Dreamwidth Velo Club

NPR's Codeswitch blog, on minority bicyclists (their adjective) organizing.

There's a story that Veronica O. Davis likes to tell about why she started a cycling group for black women. She was pedaling past a public housing complex near her Washington, D.C., neighborhood one day when a young black girl shouted to her mother, "Mommy, mommy, it's a black lady on a bike."

"At first I was like, 'Why is she so excited?' And I realized I'm probably the first cyclist that she saw who looked like her," said Davis.

That one small experience led to a Twitter message, which then led to a Facebook group. Two years later and now 800 women strong, Black Women Bike: DC is a full-blown cycling movement. And it's not alone.

Minority cycling groups are sprouting all over the country. There's the National Brotherhood of Cyclists, We Bike NYC in New York and Cuidad de Luces/City of Lights in Los Angeles.

A recent report by the League of American Bicyclists cites people of color as the fastest-growing segment of the cycling population. Bicycle commuting rates in those communities are growing, too. The League's Hamzat Sani says that's not surprising.

"You'll see a lot of third-shift, late-shift folks or restaurant workers engaged in cycling because public transportation doesn't work when they get off of work. But those aren't the cyclists we'd see in a magazine, right?" said Sani.

ETA: Post this, go back to my reading page to double-check for typos, and immediately below it is delux_vivens link to NK Jemisin's recent experience being stopped for biking while black in NYC. Which is...yeah. *sigh*

Bike helmets came up in discussion on a cycling listserv I read, and I referred the list to the BHSI site I linked to here earlier this year. And then, because the BHSI site is a giant black hole of data and I have a lot of phone calls to make this morning and I just loathe making phone calls, I started poking around, and came across these stats.

Did you know that more Americans were injured by beds, mattresses, and pillows in 2007 than bicycles, according to the Consumer Products Safety Commission? I am not surprised that "stairs, ramps, landings, and floors" are tops when it comes to injuries, having had a couple of bad falls on stairs myself (I was sober, dammit, I really was!) but...beds?

I suppose these figures may include injuries suffered while moving beds and jumping on beds, but still. When someone tells you your bicycling habit is really dangerous, you can point out that it's less dangerous than their sleeping habit, statistically speaking.