Wheeling women: Female-friendly bike resources (Pedaling Periodical)

There has always been plenty of information out there for male-identifying bicyclists, and fortunately, there continues to be more and more resources designed for all different kinds of women bicyclists, too! As women, we want to share the resources we've found helpful in the bicycling world.

"Helmet Hair Do’s (and a Don’t)" by Janet Lafleur
One of the excuses I often hear from women is that they don't want to bike to work because their hair will get messed up. Well, that excuse is no longer valid thanks to Janet Lafleur of One Woman. Many bicycles., who writes about how to bike to work and still look professional, feminine, and composed. (Okay, I realize that she is one woman with a particular hair type that may not apply to all women, so some of you may not believe it's possible to bike without helmet hair... the biggest takeaway is to bike slower and take sweat out of the helmet hair equation entirely.) She's my go-to writer for stylish bike riding. Her blog has great fashion and practical advice, and she's tweets on Twitter a lot, too. She lives in Mountain View, so if  you're ever over the hill on Caltrain, you might just see her... (I have!). If you're looking specifically for tips on helmet hair, click here.

Photo credit: Janet Lafleur (One Woman. Many bicycles.)

Wheelwomen Switchboard
Do you ever wish there was a place to connect with other women bicyclists and ask questions or find opportunities for better bicycling? The new Wheelwomen Switchboard is that place. After creating an account, you can post offers or requests or reply to others' posts. Topics include job hunting, bike ride meetups, tips for better bicycling, and more! A Bike Portland post from March 18 quotes the creator of the site, Elly Blue: "'We weren't sure it would take off, but it was huge,' writes Blue, a 2002 Reed graduate whose most recent book is Bikeonomics. 'What it tells me is that the women's biking movement is something a lot of people are eager to identify themselves as being part of, that these same people are hungry to connect with each other, and that a lot of the stuff they want to talk about is practical tips for everything from gear to routes to organizing movements and creating equitable spaces.'" Female-identifying bicyclists, join today!

The Best Bike Stickers Ever
I recently perused the shop at Taking the Lane: Publishing the feminist bicycle revolution (another Elly Blue creation), and I found some pretty awesome, mostly feminist bike stickers. I ordered some, and I've since put one on my bike rack (see below). If you like stickers and bikes and beer and/or feminism, I highly recommend ordering some. Might as well search the rest of the shop, too, because the zines and books available are really cool. Anything related to Elly Blue tends to be cool, actually.

Pedal Love's next blog columnist: You!

A couple months ago, I came across Pedal Love, an online storytelling site for women who love to bike. I submitted some photos for their Valentine's Day post, and I was asked by Melissa Balmer, Women on Bikes California Director and Editor for Pedal Love, if I wanted to become a blogger for their site. Of course I said yes, and the first blog I submitted was a Bike Love piece. I've since written another piece featuring Santa Cruz women bicycling advocates, and I'm waiting for it to be published on the site now. The good news is that anyone who loves their bike can submit content to the site after connecting with Melissa Balmer, and there's a lot of other exciting stuff happening through the Women on Bikes and Pedal Love platforms. Learn more on the site here, and contact Melissa Balmer for details about writing for them.

Women's Bike Blogs

The largest list of women bike blogs the world has ever seen (or that I've ever seen at least) is available online here. Some are recreational blogs, some are environmental, others are hardcore cargo bikers with kids, and many are from other countries. If you're looking for more resources on bicycling from a woman's perspective, this list is a great place to begin searching!

Have more resources to share? Post in the comments, or email Melissa so we can include them next time.

"Transportation in the Post-Carbon World"

One of our guest speakers from yesterday's class, George Dondero, Director of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, shared this reading titled Transportation in the Post-Carbon World to pass along to you all. It's optional, but it directly ties into the work of this class. You can access it online here by downloading the PDF or reading it online.

The excerpt on the site reads

"Successful post-carbon transitions will benefit from understanding the dynamics of transport revolutions. We define a transport revolution as being substantial change in a society's transport activity--moving people or freight, or both--that occurs in less than twenty five years."

And here's a video that gives you a sense of the topic being addressed in the reading:

Why I Love Public Transportation (A re-post from Green Gal)

This was originally posted on Melissa's Green Gal blog here on September 14, 2012. 

Sure, sometimes you end up next to the smelly guy on the train or you wind up getting the bus with the loud cell phone people or the crazies. But the more you take public transportation, the more skilled you become at selecting seats, using body language (like angry faces and glaring to avoid conversations!), and just learning to deal with it because there are plenty of reasons--I'm about to name five--why public transportation is awesome. Here's why I love public transportation, and why I encourage you to utilize it as often as you can in your daily life.

1. Public transportation reduces the number of polluting, traffic-causing cars on the road.
Every time you take public transportation when you might otherwise have taken a car takes one car off the road. Think about people who take PT every day to work, school, or wherever they going when they could have driven. Certainly a bus requires more fuel than a compact car, but if you fill a bus with people and take the cars the passengers would have been driving off the road, you're saving a ton of gas and reducing pollution and traffic congestion.

2. Staring out the window when you're a passenger and letting your mind wander is really good for your brain, particularly when the scenery is nice.
When I take the bus and train home from college, I almost instantly find myself glancing up to the window and letting my thoughts wander for awhile before returning to my book or computer. Most of my commute is through forest and then through open space, so my mind has nothing in particular to grab ahold of and capture my attention--I'm free to explore whatever aspect of the universe of thought that my brain has the capacity to access. Often, I recognize how much I need that unfocused thinking to the passing world in order to let my mind wander, and I put my book or computer away. Pretty soon, the notebook comes out and ideas for things I should do at work, school, or on my blog come pouring out. I outlined the plan for this blog post while sitting on the Highway 17 Express yesterday, for example. I write best when I'm inspired after some unfocused gazing off into space, like on the bus, and I often do my best thinking when I'm the passenger of a moving vehicle without distraction. It's this unfocused attention that allows our brains to recharge, and the same kind of thing happens for me when I'm surrounded by nature and am able to simply think. Turns out, it's not just me. Richard Louv discusses this and something called "directed-attention fatigue" (28) in his book The Nature Principle:

Over time, the Kaplans [who conducted a study with a group similar to Outward Bound in the 1970s] developed their theory of directed-attention fatigue. As described in a paper by Stephen Kaplan and Raymond DeYoung: "Under continual demand our ability to direct our inhibitory processes tires. . . . This condition reduces mental effectiveness and makes consideration of abstract long-term goals difficult. A number of symptoms are commonly attributed to this fatigue: irritability and impulsivity that results in regrettable choices, impatience that has us making ill-formed decisions, and distractibility that allows the immediate environment to have a magnified effect on our behavioral choices." The Kaplans hypothesize that the best antidote to such fatigue, which is brought on by too much directed attention, is involuntary attention, what they call "fascination," which occurs when we are in an environment that fulfills certain criteria: the setting must transport the person away from their day-to-day routine, provide a sense of fascination, a feeling of extent (enough available space to allow exploration), and some compatibility with a person's expectations for the environment being explored. Furthermore, they have found that the natural world is a particularly effective place for the human brain to overcome mental fatigue, to be restored. (Louv 28)

Along these same lines, it has always bothered me when parents have their kids watch DVDs in the back of the car on long drives. I was never that child, and I'm so incredibly thankful to my parents for forcing me to sit there and gaze out the window. Occasionally, I read a book or colored or sang songs with family, but after awhile, I would get bored of doing anything and start to watch the orchards go by (you know what I'm talking about if you've ever gazed out a car window in an agricultural setting--the rows are so fun to watch, it's addicting), or start day dreaming. Those poor kids who have their eyes glued to a television in the backseat aren't developing the habit of day dreaming and thinking without being focused on something. How are you supposed to think about your life as a whole if you're always sectioning it off into "projects" or "subjects" or "to-dos"? Sometimes you need to literally just sit and stare in order to put things together in your life, and while we all know this and have had experience with it, being aware of how important this is and acting on this every single day will make us all more clear-headed. Having these experiences as a child in a car or on a bus or train set the foundation for us to be able to be creative with our thinking and learn to entertain ourselves. Being able to simply be, think, and enjoy the ride without being entertained is so important, and this is why I will never let my children (if I ever have any) watch DVDs in the back of my car--oh wait, that's because I won't have a car! :-)

3. How often do you get to be the passenger? You can get work done as you travel when you aren't driving.
While I recommend gazing out the window for a good portion of your trip, you can also get work done when you aren't the one driving. Some buses and trains have free wifi, or you can read or use a computer without the internet. You can also nap, which I call getting a lot of good work done.

4. Public transportation costs significantly less money than owning and maintaining your own car, and you don't have to worry about parking or the stress of driving.
Even if you do own a car, using public transportation whenever you can reduces the amount of mileage you're accumulating on your car and means you don't have to pay for gas at the pump as often. You don't have to pay parking fees or even find parking in the first place. You can enjoy a drink without worrying about driving yourself anywhere (a college student's best designated driver is often the bus driver).

5. You gain some perspective on life by observing those who have no other option but to take public transportation.
While I do not own my own car, I have parents who do own cars who've driven me back to campus before. I have friends with cars who could drive me places if I really needed a ride. Eventually, I will probably own a car--though I'll fight getting one as long as I can. I use public transportation largely because I'm a college student and everyone takes the buses, but I also do it because I know it is less polluting in the long run than using a car to get everywhere. But the fact is, most people who use public transportation have no other option because they have no car. Spending time on public transportation and realizing this fact can give you some perspective on your life and make you thankful and grateful for the privilege you have in being able to even make public transportation a choice rather than a necessity.

It can open your heart a little and make those uncomfortable moments on public transportation that I mentioned at the beginning of this article a little less of an issue. We're all just people doing the best we can, moving from one place to another. Maybe the smelly guy is homeless for reasons beyond his control; maybe the loud person on their cell phone is going through a rough time in their life and they need to have that conversation with whomever to make it through the day; and maybe the "crazy" people aren't really crazy after all. They just see life a little differently than you.

Hopefully this article makes you more inclined to take public transportation the next time you have an opportunity to do so. If not, I'm curious what your hesitation is, and I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Thank you for reading!
Have a great weekend!