions on Google Maps. Well – it’s here!! At this weeks’ National Bike Summit, Google announced that it will be rolling out “Bike There” in 150 cities around the country. Users are able to enable the biking layer via the “More” button on Google Maps.
Here’s a more detailed article on Wired and check out the video below.
Filed under: Community Organizations, Cycle Chic | Tags: Charleston, Healthy Community, News, Trends, Biking Lifestyle, Cycle Chic
This great google map was put together by our Cycle Chic cohorts at Bike by the Sea in Santa Barbara. Isn’t it neat to think that 10s of 1000s of us are Cycling Chic all over the world, and that our marvelous little town on the Atlantic is part of it?? Pretty amazing…
View Larger Map
Filed under: Events | Tags: Biking Lifestyle, Events, Inspiration, Slow Bicycle Movement
If you recall, way back in May, I wrote a post about Jeff Mapes book “Pedaling Revolution”, because he believes women will lead the way in changing the country’s attitude toward bicycling. Here’s an excerpt…
“As Mapes points out, when more women begin riding, that will signal a big change in attitude, which will prompt further changes in the direction of safety and elegance. I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow…. ” (more…)
Filed under: Infrastructure | Tags: Bike-friendly, Biking Lifestyle, Cycle Chic, Inspiration, Video
I am a huge fan of Streetfilms so forgive me if I link to their videos all the time – but check out this recent one starring our very own Cycle Chic guru, Mikael Colville-Andersen. He talks about the Copenhagen bicycling infrastructure, which frankly, is mind-blowing to a budding bike town inhabitant like me.
KULTURE KLASH ARTS FESTIVAL
November 7th, 2009
8pm-2am
1635 Cosgrove Avenue
North Charleston, SC
In The Navy Yard at Noisette
Tickets $10/$15/$20
MORE INFO: http://www.kultureklashartsfestival.com
November 6th – free artist reception 8pm-11pm (more…)
Filed under: Cycle Chic, Events | Tags: Biking Lifestyle, CCC, Events, Healthy Community
Now that the Pecha Kucha location has been revealed (The Music Farm!) I can reveal our ride route and meetup location for our October 21st Ride to Pecha Kucha Night Charleston
Start: Marion Square @5:45PM
Meetup: Chai’s @ around 6:30PM
Pecha Kucha: 7:15 @ The Music Farm (we’ll be locking our bikes here before we go to Chai’s)
Filed under: Cycle Chic, Events | Tags: Biking Lifestyle, Cycle Chic, Events, News
Yes that’s right all you lovely people with bikes – our next Cycle Chic Ride is going to Pecha Kucha Night Charleston on October 21st! Why? Because we love what they do and what they represent and man, this next line-up is a doozy not to be missed. It’s all about creativity, inspiration, entrepreneurship and having a bit of fun fun fun. So let’s go ride our bikes! It’s easier than looking for parking…. (more…)
Filed under: Cycle Chic, News | Tags: Bike-friendly, Biking Lifestyle, Cycle Chic, Trends
I found this great article in the New York Times, that talks about biking as the new art of living. Aren’t we so hip and fabulous Charleston Cycle Chic-ers? New York City itself has come a long way in making the city more bike-friendly and since most trends and fashions start in the US in NYC, I’m hoping some of their influence will rub off here. 
Here are some excerpts from the article! Click here for the full text.
“Until recently, bikes were merely fashionable. Lately, it seems, they are fashion — and they don’t have to be ultraexpensive novelty items to qualify. As fashion companies start marketing bicycles and bike gear, Mr. Dutreil, a supporter of bicycle-advocacy programs in New York, said he wants to see more cyclists pedaling around in high style, just like that woman in the Randall photograph.
“An elegant lady or man,” he said, “on a bike that is elegant, that’s really the new art of living.”
In fact, bikes have become de rigueur in many boutique windows. It is no coincidence that fashion is having a bike moment at the same time that New York City, the capital of American fashion, has gone bicycle crazy. The number of daily cyclists in the city has jumped to an estimated 185,000, from 107,000 in 2005, according to Transportation Alternatives, a bicycle-advocacy organization. In addition, the city has installed more than 120 miles of bike lanes in the last two years, making it easier for new cyclists to take to the streets dressed to impress, not to duel with cars.
While some cyclists outside the fashion world expressed mixed feelings about seeing their trusty mode of transportation turned into the next gladiator sandal, others looked on the bright side. Even if new riders buy a bike only because they’re the cool new thing, they’re still buying a bike, wrote Matt Simonds, a cyclist who works at a nonprofit agency, in an e-mail message. In such cases, he wrote, “it’s kind of strange what happens when they got on a bike after a long period away from one — they remember how awesome it is to ride one.”
Ok – obviously much has changed for women in 114 years, but this excerpt about Women and Bicycling from Statemaster.com gives us some historical perspective. Bicycles emancipated women – in style, in transportation options, in the ability to explore life on their own. Pretty neat, huh?
“The diamond-frame safety bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their emancipation in Western nations. As bicycles became safer and cheaper, more women had access to the personal freedom they embodied, and so the bicycle came to symbolize the New Woman of the late nineteenth century, especially in Britain and the United States.
The bicycle was recognized by nineteenth-century feminists and suffragists as a “freedom machine” for women. American Susan B. Anthony said in a New York World interview on February 2,1896: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” In 1895 Frances Willard, the tightly-laced president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, wrote a book called How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, in which she praised the bicycle she learned to ride late in life, and which she named “Gladys”, for its “gladdening effect” on her health and political optimism. Willard used a cycling metaphor to urge other suffragists to action, proclaiming, “I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum….”
Bicycle Advertisement from 1895
