Savvy Cyclist

Bike Wonk: Ride Like You’re Invisi … Relevant

July 12, 2017/10 Comments/by Mighk Wilson

It was a typical winter morning in Downtown Orlando. Clear, cool and sunny with normal rush hour traffic. Because it was cool, I was wearing my usual neon yellow jacket. I’m not obsessive about “hi-viz” clothes, but if I’m going to wear a jacket, I figure it may as well be a bright one. I’d just turned onto Rosalind Avenue, a one-way three-lane street with short blocks, lots of signalized intersections and a bike lane. I normally use the bike lane.

On this particular morning I made the right turn onto Rosalind at such a time that it held off most of the heavy northbound traffic. I had the street almost entirely to myself. In my helmet-mounted mirror I could see only one vehicle approaching from behind. A woman was driving a van in the right lane with the right turn signal on. We were both coming up to the intersection with Church Street. I could tell that the van would get to the intersection at the same time I would. I’m heading straight. She’s turning right. I tell myself, “This should be interesting.”

Sure enough, as we reached the intersection, she turned right in front of me. Since I was right hook bicycle accident, bike lanes expecting it, it wasn’t a big deal. I tapped my brake and no contact was made, but she missed me by only about a foot. An untrained cyclist might not have had the same outcome.

The point of this story is not to illustrate the fairly common “right hook” conflict, but why this particular driver did something so obviously stupid. She had no other person or vehicle to pay attention to for the few seconds leading up to our conflict. I was exceptionally conspicuous in my jacket. As it was a one-way street, she had no concern about on-coming left turns. There were no vehicles waiting at the cross street. I was the only thing in the world she had to avoid, and she failed.

I can guess at her thought process. Perhaps she misjudged my speed. Perhaps she assumed I would yield. Or perhaps she was so preoccupied that she was not paying attention to anything outside her lane. Whatever. One thing was clear: Even though I was highly conspicuous, I was not relevant enough for her to make the right decision.

Relevance:

The difference between frustrating routine conflicts and a stress-free ride.

CyclingSavvy co-founder Keri Caffrey shot photos of me at this location to give you a sense of how I would have looked to that driver that morning. The photos show more traffic than was present that day and the bike lane is now painted green. But they should still help you “get the picture.”

I do most of my riding in regular clothing and on streets without bike lanes. Over more than 20 years I’ve never had a right hook conflict (or many close calls of any sort), mostly because I ride in the center of the lane by default. But while wearing a hi-viz jacket and riding in a facility that many think is supposed to “make motorists pay attention” to me, I encountered this conflict. (It’s not the only such conflict I’ve had in bike lanes, just the most noteworthy.)

As cyclists we need to understand the differences between “visible,” “conspicuous,” and “relevant.”

You can be visible and highly conspicuous–and irrelevant, as I was that morning:

You can be clearly visible, though not highly conspicuous, and yet be very relevant. This photo shows the default position I use on streets without bike lanes:

You can dress to be highly conspicuous and yet be completely invisible to a motorist who needs to see you. See how this cyclist in hi-viz is invisible to the driver about to turn left?

Or you can be visible, conspicuous, and relevant:

Most cycling safety proponents (and sellers of gizmos) will tell you all about how to be more visible and conspicuous. We hear from lots of cyclists who say they are “doing everything right” and being as conspicuous as possible. Yet they also complain about having too many close calls.

If you’re having close calls, check out the relevance component. CyclingSavvy shows you strategies that will make you as relevant as possible.

You have the power to banish frustrating routine conflicts and enjoy a safer, nearly stress-free cycling experience.

Relevance makes all the difference.

(In a future post I’ll discuss where and when it’s most important and useful to improve your conspicuity, in addition to being visible and relevant.)

CyclingSavvy & ABEA Conspicuous (& Relevant) in The Wall Street Journal

July 1, 2017/2 Comments/by Mighk Wilson

“Yessss! Nailed it!”

Passing strangers at the Minneapolis airport last Monday were probably a bit amused at my enthusiasm. I’d just gotten off the phone with a Wall Street Journal reporter. We talked about cyclist conspicuity. (Some of us get excited about such things.)

Here’s her story, published today in The Wall Street Journal Online. American Bicycling Education Association and its CyclingSavvy program were both mentioned. While the article primarily explored research into a number of clothing and lighting options, the reporter also mentioned the concept of lane positioning, which we teach in CyclingSavvy. I explained to her that being relevant is often as important as being conspicuous. (Stay tuned! This is the topic for my next blog post, which will run July 12.) CyclingSavvy Instructor John Allen was also interviewed for the article.

I suppose it’s all well and good if some people want to wear neon clothing and use some of the gadgets the story covered — and in some circumstances some of them certainly will help. But do we really have to dress like a science project every time we ride our bikes? With CyclingSavvy strategies you’ll find that you can usually just ride in normal clothing in the daytime, and use regular headlights and taillights at night.

In other news…

Congratulations to CyclingSavvy Instructor Bill DeSantis (Professional Engineer for VHB, based in Providence, RI) for being named new chairman for the Bicycle Technical Committee (BTC) of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD). This committee explores, reviews and recommends new or modified traffic signs, pavement markings and traffic signals relevant to cycling on our public roads and paths. Approved devices are included in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which is what the federal government and most states adopt as the official standards for traffic controls. Five CyclingSavvy Instructors now serve on the BTC: Bill DeSantis, DeWayne Carver, John Allen, John Schubert and myself.

Bill DeSantis discovers another CSI program that doesn’t involve bicycling.

By now you may be getting the idea that the CSIs who represent ABEA know a thing or two about bicycling. They are recognized as authorities on bicycling safety and education. As a result, they are leading the conversations on bicycling safety and transportation design at a national level.

Update 7/2/2017:

We realize that the Journal piece is behind a paywall, and not wishing to run afoul of fair use laws, we won’t copy the entire story. But a few highlights and quotes:

Research into fluorescent leggings and ankle lights found both are better recognized as being associated with cyclists than fluorescent shirts or jackets or regular headlights. (But I think a motorist approaching from behind is going to see the large area of your torso from a greater distance, assuming a similar color. Depending on which direction you need to be seen from, it may be more important to be seen from a greater distance, or recognized from a shorter distance.) Ankle lights truly do sound like a good addition to your regular tail-light and headlight set-up.

While I wasn’t quoted extensively for the article, I was fortunate to literally “get in the last word.”

“Mighk Wilson, executive director of the Orlando, Fla.-based nonprofit American Bicycling Education Association, says certain strategies can make a rider more visible. One tip in the association’s classes on cycling skills is riding in the center of a lane rather than on the edge, so drivers don’t try to squeeze past or turn in front of you.

“Most important, really, is your positioning on the road, which then enhances your use of those lights and makes you more relevant,” Mr. Wilson says.”

How I Got There When The “Only” Way Was By Interstate

June 28, 2017/9 Comments/by Melissa Brown

Most of my trips occur within a six-mile radius of home, and it’s usually easiest to go by bike. Years ago another St. Louisan promoted bicycling by saying: “Less than five, why drive?” This is true for six-mile trips, too :-)

Last month, though, I had to conduct business that was not only outside of my radius but accessible “only” via an interstate.

Ugh.

Figuring out how to get there by any means other than my car was so complicated that I almost threw in the towel during the route planning process.

River des Peres Greenway in St. Louis

But Monday morning dawned beautiful and beckoning. With school out for the summer, I had time and was up for the challenge. I settled on a route that took me through a cemetery and relied on either A) a gate between the cemetery and my destination being unlocked; or B) me locking up my bike on the cemetery side and scaling a fence to the medical center on the other side that was my destination.

My adventure included using a greenway paralleling a busy St. Louis arterial road. This road has four lanes with a speed limit of 40 MPH. This means that many if not most are driving 45 MPH, and some upwards of that. A number of small streets intersect the stretch of greenway I used.

Road users on the small intersecting streets have stop signs, as do greenway users…

. . . but motorists on the arterial road do not.

As a savvy cyclist I know that greenway stop signs are NOT to be ignored. For my safety I scanned ahead, behind, and to my right before proceeding into the intersection. Given the speed of other traffic and sight lines, I felt like I could never look enough to be completely satisfied.

I might as well have been a Bobblehead! By the time I confirmed that there were no oncoming motorists who might suddenly decide to turn left, I had to look behind me again to assure there were no overtaking motorists who might suddenly decide to turn right, and vice versa. Traffic was fairly light. The workload of doing this with rush hour traffic would be much greater! The greenway between intersections was perfectly pleasant, but the work required at intersections was exhausting.

I had to reroute my trip due to a section of road being underwater. Thank goodness for smart phones!

Road Closed

After consulting my phone and getting my bearings, the rest of the trip was straightforward. I arrived at the cemetery and made my way slowly and respectfully to the gate for the moment of truth:

Hallelujah! The gate was open. No need to scale fences! It was nice to have my bike with me, as the building I was headed to was on the opposite side of a very large medical compound.

It occurred to me that riding my bike through the gate was a bit of a gamble. What if I returned to a locked gate? I’d be SOL, or at least stuck planning a long and complicated reroute.

Mission complete, I retraced my route through the large medical campus. Fortunately, the gate was still open, making a smooth start for my return voyage. If I were to make the trip by bicycle regularly, I would ask about the gate — i.e., are there set times when it’s open? If not, could there be?

My trip home was uneventful. After my discomfort on the outgoing leg of the trip, I chose to forego the greenway on my return. Being part of traffic and following the rules of movement is just so easy and straightforward! The trickiest bit was after the four-lane road became only two lanes. I was on the two-lane section for just under a mile.

I prefer not to have motorists stacked up behind me, so I pulled onto the shoulder twice and stopped to let groups of overtaking vehicles (AKA platoons) pass. It only took a few seconds, and then I had this road–with its 40 MPH posted speed limit–all to myself between platoons.

I arrived home tired but happy to have made the 20-mile trip by bicycle, rather than resorting to the car.

It took me a bit over an hour each way. Realistically, that is time that I can’t afford every day, though recent timely discussions on e-bikes make me wonder how having a little boost would change the equation.

A Nice Ride to The Lobster Shack

June 14, 2017/5 Comments/by John Brooking

The Lobster Shack, Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Hidden away on a rocky point off the coast of Maine and close to two lighthouses is a small but popular seafood place that calls itself “The Lobster Shack.” It’s a few miles off the nearest numbered state route and there’s no sign advertising its presence, yet locals and tourists alike know of it. In high summer season, the line on any given day snakes out the door. Ample outdoor seating makes up for limited indoor space.

My wife and I enjoy initiating our visitors into this experience. Since our summer visitors are on vacation, this usually occurs on a weekday. We schedule the meal for early evening, and I get to enjoy a scenic 10-mile ride from my office to the restaurant to meet everyone else there. As I slog through my workday, I look forward to this. You may have heard the bike commuter’s definition of work: The eight boring hours between bike rides!

The restaurant is at the end of a scenic road. Its last two miles consist of two narrow lanes with no shoulder, a number of blind curves and hill crests, and a posted speed of 25 MPH. It’s pleasant enough for the scenery, but would be seen by some cyclists as challenging in its geometry. For a cyclist hugging the white edge line, it could be downright dangerous if a motorist approached from behind and tried to pass at the wrong time.

By the time I started using this road, I had already learned a little about controlling my space. In particular, the CyclingSavvy technique of “control and release” on two-lane roads has been particularly helpful. Without getting into too much detail, the technique is basically a way to communicate to a motorist behind you when it’s unsafe to pass, and then “releasing” the motorist when it’s safe to do so. Communication can be either with lane position, or lane position accompanied by a “Stay Back” gesture for control, followed by a “Thank You” gesture on release. I use this frequently in my daily travels.

Two Lights Road in Cape Elizabeth, Maine

One sunny day I was on my way to The Lobster Shack to meet family and friends–by bike, of course! A nice late-model white sedan had the misfortune to come up behind me just as we entered this particularly winding stretch of road. Looking back with a shoulder check, I noted Massachusetts plates.

Maine and Massachusetts have the typical rivalry found between many adjacent states, maybe even exacerbated by the fact that Maine was part of Massachusetts until it split off in 1820, as a free-state party to the Missouri Compromise. Massachusetts drivers have quite a reputation–well, everywhere really, but particularly in Maine. We have a name for them which I won’t write, but it’s a two-syllable word starting with “mass.” So great, here comes the harassment, right?

Actually, no. The driver slowed behind me as I controlled the lane approaching an initial blind curve. After we got through that, another curve or hill crest created another blind spot, or maybe an oncoming motorist was present. I don’t remember the exact sequence now, but I do remember it took some time to get to a safe passing opportunity. At one point, it seemed like there might be an opportunity and the driver started pulling out to pass, but I spied an oncoming car. I had to use a strong “Stay Back” signal to make sure the driver pulled back behind me, which he immediately and decisively did. Eventually, we found a safe passing place. I moved over and gave him a friendly wave, and he was on his way.

Upon my arrival, I found that the rest of my party was not there yet, so I locked up and sat on the steps leading up to the seating area to wait. After a few minutes, the same white sedan pulled in, apparently having gone first a short distance beyond to a pebbly beach before coming back to the Shack. A young couple got out. Seeing me sitting near my bike, they engaged me in a short conversation. All I remember now is that the guy actually thanked me for helping him to pass safely. Thanked me. I’ll tell you, it made my day.

It would be nice if all motorists we encountered were as understanding as this person. They aren’t, yet! But communication with other drivers almost always defuses a potentially frustrating situation.

I think that some things that most annoy motorists include feeling that the cyclist is ignoring them, being oblivious, or just doesn’t know what he or she is doing. Communication demonstrates the opposite. When you look over your shoulder or use hand signals to communicate with the driver behind you, you show that you know they’re there and that you’re acting intentionally.

In fact, if you find that you must hold a motorist behind you with a “Stay Back” hand signal, you then often have to actively “release” them by waving them around when it’s safe to do so. (Not always recommended, but sometimes you want to make sure they go around you while they have the chance.) It’s like they’ve decided that you know what you’re doing, so now you’re in charge and they’re awaiting your okay to proceed.

Unfortunately, there may always be yahoos, but I encounter far fewer of them since I’ve begun using control and release. Savvy cycling techniques have made my bike trips much more pleasant, be they for transportation, recreation, or a bit of each as I pedal along the beautiful Maine coast on my way to eat seafood!

If you’re ever on summer vacation in the Portland area, be sure to look me up and we’ll ride there together!

Ride Big And Carry A Great Bag

May 24, 2017/4 Comments/by shanpresley

Shannon Martin (Nashville, TN) and Yvonne LeFave (Lansing, MI) at their CyclingSavvy instructor training in Orlando (March 2017)

“Do you always wear jewelry when you ride?” a fellow CyclingSavvy Instructor asked me during our training. I actually felt rather underdressed on that particular day. It seemed like some bracelets were the least I could use to jazz up the CSI polo. Hi-Viz yellow is very difficult to accessorize.

I’m no fashionista, but I like enough lovely, sparkly and feminine things to put me squarely in the girly-girl camp.

When I first started commuting by bike, I wore exercise clothes and dutifully packed my pretties into a pannier. This got old quickly. Invariably I would forget something: a belt for my dress clothes, cycling gloves for my riding. Then I happened across some of Elly Blue’s excellent writing. She noted that riding in heels is actually a benefit, as the heel provides a nice prop when you’re at a stop. With Blue’s blessing, I pulled out my favorite red patent leather pumps, hopped onto my bike and haven’t looked at cycling clothes since.

Shannon in typical garb on her daily rounds in Nashville

I came to cycling in my middle age. In 2016 I suffered a severe arthritic flare that left me disabled for weeks. After a slow recovery, I took up cycling as part of a low-impact exercise regimen. I loved it, but Middle Tennessee’s epic hills were more than I could manage on my daily commute. When someone suggested an e-bike, I tried one and fell in love.

I treasure my “unplugged” bikes for flat and gentle terrain. But for this Nashville girl, an e-bike is pretty much the only way I roll.

You’ll notice I’m not your typical cyclist. An e-biker riding in pearls and heels. Perhaps I’m an oddity, but I’ve found a welcome home in CyclingSavvy. CyclingSavvy offers me a way of riding that allows me to be exactly who I am when I ride. No lycra required.

One thing is required of me when I ride, whether in heels, on an e-bike or by my own steam. When I ride, I ride BIG. Thanks to CyclingSavvy, this has come to mean several things for me.

I nearly always ride with front and rear lights, day or night. I was convinced of this necessity long before I started cycling. My region has a disjointed pedestrian infrastructure. Sidewalks terminate abruptly or do not exist at all. As a result, walkers and runners often use the roads to travel. As a motorist I’ve had a few close calls during the day with pedestrians and runners obscured by shade, sun, and blind spots on curvy roads. When I am on the road on foot or on bicycle, I use lights. Reflective gear is great and I do use it, but nothing takes the place of lights for me. My helmet of choice is Lumos. It illuminates white in the front and red in the rear, is smartphone compatible, and has an impressive battery life.

I also ride big by communicating. I make eye contact with other drivers and pedestrians and clearly communicate my intentions with hand signals. I over-exaggerate my communication to make sure drivers see me. It’s discouraging to see how many of them are on cell phones, but such is life. I really don’t feel any safer from distracted drivers in a car than I do on my bike. I adore my helmet-mounted rear-view mirror (I never ride without it), but it doesn’t replace a firm shoulder check. These are all skills students learn in CyclingSavvy.

Most important, I claim my full-lane rights, like every other driver. My commute forces me to use traffic-heavy arterial roads. To protect myself I typically maintain a definitive left-tire track position. Nashville drivers are delightfully cooperative with me! Very rarely do I experience incivility from other drivers.

Claiming my right to take the lane is the very best thing I can do to keep myself safe on the road. To my fellow Tennesseans: You may not believe me, but Nashville drivers are wonderful! Check out CyclingSavvy and test these ideas for yourself. (The link is to the online course. I’m not offering classes in Nashville at this moment because of my young children. But as all parents know, they’ll grow up soon!)

Tennessee bicycle laws do not mandate that cyclists ride in a bike lane, but it does have a “far to the right” law that compels cyclists to ride as far to the right as “practicable,” unless impediments such as “substandard lane width” make it unsafe. I consider all the roads in Middle Tennessee substandard for my safety as a cyclist. I haven’t used a single travel lane here that I consider wide enough to share side-by-side with a car. There simply isn’t enough room for both of us.

In Nashville, bike lanes can be problematic. Recently I was riding with someone in Green Hills (a traffic sewer by anyone’s standards). She suggested we get into the bike lane during part of our ride. I warned her that we would be subjected to motorists constantly turning in front of us or cutting us off, and we were. We were fine because we used CyclingSavvy bike lane strategies to protect ourselves, but it was inconvenient and unnecessarily delayed us. Later that day we passed through the same section, this time using the regular driving lane and disregarding the bike lane. We had no problems whatsoever and no incivility from drivers.

My savvy cycling journey over the last year has been nothing short of transformational. I learned to ride a bike when I was 11 years old, fell off, and never really get back on one until I was 44. I’m not a road warrior. I’m a middle-aged wife and mom who needs to get exercise for her arthritis. Cycling just made sense. Cycling has come to mean so much more to me than mere exercise. I fell in love with the bold vulnerability I feel every time I get on my bike and engage my world from two wheels.

In order to keep riding my bike I need to do it exactly as I am. Pearls and heels. Sometimes batteries are required. If it’s a particularly breezy day I’ll throw in a scarf. It is unbridled joy to ride with a scarf flowing behind me, tunes cranked on my mobile speaker, sunshine illuminating the path ahead. Take it from this girly girl: It’s an experience you don’t want to miss.

At CyclingSavvy Boot Camp, The Hug

May 10, 2017/2 Comments/by Karen Karabell

I hope you’re reading this because you’re thinking about taking a CyclingSavvy class. Or perhaps you’re considering the online course, because workshops aren’t yet available where you live.

Ideally you’re thinking:

Who are these people?

Why should I trust them?

What makes CyclingSavvy worth my time?

A peek into Boot Camp will answer your questions.

I hear disdain from the founders: We offer nothing called Boot Camp!

True. It’s called CyclingSavvy Instructor Training.

CyclingSavvy is new. Currently 99 people are certified as CSIs (that’s the acronym for “CyclingSavvy Instructor”). Ask any of them about their training, and you’re likely to hear these words: Hard. Intense. An ass-kicker.

Keri Caffrey uses “Chalk Talk” to illustrate an idea for CyclingSavvy instructor candidates

Ryan Scofield, a new CSI from Bonita Springs, FL, summarized his training beautifully in a Facebook post:

“Keri, Lisa, and Karen did an amazing job of simultaneously scaring the crap out of us and invigorating us.” He’s referring to CyclingSavvy founder Keri Caffrey, instructor trainer Lisa Walker, and me. (I’m learning how to become an instructor trainer. That’s another story.)

“It’s a big deal to design these courses and teach classes,” Ryan wrote, “and it’s not to be taken lightly.”

CSIs are entrusted with a solemn responsibility: Teaching people how to ride safely anywhere. This naturally includes riding on all kinds of roads. (Click through on any of our videos, and you’ll understand why we throw away the vast majority of our footage. It’s boring.) If you’re going to show people on bicycles how to take their place in traffic and love it, you’d better know what the heck you’re doing.

“Taking a CyclingSavvy class is easy and fun,” observes CSI John Schubert. “Taking the instructor training is difficult. The difference is because the instructors have to know a lot to make the class easy and fun for the students.”

Yep, he’s that John Schubert, affectionately known as one of “The Johns.” In the United States a group of men named John have helped untold numbers become better bicyclists through their books, essays and advocacy.

An article that Schubert wrote for Adventure Cycling Magazine inspired me (a Missourian) to travel to Florida to check out CyclingSavvy.

“I am well aware of the bad rap education has received,” Schubert wrote in that article. “Visualize a middle-aged guy with a pot belly filling out his jersey spending way too much time explaining gearing to a bored audience before launching into that overly sincere ‘bicycles are vehicles’ speech.

“Now imagine the gearing lecture all gone and the speech replaced by interactive teaching methods that truly engage the students.”

How to engage people: That’s what ~~boot camp~~ instructor training is all about. At every step in the process, candidates are exhorted to put students first. “The most precious thing people give us isn’t their money,” Lisa Walker told the candidates. “It’s their time.”

Effective time management was one of the training’s many epiphanies for John Allen, another new CSI, and yes, one of “The Johns.”

John Allen is perhaps best known as the guy who wrote Bicycling Street Smarts, with more than 300,000 copies distributed in multiple languages. Keri credits him with being one of her first teachers.

In an exquisite turn of events, John was an excellent student in Keri & Lisa’s March 2017 training. Here’s another thing we CSIs have branded into our skulls: We are always learning. We learn from each other. We learn from our students. We are always looking for ways to make what we do better.

About halfway through the training weekend, John Allen said something that stopped us in our tracks. We were working in a parking garage on a chilly Saturday in Downtown Orlando, learning how to effectively teach bike handling skills. Suddenly this national bike safety expert marched over to Lisa and pronounced:

“I’m humbled with what I’ve learned that’s above and beyond what I already knew.”

After a intensely gratifying moment of silence, Lisa responded: “Thank you, John! I want to hug you for saying that.”

And she did.

CyclingSavvy Instructors in Orlando, March 2017. From left: Karen Karabell, Shannon Martin, Yvonne LeFave, Steven Goodridge, CyclingSavvy founder Keri Caffrey, Esther Lumsdon, Instructor Trainer Lisa Walker, Dan Carrigan, John Allen, Ryan Scofield & Katherine Tynan.

On May 19 & 20 John Allen and Charlotte, NC’s inimitable Pamela Murray are leading Boston’s first CyclingSavvy workshop. John reports that he is loving spreading the word to folks in Beantown. “Why?” he says. “Because I have something positive and engaging to offer people.”

There’s still time to register here.

Boston too far? Meet me in St. Louis! Newly minted CSI Katherine Tynan and I are leading an STL workshop that weekend. Details here.

Introducing The Savvy Cyclist

May 1, 2017/5 Comments/by Mighk Wilson

by Mighk Wilson

Savvy (SAV-ee): adjective — 1. experienced, knowledgeable, and well-informed; shrewd

Solid, practical advice about bicycling.

That’s what you want, right?

Of course you do, and that’s why we’re here. American Bicycling Education Association (ABEA) is the organization behind the CyclingSavvy course, and we’re all about making bicycling accessible, enjoyable and as safe as possible for you. Today, on the first day of National Bicycle Month, we’re kicking off our new blog.

Our contributors have literally hundreds of years of combined cycling experience, not only as cyclists using our roads and trails, but also professionally analyzing equipment and safety data. We’ve seen a lot of great ideas — and lots of pretty bad ones, too — over the past few decades, so we can help you sort through all the breathless claims about the latest “innovations.”

This blog will keep its focus on making cycling work for you now, and not concern itself with some future cycling utopia. We’ll share with you everything from the most basic skills and equipment for the new rider, to advanced strategies for negotiating any sort of road condition.

What we won’t be covering are “performance”-related topics, such as how to ride competitively or cover long distances. There are plenty of other good resources out there for those.

If…

You want to haul groceries on your bike through that daunting interchange? We’ve got the strategies you need.
You want to know if that latest bike gizmo featured on Kickstarter is worth investing in? We’ll have informed opinions for you.
You want some inspiration to show you what we’re recommending is really possible? We’ll have stories and interviews from people just like you who’ve learned how to make cycling a regular and rewarding part of their lives.

Being a successful bicyclist doesn’t have to be about being a super athlete (but if that’s what you want — we’re fine with that!), it’s just about understanding the strategies, skills and equipment that make it safe, practical and fun.

Join us every other week for an article or interview. You can sign up for our email list (at the bottom) so you won’t miss a post, and we’ll send you a great little free introduction to the principles of Savvy Cycling, “Ten Tips for Successful Bicycling.”

Next time, go by bike.

Keep Your Bike Trained

October 1, 2015/by Gary Cziko

Keep Your Bike Trained:
Suggestions for Practicing Bike-Handling Skills on Your Everyday Rides
Gary Cziko, CyclingSavvy Instructor & ABEA Board Member
While the Train Your Bike component of CyclingSavvy provides a valuable opportunity for cyclists to learn and practice important bike-handling sk...

President’s Letter – September 2015

September 30, 2015/by Jenn Bowers

Greetings,

It is with pleasure that I start a term serving as the president of the American Bicycling Education Association. I want to begin by thanking Mighk Wilson for his contributions as president and share that he will now be the Executive Director for ABEA. The vice president position on the ...

Executive Director’s Report

September 30, 2015/by Mighk Wilson

I hope you’ve all had a great summer with plenty of biking adventures, and helped people in your community learn to be savvy cyclists! Your American Bicycling Education Association (ABEA) board has been busy building on the success of CyclingSavvy to expand our reach and improve our sustainability a...