The first ‘Ohio Women’s Bicycling Summit,’ was a success.

About eight months ago, I had my two friends Mimi Webb and Jeannie Martin join me for a beer so that I could present them with an idea.  I went to California the end of last summer for two separate Bicycle Conferences.  At both conferences, there were specific ‘women forums’ to continue to forward efforts of increasing women ridership here in the U.S.  Leaving California, I was both inspired and new what I had to do in Ohio.  Fast forward to the evening with Mimi and Jeannie.  I told them I planned to organize the first statewide ‘Ohio Women’s Bicycling Summit’ and would they be interested in joining me in this effort.  Immediately, they said ‘hell yes!”  So, for eight months, Jeannie, Mimi, and myself met and planned out this Summit.

Interest and excitement generated, immediately.  Our main sponsors, ROLL and Trek were absolutely incredible.  Then, Detroit’s ‘Autobike’ got in touch with us.  ARC Imaging donated printing costs for us.  And last but not least, food trucks!  OH! Burgers! and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams sponsored and killed it during lunch time  Green Bean Delivery covered all of the yummy fruits during the Summit.  Thank you to all the talented and incredible speakers:  Lisa Hinson, Tammy Krings, Marjorie Shavers, Lindsay Sherman, Lindsey Bower, Emily Burnett, Ohio’s First Lady Karen Kasich, Julie Walcoff, and Rep. Teresa Fedor.

72 women from around the state of Ohio and two women from Indiana.  The overwhelming positive responses from both the attendees and the presenters was absolutely amazing.  The Summit ran without any huge hiccups.  Women were learning, asking questions, laughing, meeting new women, and just enjoying themselves.

I’m grateful for such an amazing first Summit.  This will turn into an annual event.  My main focus is making our city inviting and safe to more modes of transportation.  Men, women, and children deserve ‘choice’ to be able to move about our cities and feel safe doing so.  Us advocates can provide the education; can organize bike rides to build confidence; but there are other components in making people feel that ‘choice,’ in moving around is priority:  political will and infrastructure.  Our wide, arterial streets need to be road dieted and designed with protected bike lanes.  The perception of safety is what I feel a lot of our engineers are missing.  I’ll say it until the light bulb goes off, ‘sharrows do not invite families to ride and feel safe on arterial streets that are four + lanes across and each lane 12+ wide.  Road diets, the narrowing of lanes, and an integrated bicycle network of green lanes, protected lanes, bike boxes, etc. will announce that our leaders are serious about inviting people of all ages to move around the city.  Our leaders making decisions need to be okay with hearing complaints instead of trying to please everyone.  When you create change, you’re gonna hear complaints but the only way to change behavior is to change the infrastructure.  You’re NOT changing the infrastructure when you lay down sharrows.

We have a long way to go and we’re doing better but…  we could be doing even MORE.  We can be building and piloting innovative and bold infrastructure that IS WORKING in other cities.  If we continue to remain status- quo as a city, we’ll continue to get left behind.

Some photos from the first ‘Ohio Women’s Bicycling Summit.’

Be safe and keep riding!

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‘Girls in Gear.’ A girls-specific, youth empowerment program through the bicycle

If you follow my blog or just have seen some of my recent blog posts, you can gauge that I’m passionate about empowering women and providing them with the tools to feel confident to ride their bikes more.  I’ve began this great monthly ladies ride ’2 Wheels & Heels’ which spun from the original up in Cleveland via Lindsey Bower.  There is a niche that’s been missing here in Columbus, Ohio and it’s this inclusive group that I’ve initiated and just with word of mouth and social media, seems to grow like wildfire.

Aside from bringing together all levels of women riders, I wanted to empower younger girls.  Over the summer, I read this amazing research paper by Elizabeth Jose discussing how there really weren’t any girls-specific youth empowerment programs through the bicycle.  The light bulb went off and I knew after reading that paper that I was the right woman for the job; hence – ‘Girls in Gear.’

It is an eight week program held once a week.  There are four areas of study that this program encompasses:

1.  Bicycle Safety.  Learning the basics of bicycle safety over a two week period (lighting at night, hand signals, proper helmet fitting, ABC quick check of bike, door zone, etc.

2.  Bicycle Mechanics.  Two women professionals will come in over a two week period and go over the anatomy of the bicycle, fixing a flat exercises, gear shifting, bike cleaning and maintenance, and brakes.

3.  Urban Design.  Two women professional will come in over a two week period and discuss the basics of urban design and planning.  We’ll be conducting an audit of two streets in which the girls will then have the opportunity to re-create these two streets into their ideal, ‘safe’ street for all.

4.  Public Speaking.  The girls will then discuss in the class how they came up with their street designs.

Upon full completion of their eight weeks, the girls will be awarded a bicycle along with the opportunity to meet Mayor Coleman.  The idea is to not only discuss ‘Girls in Gear’ but to also present their newly designed streets to the Mayor and talk to him about their creations.

I want this program to continue to flourish and expand as far as it can go.  Middle school age is very tough age.  Developmental changes, physical changes, peer pressure – all these components that over consume a young girl.  Girls in Gear empowers them to learn how to fix things, problem solve, communicate, design streets to which maybe one or two them will end up going to school for City Planning or Urban Landscape Architecture – all professions that are still heavily male dominated.  The four areas of focus in this program revolve around the bike however, these development tools can be manipulated to fit into any part of a young girls life and well into adulthood.

I’m just finished my fourth week yesterday and as each week progresses, the girls just impress me more and more.

Enjoy the photos.

Stay safe and keep riding

 

Keegan created a ‘bike safety poster on ‘Sharing the Road.’

 

Lindsey’s poster was on ‘reflective clothing.’

 

Abigail’s was also on ‘Share the Road,’ the ‘do’s’ and ‘dont’s.’

Anna from Roll and Emily from Paradise Garage were the two mechanics teaching the girls the basics.  They did fabulous!

 

 

Showing the girls the ‘bare bones’ of the bicycle

 

 

After Emily and Anna went through the steps of changing a flat, the four girls practice.  All four changed a flat by themselves.  It was fantastic!

 

 

 

Abigail pumping up the tire she just changed.

Alijah and Lindsey changing another flat.  These girls ARE impressive!

 

Alijah and Lindsey both practicing releasing the brake, using the quick release and removing both front and rear tires.

 

 

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The sights, riding your bike brings you.

So yesterday was a good day to be on my bike.  Well, every day is a good day (unless its super cold and my toes and fingers go numb) but I captured random things happening on the bicycle as you’ll see below.  Hope you all enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL sunny day we had yesterday.  I finished my Safe Routes to School at Sullivant Elem. and then sun bathed over at Scioto Mile until my 5pm meeting.

This lady was commuting down Front:

Lockin up during the wind storm!

Enjoying the Mile:

Looking at these bike riders, I was going for getting the depth of the rider in the background as the two riders were resting in the foreground.

This rider was rockin’!  Talk about towin’ your bike…  while riding a bike!  AND he managed to give me a thumbs up!  Impressive to say the least!

How awesome is this photo below?  I was literally riding down Rich St. and I caught this guy proposing to his g/f.  I was meant to capture this b/c as you can see there is a ROCKIN’ tandem in the background.  Totally meant to be!  I hope they’re very happy.

Some good captured moments in the city via two-wheels.

Keep riding!

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‘Safe Routes to Cool’

I ‘unofficially’ helped out and biked my friend and her stylish daughter to school for the first time this morning.  It was super fun.  Daughter ‘A’ was a bit nervous riding in the road which is to be expected but she kicked butt.  My friend told me that her daughter was so excited this morning when she woke up.  Her daughter said, ‘mom, today we ride to school!’  That is awesome.    On days where I’m not in early morning meetings or doing Safe Routes on the west side, I’m going to gladly offer my help to my friend and her daughter.  Lots of kids were staring as we rode to school which is great b/c my hope is to have my friend and her daughter bicycle as much as possible and be the ‘trendsetters,’ heading to and from this particular school where maybe another parent will want to join.  That’s the whole point, showing everyone that it CAN be done.  You gotta start from a seed.

Keep riding.

..and yes, that is a Barbie on a bike – mounted on her handlebars

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