St Patty’s Day at the Bike Shop / Brew Pub Teaser

Stay tuned for a full report….

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National Bike Summit 2008 Day 3

Day 3 of the Bike Summit was one of the most interesting days I’ve had in a long time. We all put on our monkey suits and headed up to Capital Hill to sell our bike needs directly to our elected officials. The morning started with another opening address from Congressman Earl Blumenauer. He got the 500 person crowd of bike advocates fired up to make our voices heard. Following Earl was Dan Beard, Chief Admin Officer of the House of Representatives, who is in charge of implementing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Greening the Capital Initiative. Mr. Beard spoke of the need for our Nation’s leaders to be setting an example of energy conservation and overall sustainability. With that in mind he made a huge announcement to us. Starting on Earth Day 2008, Capital Hill will have its very own bike share program! 30 bikes will be stationed around Capital Hill and be available for Members and Staffers to use for commuting, lunch break rides, or pleasure rides down the Pennsylvania Avenue. This is not some “green bike” or “yellow bike” program that reclaims old beater bikes and randomly disperses them around town. These will be brand new bikes locked up at an official bike share terminal. Wow! It’s one thing for us cyclists to come to town once a year and plead our case, but for Members of Congress to be faced with the benefits of cycling day in and day out is AMAZING!

After our morning pep rally, we split up into our state delegations and flooded the halls of Congress. Well, the halls of the Senate and House office buildings that is. The Senate and House members occupy buildings on either side of the Capital where they conduct their day to day business. Our mission? To get support for the 4 Policy Issues given to us at the Bike Summit:
1. Support the Complete Streets Bill being intrduced.
2. Support the National Parks Centennial Initiative and make sure cycling is a part of it.
3. Join the National Bike Caucus
4. Sign the Congressional Resolution that says cycling is important and we should have a National Bike Policy and an Inter agency Cycling Task Force.

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We traveled back and forth between the House and Senate buildings on free pedicabs thanks to Planet Bike. By the end of the day, we met with the staff of Wyoming Congress persons Barbra Cubin, John Barasso, and Mike Enzi. We also had face to face meetings with Idaho Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo. The best part was they actually listened to what we had to say and seemed interested. Sure, sure that’s why they’re politicians right? Maybe. We’ll see who takes action and who doesn’t.

At the end of the day we gathered for a Congressional Reception in the Senate office building. Standard shoomze a palooza but the free food and beer was a nice touch. Big points to the Legislative Aids from Barasso and Cubin’s offices who showed up to mingle! Finally the event came to a close with an amazing speech by Rep Oberstar. If you dig bikes and hope that there’s someone out there fighting for them you should watch this video. Good to know this day in age there are still some politicians standing up for the right things.

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2008 Bike Summit Day 2

Earl Part 1

We had a great day at the bike summit today! Started off with a keynote address from Congressman Earl Blumenauer (d) from Oregon. This guy rocks! He was impassioned about cycling issues like I never thought I’d see from a national leader. Take the time and check out these videos from his speech and I think you’ll see what I mean. I’ll tell you what. It’s time to stop taking the bulls&*t lying down. We have elected leaders who are bending over for the oil and gas industry without any concern for those of us who are trying to improve our Country’s state of well being. Do you ride a bike? Do you feel like a second rate citizens on our roads? Cars should not get the upper hand when it comes to funding and road construction. They pollute the air, eat up valuable resources, create chronic obesity, and divide our communities. If you believe in the bicycle - SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Earl does!

Earl Part 2

Ok, after Earl got us fired up, we went into breakout workshops. Pretty good stuff overall. A lot of it was geared to larger communities and I also heard a lot of it two weeks ago at the Smart Growth Conference. I’m really most psyched about going to Capital Hill tomorrow and lobbying our Congress members. I think I’ll get to work on Crapo, Simpson, and Craig from Idaho and Cubin from Wyoming. We had an Idaho strategy session at the end of the day today to prep up for our meetings with the members and Scott Montgomery (GM of Scott Bicycles USA, formerly from Cannondale) joined Tim Adams, myself, and a few others. I think we’ve got a powerful crew!

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Scott Montgomery (Scott Bicycles) and Tim Adams (TVTAP)

I’ll let you know how we make out.

National Bike Summit 2008

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Thanks to a National Bicycle Dealers Association scholarship, Jannine and I are in D.C. for the National Bike Summit! We spent yesterday roaming the streets of Washington before sitting down to the keynote dinner featuring Michael McCallister, CEO of Humana, a health care company based in Louisville Kentucky. He spoke about a company bike share initiative called FreeWheelin. So far they have over 2000 employees participating in the program! Today it’s more presentations, workshops and networking before we head to Capital Hill and work over our Congressmen for more cycling support. Wish us luck!