One Street News

December 2013

Vol. 6, Issue 9

  1. 2013 Social Bike Mega & Micro Hits
  2. Your Chance to Help Rio’s Cargo Cyclists
  3. Resources – Whose Roads?
  4. Hot Topics – London Cyclists’ Deaths

2013 Social Bike Mega & Micro Hits

Social Bike Business dazzled as the focal point for One Street’s successes in 2013. Our efforts ranged from mega-sized, global outreach to micro-design specifics. But all of them held a sharp focus on serving programs that provide affordable, durable bicycles and careers to people who need them the most.

MEGA: On the mega side, we leveraged the publication of our how-to guide, Defying Poverty with Bicycles, to connect with new program partners around the world. Their leaders had found valuable insight in the guide and contacted us for further specifics for their unique programs. Later in the year we launched our new blog of the same name to inspire such discussions to continue and grow.

One Street’s executive director, Sue Knaup, also visited with some of our program partners. She spent January in Bwindi, Uganda helping Ride 4 a Woman with their bike program and training eight local women to be advanced bike mechanics. In June, she visited four community bike programs in Bratislava and Vienna. Her presentation on Social Bike Business at the Velo-city conference drew a small crowd of eager program leaders, many of whom have gone on to implement the program’s elements in Europe, South America and Asia.

All of these connections and inspirations will feed our Social Bike efforts in 2014.

MICRO: We enjoyed a thrilling success in October when our Bike Shift Lever Kickstarter campaign topped our goal allowing us to move forward with this project. Earlier in the year, the detailed design of this simple shifter was a stark contrast to our global outreach efforts. Every corner, hole and taper had to ensure a quality product that will be easily produced and repaired with only six parts. Read more by clicking the link or searching Bike Shift lever at Kickstarter.com. This success has set us up for the casting mold design and the first production run in 2014.

Your Chance to Help Rio’s Cargo Cyclists

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

Delivery cyclists, cargo bike workers and anyone giving their all every day on a bike deserve our awe and gratitude for showing what bicycles can do; that is, if anyone notices. This crowdfunding campaign, launched by One Street Advisor Mikael Colville-Andersen, aims to unveil the brilliance of Rio de Janeiro’s cargo cyclists through a race that will lift them from invisible to heroic in the eyes of their city. It’s based on a longstanding, similar event in Copenhagen that has helped lift that city to the top of the world’s cycling cities.

When I worked as a San Francisco bike messenger through most of the 1980s I knew all too well how invisible my fellow riders and I were. And if we were noticed, it was with spite. Bike messenger races have shifted public opinion from spite to admiration of these skilled and courageous riders.

This event could do the same for cargo cyclists in Rio and who knows, maybe it will spread to other cities just as the messenger races have.

To learn more and to help, please click on the link above or go to RocketHub.com and search “Rio cargo bike.” If you can, pitch in with a donation. Either way, please also forward the link on to anyone you think might like to help. There are only 20 days left!

Resources – Whose Roads?

Have you ever been sucked into one of those bottomless arguments about who actually has the right to use the roads? Well here’s a handy resource packed with stats and knockout one-liners to help you hit your punch line with pizzazz and move on to more interesting topics: Whose Roads? by Todd Litman.

Hot Topics – London Cyclists’ Deaths

London hit an all-time low in 2013 with a horrible surge in cyclists’ deaths. Some of these deaths occurred at junctions within a new bikeway system the city had recently built and dubbed their “Cycle Superhighways.”

How would you handle such a situation where your city had committed to building a bikeway system (a good thing) yet that system turned out to be not only inferior, but deadly?

Here’s what the advocates did in London: Cyclists in London from ECF news.