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Electronic bikepaths
We are enjoying some lovely weather in Western New York—enough to delude ourselves once again into thinking that spring has arrived. Hence, we'll experience anew the annual letdown during the inevitable April winter redux. But prior to the cold-weather backlash, many of us already might have taken spins on a bicycle as a sneak preview of springtime.
Approximately 27 percent of Americans ride bicycles, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation (http://www.bikeleague.org/media/facts/), primarily for exercise and recreation, though a small number actually ride bikes to their jobs. In addition to promoting "Bike-to-Work Week" May 15-19, the League of American Bicyclists advocates for a greater acceptance of bicycling as an alternative mode of transportation, and urges "bicycle friendliness" by curbing anti-bike behavior. The league's Web site offers the above facts and figures, as well as riding and maintenance tips, press releases, The American Bicyclist magazine, lists of bike-friendly communities and numerous reasons to ride (e.g., "You won't have to have a membership to a gym to work out").
In our car culture, we often overlook the simple pleasures of bicycling. Bicycling Life (http://www.bicyclinglife.com/) promotes the everyday use of bicycling for recreation and exercise. The site offers essays, news, editorials and quizzes on a broad range of bike-related topics, such as safety, repair and maintenance, commuting and touring. For those who are interested in acquiring a bicycle, the Bicycle Trader (http://www.bicycletrader.com/) offers classified ads for buying, selling or trading cycles and accessories.
"Wearing a helmet will do absolutely nothing to prevent you from getting hit by a car" asserts Michael Bluejay on his Web site BicycleSafe.com (http://bicyclesafe.com/). Noting that bicyclists constitute one in every 54 automobile-related fatalities nationwide, the site identifies the most common bike-car collisions and offers tips on how cyclists can avoid such accidents. For anyone who frequently rides in a bikepath-free zone, the advice featured here could potentially be lifesaving.
The 200th anniversary of the invention of the bicycle approaches in 2017. What better place to survey its development than in Western New York's own Pedaling History Bicycle Museum (http://www.pedalinghistory.com/)? Located in Orchard Park, the museum boasts an extensive collection of vintage-to-modern bicycles and related memorabilia. The site offers a chronology of the bicycle's evolution and announces upcoming program events, such as the May 21 "Rust-Buster" Family Bike Ride. Incidentally, bike historians might be interested in this year's International Cycling History Conference in Toronto this July, the details of which appear on its Web site (http://www.cycling-history.org/). Finally, the bicycle pedal manufacturer Speedway offers a pictorial history of the pedal (http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.history).
Whether you just leisurely pedal around the block or across a park (printable bike maps at http://www.gbnrtc.org/bicycle_route_map.htm), mountain-bike through the region's rougher terrains (http://www.wnymba.org/), wow your friends with injury-defying bike stunts or wish to race against other Buffalo cyclists (http://www.buffalobicycling.com), you can first spend some time gathering online bicycle information—at least until our true spring finally arrives.
—Rick McRae, University Libraries