I have great admiration for Lance Armstrong, but I don't think his status as a national athletic hero does much to advance our road-sharing issues.
If anything, Armstrong's prominence tends to pigeonhole biking as an an elite athletic pursuit, a pastime for impossibly fit young people on expensive bikes wearing funny clothes. I have nothing against bike racing -- I like it as a spectator sport -- but we need to promote biking as a useful activity for people of all ages, body types and levels of fitness. The people who need to share the road with motorists might be training for a race, but they're more likely riding to work or class or the grocery store, or taking the kids to preschool. To promote normal, low-key, biking by ordinary people, and to make the activity visible to the rest of the community, I think it would help to organize a "slow bike movement" in Madison. This sort of movement apparently exists in other parts of the world; they even have a blog (http://theslowbicycle.blogspot.com) and a Facebook page. Perhaps we should try some organized slow biking around here. Think about it (no hurry, of course). [email protected] wrote: > On the topic of the potential effectiveness of marketing: > > Lance Armstrong - I'll bet most people in America know who he is and see > him in a positive light. So have our road sharing issues been addressed > as a result of Americans getting to know this cyclist? > i/bikies-danenet.org > > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
