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.