Category: Inspiring (Page 5 of 7)

Where the Ride Takes Us: Connecting Kids To Healthy Foods

May 8, 2013 /

Below is a repost of a great, great story by Carolyn Szczepanski of The League of American Bicyclists about how Neil Walker, a leading League Cycling Instructor Coach, a youth program coordinator for Metro Atlanta Cycling Club, founder of Cycles and Change and member of the League’s Equity Advisory Council.

The URL of the original story is http://blog.bikeleague.org/blog/2013/05/where-the-ride-takes-us-connecting-kids-to-healthy-foods/

Where the Ride Takes Us: Connecting Kids To Healthy Foods

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In honor of National Bike Month, we’re spotlighting how bicycles are tools for personal empowerment, social justice and community development in our with our “Where the Ride Takes Us” web series. Today’s post comes from Neil Walker, a leading League Cycling Instructor Coach, a youth program coordinator for Metro Atlanta Cycling Club, founder of Cycles and Change and member of the League’s Equity Advisory Council.

Two years ago, the Atlanta Bike Coalition, the Dream Team and Metro Atlanta Cycling Club partnered with City Councilman Aaron Watson to do a series of rides called “Living Smarter.” These rides were developed to support farmers markets and community gardens.

There has always been the conversation about quality food and the fact that it isn’t affordable for those that are financially challenged. Unfortunately, whole foods are not an option when you are living on a limited budget — but visiting the local community gardens and understanding how they work gives parents a more viable option.

The initial idea was to find a way to deal with obesity and Type 2 diabetes. We have always worked with nutrition as part of our programming but most of it had been done through our partnership with the East Atlanta Kids Club. The Tour de Farm was different than anything else that had been done in Atlanta — an opportunity to educate our youth contingent (The Dream Team and The Drew Charter School Bike Club) on healthy eating choices and affordable food options other than the local supermarkets.

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Each farm or vendor site represented a unique aspect of local sustainable agriculture, offering a great learning experience — with riders having the option of participating in the whole tour with camping or for one-day only. All meals and snacks were provided and primarily sourced from the farms on the tour and other market vendors and partners fincluded the East Atlanta Farmers Market, the Grant Park Farmers Market, Whole Foods, The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, Loose Nuts Cycles, Georgia Organics, and the participating farm sites.

While bike tours are common, it’s not often you get to camp out on an urban farm and have a casual dinner with one of the city’s hottest chefs. The kids not only saw the backyards and patched pieces of land that urban farmers are utilizing; they also get to see behind the scenes of some of the most popular new food entrepreneurs. From experiencing sausage making to perfecting a croissant, the event highlighted the most unique and edgy parts of the Atlanta local food scene.

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The response from the kids was superb; after all, they love to ride and they love to eat! The most fascinating part for me was to see them get involved. They have no problems getting their hands dirty. The knowledge they received during those rides and the various classes have birthed two new Community Gardens in areas that were once abandoned lots.

The other aspect is that they are aware of terms such as GMO (genetically modified organism), saturated fats, cholesterol and pesticide. They now know that “you are what you eat.” They know that potato chips and sodas are not an option — and the proper foods they should eat to help fuel their bodies on our weekly bike rides.

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It all works together, exercise (cycling), proper nutrition and the rest. Overall, it has been a success for the farms, the farmers markets and for the riders. We are looking forward to the second annual Tour de Farms and to continuing to ride, as well as educate and inform.

The collaboration of bicycling and proper nutrition is just one of the ways we are fighting against obesity and other health related disparities in our city.

Read more about Neil and his efforts in the January/February issue of American Bicyclist.

My Signature

Carolyn Szczepanski
Communications Director

Carolyn joined the League in March 2012, after two years at the Alliance for Biking & Walking. In addition to managing the League’s blog, magazine and other communications, Carolyn organized the first National Women’s Bicycling Summit and launched the League’s newest program: Women Bike. Before she crossed over to advocacy, she was a professional journalist for nearly 10 years.

“Divvy Bikes” offer Chicagoans a new way to commute

May 1, 2013 /

Below is a repost of the 4/29/13 Derek Prall’s American City and County post.. it’s pretty interesting.

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In an effort to curb the congestion on public transportation and roadways, Chicago’s new bicycle sharing program expects to offer over 4,000 bikes to public transit riders looking for a fast, inexpensive way to travel the last legs of their daily commutes.

The program, known as “Divvy,” will be managed year-round by Portland, Ore.- based Alta Bicycle Share, according to the Chicago Tribune. The $22 million dollar project is “expected to pay for itself” over time, Sean Wiedel, an assistant commissioner at the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) who oversees the program, told the paper.

Federal grants provided the initial funding for the project to cut traffic congestion and improve air quality, the Tribune reports. While Divvy is emphasized as being a complement to public transportation, the bikes will be available for anyone wishing to swap four wheels for two.

Bike sharing memberships will go on sale mid-May. Yearly memberships will cost $75 and daily passes will run $7. Both fees allow for unlimited trips of up to 30 minutes each, with hourly rental fees applying after the initial half-hour, the Tribune says. Riders will pick up a bike from one of 400 planned solar powered docking stations, and return it to a station near their destination.

According to the Divvy Bike website, riders will be responsible for the bicycle from the time they remove it from a dock until they have successfully secured it at the end of their trip. The cost to repair or replace a Divvy bike could be up to $1,200.

For safety, the bikes are outfitted with always-on lights, bells and GPS devices. While Chicago (for logistical reasons) is unable to provide riders with protective gear, cyclists will be encouraged to wear their own, Pete Scales, as spokesman for the CDOT told the Tribune.

“We used to only think cars and mass transit,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told the Tribune. “Today, Milwaukee Avenue is one of the most-biked streets in America.”

For more information on the program visit www.divvybikes.com

Divvy Bikes Home Screen

30 Reasons to Take Up Cycling

April 16, 2013 /

Below is a repost of a great story by Matthew Barbour, Cycling Plus on BikeRadar.com

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Whether it’s to boost your fitness, health or bank balance, or as an environmental choice, taking up cycling could be one of the best decisions you ever make. Not convinced? Here are 30 major benefits of taking to two wheels.

1. You’ll get there faster

Commute by bike in the UK’s major cities and you’ll get there in half the time of cars, research by Citroen shows. In fact, if you drive for an hour in Cardiff’s rush hour, you’ll spend over 30 minutes going absolutely nowhere and average just 7mph, compared to averaging around 12-15mph while cycling.

2. Sleep more deeply

An early morning ride might knacker you out in the short term, but it’ll help you catch some quality shut-eye when you get back to your pillow. Stanford University School of Medicine researchers asked sedentary insomnia sufferers to cycle for 20-30 minutes every other day. The result? The time required for the insomniacs to fall asleep was reduced by half, and sleep time increased by almost an hour.

“Exercising outside exposes you to daylight,” explains Professor Jim Horne from Loughborough University’s Sleep Research Centre. “This helps get your circadian rhythm back in sync, and also rids your body of cortisol, the stress hormone that can prevent deep, regenerative sleep.”

3. Look younger

Scientists at Stanford University have found that cycling regularly can protect your skin against the harmful effects of UV radiation and reduce the signs of aging. Harley Street dermatologist Dr Christopher Rowland Payne explains: “Increased circulation through exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to skin cells more effectively, while ﬂushing harmful toxins out. Exercise also creates an ideal environment within the body to optimize collagen production, helping reduce the appearance of wrinkles and speed up the healing process.” Don’t forget to slap on the factor 30 before you head out, though.

4. Boost your bowels

According to experts from Bristol University, the beneﬁts of cycling extend deep into your core. “Physical activity helps decrease the time it takes food to move through the large intestine, limiting the amount of water absorbed back into your body and leaving you with softer stools, which are easier to pass,” explains Harley Street gastroenterologist Dr Ana Raimundo.

In addition, aerobic exercise accelerates your breathing and heart rate, which helps to stimulate the contraction of intestinal muscles. “As well as preventing you from feeling bloated, this helps protect you against bowel cancer,” Dr Raimundo says.

5. Increase your brain power

Need your grey matter to sparkle? Then get pedaling. Researchers from Illinois University found that a ﬁve percent improvement in cardio-respiratory ﬁtness from cycling led to an improvement of up to 15 percent in mental tests. That’s because cycling helps build new brain cells in the hippocampus – the region responsible for memory, which deteriorates from the age of 30.

“It boosts blood ﬂow and oxygen to the brain, which ﬁres and regenerates receptors, explaining how exercise helps ward off Alzheimer’s,” says the study’s author, Professor Arthur Kramer.

Buy a Wreath and Eradicate Polio

October 31, 2012 /

If it were only that simple. Well – we’re pretty darn close!

We know this isn’t exactly biking related, but having polio would make it darn near impossible to ride a bike, and as Ride Lawrence is an initiative of the Lawrence Central Rotary we thought it’d be ok this time.

This year as in the past Lawrence Central is selling wreaths from Lynch Creek Farms (a new supplier this year!) and all the profits from the sales are going to the Rotary Foundation’s END POLIO NOW campaign.

After 25 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease, but a strong push is needed now to root it out once and for all. It is a window of opportunity of historic proportions. Reaching the ultimate goal of a polio-free world presents ongoing challenges, not the least of which is a hundreds of million dollar funding gap. Of course, Rotary alone can’t fill this gap, but continued Rotarian advocacy like Lawrence Central’s drive can help.

Our reality is that as long as polio threatens even one child anywhere in the world, children everywhere remain at risk and we’re doing our part locally to help.

You can contact any of the Lawrence Central members to purchase in person, wreaths are 39.95 and $10 of each sale goes to helping eradicate polio.

If you’d like to purchase online or something other than a wreath you can use this link http://bit.ly/LCRPolioPlus – It will direct you to the Lynch Creek Website and 25% of your purchase will come back to Lawrence Central to be sent to the Rotary Foundation.

The 26″ Christmas wreaths are made with noble fir, juniper and incense cedar, topped off with ponderosa pine cones and your choice of a red or burgundy velveteen hand-tied bow. The price INCLUDES UPS ground shipping.

Click HERE to download a pdf form you can fill out and give to a member locally.

If you have any questions at all email Bob Swan , Tobin Neis or Steve Kesler and they can help you out.

We’re proud to do our part locally and we invite you to help us!

Lawrence’s 2012 Community Bike Ride

July 22, 2012 /

It was a nice 70 degrees at 7AM when we arrived to set up at the Rotary Arboretum. In the middle of one of the hottest summers in memory, a small army coordinated Lawrence Central Rotary’s Steve Lane and George Brenner descended to set up registration tables, tents for safety, first aid, complimentary bike check outs, an up on top of a gentle hill an area for the training wheel take-off staff.

The back of a rented truck has dozens of water coolers filled with liquids and ice to stave off the oncoming midday heat.

Once ready registrants signed up, got their complimentary t-shirt and other goodies from local bike clubs and at 8AM the first batch of riders took out on the 10 mile ride – 5 miles up to the 6th Street underpass and back. We has a SAG (support and gear) stop at the underpass which was mainly a bunch of iced water, but thanks to the local bike clubs if anyone encountered trouble tools and help were readily on hand.

For safety along the way, volunteers were at the major intersection crossings to make sure traffic was not a problem, for peace of mile for the less seasoned riders.

At 9Am the next larger, group set out to ride a mile and a half out to the Clinton Park Lake overlook and back. It included a lot of the people who had ridden up and back on the 10 mile already too, it was amazing to see the pack of bikes head off down the trail.

Interspersed the entire morning were toddlers and younger kids taking advantage of the 1 mile closed loop course. Kids that did not have helmets and even those will ill fitting ones were set up with a nice new helmet and given a lesson on how to wear it and be safe.

Walking a quarter of the way around the training wheel take-off station was set up.. staffers removed wheels and coached kids running alongside them down the gentle incline until the centrifugal force and a little balance kept them upright. It was amazing to see the big smiles on faces when they realized they were actually riding a two-wheeler!

After each ride or lap around the Arboretum pond the fine people from the Merc had healthy snacks set up for a little post ride energy or in some cases a celebratory granola treat for riding a two-wheeler bike for the first time.

From all of us at Ride Lawrence, Lawrence Central Rotary we want to thank all the sponsors and supporters below – without them this wouldn’t have been possible.

We plan to keep this yearly tradition going and growing, and thanks to everyone involved it looks like we’ll be able to do that!

Below is a gallery of pics from the event taken by Chris Ralston of GP VeloTek. If you have any you’d like to add please email them to us and we can get them posted!

Update: We’ve added some more pics by Scott Wagner too! If you have more keep them coming and we’ll post them!