Our mayor in Spandex?

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, at his regular news briefing Thursday, mentioned that he's been teaching his kids, 6 and 4, to ride bikes and said he went out and bought himself a road bike, the kind with toe clips that he's still learning how to use.

The last few days, he said, "I've gone out at 5:30 in the morning and gone down to the Little Sugar Creek Greenway." He talked about wanting to make the city friendlier to bicycling.

All of which leaves the obvious question, which yours truly was the only journalist in the room willing to ask: "So, are you wearing Spandex?"

Foxx: "I'm not answering that."

Which I think means he must be.

So, dear readers, if anyone wants to volunteer to be a citizen journalist and go down on the greenway at – as my friend Brenda would say, "O-dark-thirty" – and try for a mayoral Spandex sighting, please let me know what you discover.

Sound off to NCDOT about biking, walking,

If you have thoughts - and I bet you do - about what the North Carolina Department of Transportation could do better to help bicyclists and pedestrians, here's a chance to give them your opinions.

Take a Bike-Ped survey for NCDOT. It's quick, and who knows, they may actually use it. Even if they don't, it might feel better to get stuff off your chest. Survey link sent courtesy of Dick Winters, the Safe Routes to Schools coordinator for Mecklenburg County Public Health.

Why don't more women bicycle?

My recent recounting of the 4.2-mile, 80-minute walk to work ("A Morning Walk") brought a Twitter response from @JamesWillamor: You could make it in 15 to 20 minutes or so on a bicycle.

I tried to explain to him about the problems of riding on Providence Road, and the problems of having to wear office garb at the office and tried a delicate mention (especially difficult with the 140-character nature of Twitter) of the issue of profuse sweat from biking up that long long Morehead Street hill.

He persisted: Plenty of office garb on bicyclists in Europe and Asia. "Humidity," I replied. He said there's plenty of humidity in Japan and China.


But maybe there's more to my reluctance than the logistical problems of trying to bicycle in nice clothes, or in a disinclination to being killed by bicycling on Providence Road. (I have imagined elaborate and circuitous routes through the meandering heart of Myers Park but there's no way to avoid riding on some parts of Providence and either busy Morehead or busy Stonewall.)

Could my reluctance be, in part, because I'm female?


I got an e-mail today that originated with transportation planner John Cock (correction, no longer with The Lawrence Group, now with Alta Planning), notifying people of a free Webinar (register here) from the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. The topic: "Writing Women Back Into Bicycling: Changing Transportation Culture to Encourage More Women to Cycle." The blurb: "Some say that transportation culture will change when more women are cycling. What's the key to making that change happen?"

Indeed, what would help me reconsider? My quick list:

First, safe bike lanes wide enough so I didn't feel I'd put my life in danger.

Second, a chain guard to keep the grease from getting onto my office clothes. Because who wants to have to carry good office garb in a backpack? That adds even more weight to a pack where you've already had to stash your office shoes. Plus in a pack, your good clothes would wrinkle.

Third, a good place to shower at the office. I can walk and still be presentable if it's not 80 degrees outside. No way I could bicycle without showering. (Technically, because of where I work, I could shower at the Dowd Y. But that's not a generic solution for all women.)