The Bike Nerds: Recent Episodes
The OAM Network
Conversations with community leaders and how bicycling is making cities better. From star wars cosplay to community gardener, we nerd out on the aspects of their lives that influence their work on two wheels.
This week Kyle welcomes Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey. Kyle talks with Ryan about his motivations for seeking out public office, how the context of his policy and legislative solutions are informed by Baltimore’s challenges, and his effort to advance transportation solutions that actively dismantle structural racial and inequality.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Saris Infrastructure. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Saris Infrastructure’s new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at http://sarisinfrastructure.com.
This week Kyle welcomes back to the show, historian and author Evan Friss. Evan discusses his new book, On Bicycles: A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City, a deep dive into the colorful and fraught history of cycling in New York City, showing how it has served as a mirror of the city’s changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics since it first appeared. Pick up a copy of the new from Columbia University Press (http://tiny.cc/qo307y) or wherever books are sold.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Saris Infrastructure. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Saris Infrastructure’s new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at sarisinfrastructure.com.
This week Kyle reaches beyond the bicycle world for an interview with Tim Riecker, project manager and principal consultant with Emergency Preparedness Solutions (www.epsllc.biz) - a firm specializing in comprehensive emergency management planning. Tim has over two decades of experience in public safety, including local emergency response as a chief officer, state-level emergency management as a senior manager, and public safety consulting across the nation. Kyle and Tim dig into the details of how communities prepare for emergencies, the importance of robust transportation systems in emergency considerations, and the role bicycles can play in the event of an emergency.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Bike Fixation's new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at bikefixation.com.
This week Sara talks with Waffiyyah Murray, Better Bike Share Partnership Program Coordinator. Waffiyyah is a Philadelphia native with a love for walking and biking with over fourteen years of experience working with different Philadelphia-based non-profit and community organizations. In her current role as the Better Bike Share Partnership Program Manager, Waffiyyah works to address barriers to the use of bike share in low-income communities and communities of color and increase equitable access in bike-share systems nationally.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Bike Fixation's new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at bikefixation.com.
This week Sara talks with Dr. Sarah McCullough, Associate Director of the Feminist Research Institute at UC Davis. The two Sara(h)’s start with a discussion on the formation of mountain biking, the community movement that it create and its early ties to social justice movements around the world. From there, they explore the relationship between the joy of cycling as it relates to public space in cities and the positioning of people within those discussion. Stay current with Dr. McCullough’s work by visiting sarahmccphd.com and fri.ucdavis.edu.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Bike Fixation's new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at bikefixation.com
This week Sara talks with Dr. Mimi Sheller, Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy and Professor of Sociology at Drexel University. Dr. Sheller’s most recent book - “Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes” - serves as the backdrop of this conversation about centering our own advocacy on the intersections of power, inequality, transportation, climate action, and justice. Pick up a copy of Dr. Sheller’s book here: https://goo.gl/CAqCbQ.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Bike Fixation's new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at bikefixation.com
Sara and Kyle tag-team this week’s interview with Kate Gasparro, PhD candidate at Stanford University. Kate recently completed her dissertation defense focusing on research comparing stakeholder dynamics across cities where crowdfunding was used as part of innovative bicycle infrastructure project delivery. Kate’s work and research offers insights into how crowdfunding public infrastructure develops partnerships and creates an engaged stakeholder base, but doesn’t serve as the sole determinant of success for a project. Visit Kate’s website for more information about her work and research: www.kategasparro.com.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation. Community demonstrations and temporary pop-up bike lanes just got a little bit more fun, inspiring and safe with Bike Fixation's new Wave Delineators. These wavey lane delineators have been part of pilot programs across the country, and now they're available to anyone or any group interested. Learn more at bikefixation.com
This week Kyle is joined by Melissa Balmer, Founder and Director of PedalLove.org - a non-profit cultivating the power of storytelling to elevate the voice and impact of women for creating more active, mindful mobility for everyone. Melissa discusses the role of storytelling in advocacy, provides examples for how personal narratives can combine with data, and provides context for stories play in diversifying the representation of participants making change around the world. Melissa and co-author Jay Walljasper will release their new book “The Surprise Promise of Bicycling for America” later this spring https://goo.gl/ep1UTX.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
The Bike Nerds kick off 2019 with a bang! Sara is joined by Carolyn Finney, assistant professor of geography at the University of Kentucky and author of “Black Faces, White Spaces” (https://goo.gl/ZsemNT) to discuss the how identity and representation influence participation in outdoor recreational activities by people of color. Carolyn was a lead organizer of REI’s “5 Ways to Make the Outdoors More Inclusive” (https://goo.gl/oKeWgX), a detailed step-by-step action plan for making our public spaces accessible and culturally relevant to everyone.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle reflect on a busy 2018 - taking note of the amazing guests and breadth of topics covered in the third year of Bike Nerds podcasting. Sara kicks off the show with big announcement, Kyle still like Star Wars, and the episode concludes with a montage of 2018’s best guests and moments. Happy holidays to all out great listeners! We’ll nerd out more in the New Year!
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
his week, Sara and Kyle are joined by BNP superfan - Barb Chamberlain! Barb currently works as the Director of the Active Transportation Division at Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), but has a storied career and legacy of public service first as an elected official and later staffing bicycle advocacy organizations across the Pacific Northwest. Barb and the Bike Nerds talk about Twitter as an archive of online notes; Barb reflects on her time as an elected official drawing comparisons to women being elected today; and Sara gets to the bottom of what it means to be an “advocrat” working at a state-level DOT.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the Bike Nerds - Sara got married and Kyle is on vacation. Never fear, though - we’ve got a top notch episode featuring Lane Santa Cruz from Tucson, Arizona. Lane and Kyle spend the first part of the episode discussing Lane’s doctoral studies looking at systems of education and the inherent bias and racism that exists within them. They discuss why representation matters (in the classroom and elsewhere) and education serving as both a tool to overcome and as an actualized form of oppression and systemic racism. Finally, they transition to how the lessons of our educational system relate to our work as bike advocates.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
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Kyle is joined this week by Martha Roskowski, a legendary figure of bicycle advocacy with experience at every level - local, state, and nationally - working to make bicycling better. Last year, Martha was presented with a new opportunity to dive deep into a policy issue that impacts bicycling everywhere: PARKING (for cars). Her year-long research included interviews with people on the front lines of advocacy and development to paint a picture of how making space for parking is driving how cities develop and limiting our ability to make room for modes of transportation beyond cars.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara is joined this week by Katie Hargrave and Brett Hunter, partners in the socially engaged art collective, Like Riding A Bicycle. Katie and Brett began the collective in 2014 and have been using their training as artists to facilitate public engagement using a variety of creative methods ,interaction styles, and capabilities. By starting with the assumption that the place is already made and that their role is to support the people, culture, and history of what already exists in a place, they design projects that listen to multiple perspectives, respond to local contexts, and nourish the ways communities have power. Listeners can read more about their methodology and work here: https://goo.gl/2vVw9T.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Fresh off their recent visit to New Orleans, the Bike Nerds welcome Rich Neimand, President of social impact marketing firm Neimand Collaborative. Rich and his team recently helped conduct and analyze a research project commissioned by PeopleForBikes to better understand how bicycle advocates can use public communications and messaging tools as a way to build broader support for implementing bicycle infrastructure. Kyle sat down with Rich following the conclusion of their presentation at the Walk Bike Places 2018 conference and got all of the highlights for the Bike Nerds’ listeners. Additional information and resources can be accessed at peopleforbikes.org/activatingsupport.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
That’s it listeners - we’re officially 100!! Thanks for hanging with us these past three years and a big shout out to our friends, listeners, and new members of the bike nerds family that joined us in New Orleans to record this momentous occasion. In true sub-optimal Bike Nerds fashion, we had some weird technical problem on one of the mics that comes and goes as a slight echo throughout the episode - sorry. We make up for it with jokes, laughter, and stories from our guests about what the podcast means to them.
Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes! The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara is joined this week by Michelle Poyourow, Senior Associate at Jarrett Walker + Associates to discuss the changing nature of modality in cities, how the concept of “shared” or “public” space is both the challenge and the opportunity for city builders, and the role that “change” plays in motivating local behaviors and perceptions when presented with an idea to create more complete streets.
In the build up to the 100th episode, the Bike Nerds are seeking listener feedback on the show - they want to read your comments live on the air! Also, if you’ve got an idea for a closing tag line, the Bike Nerds want your suggestions and will pick a winner from listener feedback. Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes!
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week Sara sits down with Colin Murphy, Director of Research and Consulting at Shared-Use Mobility Center to discuss the emergence of new mobility options, services, and devices that cities are grappling with today. Colin discusses why transportation options are growing in cities, the speed at which they are growing, and how cities are reacting to both new technologies and users. This episode has a little bit of everything - public transit, dockless bike share, scooters, transportation network companies - so much to share! (See what we did there?)
In the build up to the 100th episode, the Bike Nerds are seeking listener feedback on the show - they want to read your comments live on the air! Also, if you’ve got an idea for a closing tag line, the Bike Nerds want your suggestions and will pick a winner from listener feedback. Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes!
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara takes point this week talking with Jordan Lee Miller, Chair of Bike Camden County (NJ), an official affiliate group of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. Driven by a personal passion for cycling, Jordan volunteers his time as chair to help make cycling a normal activity - utilizing strategies from successful cycling programs around the country like social rides, bike share pilots, and place-based advocacy.
In the build up to the 100th episode, the Bike Nerds are seeking listener feedback on the show - they want to read your comments live on the air! Also, if you’ve got an idea for a closing tag line, the Bike Nerds are seeking suggestions from listeners and will pick a winner. Touch base with the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or email to leave your feedback. Even better - leave a review on iTunes!
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle reunite after a brief summer hiatus and discuss all things bike. Kyle shares his takeaways from recent travels to the Netherlands while Sara discusses the success Memphis’ bike share system is experiencing thus far. In the lead up to the 100th episode, the Bike Nerds are seeking your feedback! Leave a review on iTunes or reach out directly to the Bike Nerds on Twitter, Facebook, or Email to share your thoughts, reviews, comments, or questions about the show. Do you have a suggestion on a catchy tag line Sara and Kyle should use to close each episode? Let them know - they’ll be selecting a winner soon.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/BikeNerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara takes the helm this week while Kyle is away bicycling his way through the Netherlands. Special guests, Liz Cornish and Jed Weeks from Bikemore, Baltimore’s bicycle and transportation advocacy group, join Sara for a discussion about Baltimore’s challenges, the changing role of Bikemore in the city’s advocacy landscape, and how local bike advocacy organizations across the country can become more effective by moving past bikes.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Both Bike Nerds are back together this week (just in time for Kyle to leave again!). Sara joins Kyle after spending the busy month of May launching Memphis’ 600-bike public bike share system. Kyle asks for all the behind-the-scenes details of what it takes to pull off a bike share launch and how Explore Bike Share plans to stay authentic and community-based after its launch. Kyle plans a month-long trip to the Netherlands in June hoping to inspire U.S.-based city leaders into action.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Kyle bring on a special co-host this week to talk about a recent project PeopleForBikes launched earlier this month - the PlacesForBikes City Ratings. Dr. Jennifer Boldry, past Bike Nerds guest and Kyle’s office-mate at PFB, joins Kyle in a Q&A discussion about all the nerdy data details this new resource helps us understand about how U.S. cities are progressing at becoming better place to bike. Buckle in and be prepared for a long talk about statistical data, regression curves, and data normalization on this one, folks!
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara’s busy launching a bike share system in Memphis and leaves Kyle alone to helm the podcast this week. Not wanting to make this week a monologue on bicycles, Kyle recruits the help of long time friend of the podcast, Chris Johnson, Walk San José Program Manager. Returning to the podcast for the first time since leaving his position at Executive Director at Bike Fort Collins, Chris comes ready to talk PeopleForBikes’ new City Ratings, autonomous vehicles, policy versus practice, and the difference in biking and walking advocacy (so far). Spoiler free mini-discussion of the upcoming Star Wars film, Solo, and recent viewings of Avengers: Infinity War end the episode.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Kyle is back from leading a study tour of 30 U.S. delegates to the cities of Sevilla and Barcelona in Spain. Sara takes the opportunity to interview Kyle about his travels, the lessons that Spanish cities can offer U.S.-based decision makers, how this study tour compares to similar tours to The Netherlands and Denmark, and what emerging trends in bicycling these cities have to showcase. Sara and Kyle talk about their shared time together at the recent National Complete Streets Coalition conference held in Nashville at the beginning of April and prepare for their time together at the upcoming PlacesForBikes Conference being held in Indianapolis the first week of May.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara flies solo this week and talks with the founder of JUICE Orange Mound, Britney Thornton. After finishing grad school, Britney returned to Memphis as a Teach For Memphis corp member and discovered that the neighborhood she grew up in wasn’t booming with development and economic opportunity like other parts of Memphis. Determined to change the narrative and give back to the community, Britney launched JUICE to unite, empower, and support each resident in the neighborhood. Four times a year, JUICE organizes a JUICE DAY going door-to-door collecting spare change from residents. With the money collected, JUICE funds innovative project ideas created by members of the community, promoting innovation within and the self-sufficiency of the neighborhood.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week the Sara and Kyle are joined by longtime friend, but first time guest to the podcast, Dwayne Jones. Dwayne is a community advocate in Orange Mound, a historic African American neighborhood located in the center of Memphis. Dwayne’s work to improve the neighborhood he grew up in takes on many forms - affordable housing, sustainable transportation, and food access and security - but isn’t without challenges that expose systemic racism at nearly every turn. Honestly, we could go on an on about the impact Dwayne has had on our lives, professionally and personally, but we found the strength to edit the episode down to a reasonable length. To understand our admiration, make sure your next visit to Memphis includes a bike tour of Orange Mound with Dwayne.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This episode is also sponsored by Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees. Visit https://ecosia.co/bikenerds to search the web and save the environment!
Sara and Kyle spend this episode discussing what the current and future venture capitalist investments in transportation are doing in cities, how money is influencing decision-makers, and what causes of concern might exist. They discuss a May 2017 report from Goldman-Sachs titled “Re-thinking Mobility” (http://bit.ly/2wPO3Dc) which explores the opportunities investors should consider when entering the mobility space; what the future trends of mobility, transportation, and ownership are; and how communities can respond.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This episode is also sponsored by Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees. Visit https://ecosia.co/bikenerds to search the web and save the environment!
This week, Sara and Kyle sit down with Bill Schultheiss (Director of Sustainable Safety, Vice President) and Rebecca Sanders (Research Lead & Senior Planner) from Toole Design Group. Last year, Bill and Rebecca co-authored (along with TDG President, Jennifer Toole) a research paper diving into the development of the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities and the role that the vehicular cycling movement played in shaping bicycle infrastructure design beginning in the early 1970’s. The historical perspective on the decisions made to influence how bikeways are designed leads to a conversation about power, voice, privilege, and gender dynamics in bicycle advocacy as well as a discussion regarding the true nature of compromise in decision-making. Read the paper here http://bit.ly/2HMW3de and settle in for what might be the longest Bike Nerds episode yet.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This episode is also sponsored by Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees. Visit https://ecosia.co/bikenerds to search the web and save the environment!
Sara prompts a question about who bike share users are and how they may differ from what advocates traditionally think of as “bicyclists.” Her research into profiles of bike share users in Washington, DC provides some insight, but Kyle complicates matters by questioning how dockless bike share may be creating an entirely new user base that cities, bike retailers, and bike share operators may not be fully prepared for. Sara features her interview with Morgan Ramaker, Executive Director of Madison BCycle and Director of Operations for BCycle LLC. Sara and Morgan discuss the varied nature of bike share users in Madison and how survey and demographic data provide a framework for tailoring programs and operations for bike share systems across the country.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This episode is also sponsored by Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees. Visit https://ecosia.co/bikenerds to search the web and save the environment!
Sara and Kyle take a look into the future of bicycling with electric bicycles! E-bikes are growing in popularity across the U.S. among individual users, and now most bike share systems are adding an e-bike component to all or part of their fleet. Featuring an interview with Morgan Lommele, E-Bike Campaign Manager at PeopleForBikes, the Bike Nerds discuss the evolution of e-bike policy in the U.S. and what opportunities e-bikes offer for increased bike use. PhD candidate and researcher working with the Biking Public Project in NYC (and past Bike Nerds Podcast guest), Do Lee, provides thoughts on the current e-bike crackdown by NYPD and the effects this enforcement action has on immigrant delivery cyclists and the larger eco-system of bike advocacy.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored Bike Fixation by Saris. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle are back in 2018 kicking off a new season of guests, stories, and opinions on the evolving future of mobility in cities. The Bike Nerds recap their thoughts and highlights from 2017 and talk about the future of the show heading into the new year.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group and Bike Fixation. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week Sara and Kyle talk with the founder of the popular online blog and website Bike Shop Girl, Arleigh Greenwald. Arleigh has been working in the bike industry for more than 15 years running bike shop operations, as a pro mechanic, running marketing for bike industry brands, and as an outside rep for a national bicycle parts supplier. In 2015, she wrote a wildly popular article, "The Bike Industry is Sick and Hiring More Women Isn't Going to Fix It.” Shortly after writing the article she founded Shift Up to change the strategy and marketing of bicycle retail - one bike shop at a time. Her new startup, Bike Here, aims to show people that biking is enjoyable and accessible by making biking about the experience it creates and not about the culture or “lifestyle”.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group and Bike Fixation. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Our series interviewing the creators of bike-oriented content and media continues this week with Jonathan Maus, Editor and Publisher of BikePortland.org, Portland’s independent online news source for all things “bike” since 2005. Jonathan talks about starting the blog 12 years ago and the journey he’s been on covering Portland’s bike scene. Jonathan’s positioning as a journalist, an advocate, and a promoter of bicycling in Portland has helped to create an active online community of people that care about bicycling and turn online comments, personas, and critiques into action in the real world.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group and Bike Fixation. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, the Bike Nerds are joined by award-winning filmmaker, John Simmerman, President and Co-Founder of Active Towns Initiative, which explores, documents, and profiles the people, places, and programs that promote and sustain a healthy Culture of Activity. For the past five years, John has been producing high quality multi-media content intended to entertain, educate, and engage audiences across social media and the Culture of Activity Vimeo Channel with a goal to inspire people, both community members and leaders alike, to take up the charge of creating more Active Towns. Currently, John has been collaborating with Kyle on a feature documentary tentatively titled “Making the Big Jump: Towards Cities that Cycle,” following the progress of the growing nationwide movement to dramatically increase the number of people riding bikes in U.S. cities over the next three years.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group and Bike Fixation. Visit www.bikefixation.com/bikenerds for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
After a week in Spain, Kyle rejoins Sara for a Bike-Nerds-Only episode filled with Halloween horror and delight. Kyle shares insight from his visits to Barcelona and Seville and the impressive pace of progress taking place in those cities. Both Bike Nerds recap their takeaways from our previous themed episodes on Bike Share, including a divergence in how Kyle and Sara interpreted those conversations. Finally, Sara and Kyle introduce the theme for our next series of episodes - Bicycle Media.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Wrapping up our interviews with leaders in bike share, we’re joined this week by Zoe Kircos, Director of Grants and Partnerships at PeopleForBikes. Through her work, Zoe manages the Community Grants Program for PFB, providing money to support bike infrastructure implementation in cities and towns all over the U.S. and she also manages PFB’s involvement in the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP) - an initiative to promote and replicate equity-based implementation and community outreach strategies of bike share systems. Zoe talks about the origins of BBSP, the accomplishments and results the partnership has produced, and where bike share equity still has room to be improved. Zoe and the Bike Nerds elaborates on how the equity-focused lessons learned from the BBSP aren’t limited to use within bike share - they can be applied to all aspects of civic life.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week the Bike Nerds sit down with the Executive Director of Charlotte B-Cycle, Dianna Ward. Dianna provides a look at launching and operating a bike share system in a U.S. mid-size city discussing the reason gin why Charlotte made the jump into bike share early in the industry’s development and the opportunities bike sharing has opened up throughout the city. Dianna is also the incoming President of the North American Bike Share Association (NABSA) and takes time to talk about her new responsibilities in the frame of bike sharing as we know it today and her aspirations for bike share’s future.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Bike share systems come in all shapes and sizes, and this week’s guest sheds light on an operation different from those previously discussed in this series. Kellyn Wardell is the Program Manager for WE-Cycle, a 200 bike system operating in the mountain communities of Basalt and Aspen, Colorado. Kellyn discusses the opportunities of partnering with regional transit systems and how WE-Cycle’s operations is meeting unmet transportation demands of local residents rather than tourists to the area. Kellyn and the Bike Nerds talk about the challenges of operating a bike share system in two distinct communities and how the geographic location of these communities pose unique challenges to bike share operations.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, the Bike Nerds are joined by Timberley Jones, Community Manager for Relay Bike Share in Atlanta, to discuss the strategies and outreach methods she uses to expand bike share into Atlanta’s diverse communities. Timberley is also the CEO and Owner of Spokes Digital Media, a digital marketing firm which provides expertise to bicycle-oriented businesses, using experiential marketing as a way to build brand awareness and clientele. Timberley’s work for for both bicycle-industry focused clients and on community-driven initiatives that improve access and awareness of Atlanta’s bike share system give her a unique shared experience that informs all of her work to get more people on bikes.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Continuing our series on bike share, this week the Bike Nerds welcome Kate Fillin-Yeh to the show. As the Director of Strategy for NACTO (the National Association of City Transportation Officials), Kate spends time working on bike share, safety, and other policy issues. Prior to NACTO, Kate designed and implemented Citi Bike in NYC, the nation’s largest and most heavily used bike share program. Kate offers insight on how bike share fits into the larger transportation ecosystems within cities and her opinions on the future of bike share in North America.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Kicking off our next series of podcasts on the subject of bike share is Founder and Executive Director of MoGo Bike Share in Detroit, Lisa Nuszkowski. Sara and Lisa sit down while attending the North American Bike Share Associations’ annual meeting held last week in Montreal to chat about launching bike share in the Motor City, the ways in which equity continues to be a focus for the system, and why bike share was right for Detroit. Discussions trend towards the future of bike share with talk of electric bikes and the new low-cost dockless system migrating from China that are disrupting the North American bike share market.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle are back with a Bike-Nerds-Only episode recapping our previous episodic theme - Beyond Bikes - and previewing our next theme - Bike Share. Sara and Kyle reflect on the recent eclipse event that took the US by storm this week. Beyond Bikes was a great theme that offers a lot of talking points for the Bike Nerds including discussions centered on community engagement and representation in decision-making. Looking ahead to bike share, the Bike Nerds offer some insight to the questions they want answered during our next interviews and Sara takes us back to 7th grade algebra with a question about Organization X and the Widgets they offer to communities. The episode ends with self-reflecting comments from Kyle - Who Is He???
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle are joined this week by LA-based urban anthropologist, Dr. Adonia E. Lugo. Adonia shares the story of her journey into transportation advocacy - using bikes regularly for transportation while living in Portland, working to organize the first ciclovia event in Los Angeles, co-creating the City of Lights / Ciudad de Luces project while working for LACBC connecting day laborer cyclists with bike advocacy, and her more recent focus as an advocate for dismantling racism within the active transportation movement itself. Adonia shares news about her current efforts like The Untokening gathering planned in California later this year and preparation for the release of her new book next year titled “Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance” available now for pre-order from Microcosm Publishing.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, Sara and Kyle are joined by Jessie Singer, Senior Editor at Transportation Alternatives, New York City’s largest advocacy organization working to promote biking, walking, and public transit use. Using her background as an investigative reporter, Jessie began the #CrashNotAccident campaign to begin a pubic dialogue about how people talk, experience, and act related to traffic collisions and crashes, showcasing the reality that traffic fatalities are entirely preventable. Her side project, ACCIDENT, continues to scour national media stories to demonstrate our prolific, and rather absurd, use of the word accident (www.tinyletter.com/accident). Jessie is also one of the founders of the NYC Ghost Bike Project, an organization that draws attention to an unsafe street through the installation of a bicycle memorial, painted white, at the location a person riding a bike has been killed.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Pedestrian advocacy has been on Sara’s mind for some time now, and this week The Bike Nerds are joined by Noel Mickelberry, Executive Director of Oregon Walks. Noel shares her personal experience of becoming a pedestrian advocate serving the three-county region surrounding her home base in Portland, OR. Noel describes the unique challenge of getting people to identify as pedestrians alongside her community engagement efforts in some of the region’s most underserved areas. Pro-pedestrian policy adoption, legislative reform, and infrastructure investments are just a few of the ways that Noel and Oregon Walks in helping the greater Portland region safely connect with the places in their neighborhoods.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Former food delivery cyclist turned community advocate, Xiaodeng Chen joins Sara and Kyle this week to talk about the Biking Public Project in New York City, an organization working to expand bicycle advocacy by reaching out to underrepresented bicyclists including women, people of color, and delivery cyclists. Xiaodeng is a student of Environmental Psychology at Brooklyn College and applies community-focused research methodologies and surveys to better understand the reality of hardships delivery cyclists face as restaurant employees, as users of NYC’s roadways, and as residents of one of the world’s most diverse cities. Xiaodeng’s personal experience of immigrating to the U.S. and working as a delivery cyclist for several years plays a key role in his understanding of what is needed in order to conduct thoughtful and compassionate outreach to this community of people riding bikes.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, Sara and Kyle are joined by Roshun Austin, Executive Director of The Works, Inc., a community development corporation operating in South Memphis. Roshun speaks to how community-driven planning expanded the original mission of providing affordable housing and pathways to homeownership for South Memphis residents to programs working to provide options for healthy eating, aging in place, and childhood education. Roshun tells the story of learning to ride a bike just two years ago and how issues of transportation, access, and mobility have become central components of her work in South Memphis. Sara and Roshun take on an extended metaphor which offers equal parts dating advice and community development philosophy.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Continuing our interviews with community leaders working outside bicycling, Sara and Kyle talk this week with Luis Herrera, Home Garden Coordinator at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. Luis talks about how he first became interested in growing food crops, how the home garden program fits into the other food justice programs at the Community Food Bank , and how his work is impacting families all over Tucson today. Through his gardening work at Pueblo Gardens Elementary, Luis has started working with a student bicycle club, teaching bicycle safety skills and leading rides through the community. Sara and Kyle also get to the bottom of a Google search resulting in the find of a pro-cyclist from the 1980’s of the same name - and an eerily similar nickname.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, Sara and Kyle are joined by LA-based Areli Morales and Rachel Horn of Sustainable Cycles, a non-profit working to promote global health by providing bicycling and menstruation education. Through extensive bicycle touring across the U.S. and Mexico, groups of female-bodied bicyclists lead workshops and events designed to raise awareness of women’s health with a lens on reducing dependence on combustion engines, disposable products, and petroleum-based industries. Rachel is currently ending this year’s tour which took her from Los Angeles to Guadalajara to Mexico City to Austin to Atlanta - almost completely by bike. Areli has also helped with the U.S. launch of a new mobile app - Biko - designed to incentivize making short trips by bike and launching in cities across the U.S. later this year.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Kicking off our new theme - Beyond Bikes - are father/daughter duo, Lyle and Allison Udell, participants in the Memphis-based Urban Bicycle Food Ministries (UBFM). Each week, dozens of people in Memphis mount up on their bikes and hand-deliver around 300 burritos and 100 hotdogs to people experiencing homelessness. Lyle and Allison began riding with UBFM and distributing food about three years ago, and now have participated in more than 160 rides providing assistance and friendship to those in need. Lyle is now the Executive Director of UBFM and talks about his changing perspectives on homelessness and the need for communities to do more across the country for those in need.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle sit down for a Bike-Nerds-Only episode to recap the past six weeks talking about bike history. Both Sara and Kyle share their favorite moments from the interviews featuring the history of bikes and give their thoughts on the current state of bike advocacy using this historical context. Kyle uses a lot of metaphors while Sara tries to rein in the use of the phrase “really interesting.” This episode concludes with a preview of our next theme: Beyond Bikes - a deeper look at individuals whose work in communities is not centered on bikes, but have found bikes play a useful part in achieving positive community outcomes.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle talk this week with Anthony Taylor, a stalwart in the national bike advocacy movement. Anthony is a founding member of the Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota and The National Brotherhood of Cyclists. Anthony shares a brief history of 1890’s international cycling champion, Marshall “Major” Taylor, the origins of cycling clubs named in his honor, and the role these clubs play today in shaping bicycle advocacy. Anthony discusses the expanding base of support for cycling through U.S. communities, and the need for traditional biking advocates to look beyond the bike lane to be most effective, especially in historically underserved neighborhoods.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Kyle flies solo this week to talk with Christine Bachman-Sanders, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota and an accomplished touring cyclist, having ridden across America and through a big chunk of Europe. Christine's research examines the relationship between the "new woman," American imperialism, and the bicycle craze of the 1890s. She is particularly concerned with how American Manifest Destiny, classed and raced associations with leisure, and suffragist notions of women’s empowerment that house race and class logics interact with the symbolic and material power of the bicycle.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Continuing our discussion of bicycles and history, this week the Bike Nerds welcome back friend of the podcast, Anthony Siracusa. In addition to serving as the president of BikeWalk TN, Anthony is also pursuing a doctorate in history from Vanderbilt University studying the growth, proliferation, and misconceptions of non-violent protest during the U.S. Civil Rights movement. In 2009/10 Anthony traveled the world exploring great bicycling cities searching for answers on how to create bicycling cultures, and through a historical framework discovered that the answers were historically rooted and more complicated than originally guessed.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week the Bike Nerds are joined by Carlton Reid, Newcastle, UK-based executive editor of BikeBiz.com, and author of “Roads Were Not Built for Cars” (2015) and the upcoming “Bike Boom: The Unexpected Resurgence of Cycling” (2017). Sara and Kyle chat with Carlton about the European biking boom of the 1930’s and the American boom of the early 1970’s. The historical circumstances that led to the popularity in cycling during those times provide valuable lessons for today’s advocates and city planners working to make biking a normalized activity.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Our second guest talking about the History of Bikes is Evan Friss, an Assistant Professor of History at James Madison University and the author of The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s (2015). Evan holds a Ph.D. in History from the Graduate Center, City University of New York and an M.A. in History and a Certificate in Archival Management from New York University. Evan and the Bike Nerds discuss the rise and fall of bicycles at the turn of the 20th century, the legacy of bike advocacy created during that time, and the ways in which today’s advocates are facing similar struggles to our urban ancestors.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Our first guest talking about the History of Bikes is James Longhurst, a historian of urban and environmental policy, and the author of Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the American Road (2015). He is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, with a Ph.D. in history and policy from Carnegie Mellon University. James and the Bike Nerds discuss the recent wave of academic inquiry analyzing the ways that bicycles played a role in shaping policies that define the built urban landscape today.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle fly solo this week to introduce the next theme episodes will covered over the next couple of weeks. A listener suggested that the "History of Bicycling" be a focus to better understand the relationship and context of past transportation decisions and policies with the work of bike advocates today. Kyle recaps his exciting weekend at Star Wars Celebration 2017, Sara describes a thrilling weekend in Colorado, and both Bike Nerds recount their takeaways from the previous discussions with leaders of local bike advocacy organizations.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Tamika Butler, joins us to talk about building bike movements in Los Angeles and the surrounding region. Tamika talks about her journey from practicing attorney to leader of LA County's bicycle advocacy organization, how issues of social justice shape the lens that she and LACBC work through, and the relevance of race, diversity, and inclusion to both local and national advocacy organizations.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Our interviews with leaders of local bike advocacy groups continue this week with Eric Rogers, Executive Director of Bike Walk KC. Eric and The Bike Nerds talk about sidewalk maintenance, the origins of bike advocacy in Kansas City, the unique advocacy-led operation of the KC’s bike share system, and the evolving role of bike advocacy, community outreach, and planning in this midwestern city. Kyle brings up the barbecue rivalry between Memphis and Kansas City and Eric admits he has a podcast problem.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week the Bike Nerds take it back to Memphis for a chat with Bike Walk Memphis Program Director, Bridget McCall. Bridget discusses what it’s like to lead a new advocacy organization in a city with existing community momentum for biking, relationship and coalition building with diverse communities and organizational partners, and balancing her time and efforts between both bicycling and walking advocacy.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Dan Favre, Executive Director of Bike Easy in New Orleans, LA, sits down with Sara and Kyle this week to talk Mardi Gras, the city’scharm, and a culture that values public space. Social bike rides, neighborhood complete streets ambassadors, and bicycle second lines are all part of the community-driven efforts that Bike Easy leads under Dan’s guidance.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Visit www.sarisparking.com/bikenerds before March 23 and sign up to win a free Bike Fixation Outdoor Public Bike Pump.
This week, Sara and Kyle sit down and talk local bike advocacy with Kylie Walzak, Lead Program Manager & Cyclovia Tucson Coordinator at Living Streets Alliance in Tucson, AZ. Kylie shares how her experience as an educator influences how she approaches bike advocacy and how Living Streets Alliance is building relationshipsand community across Tucson using bikes.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
www.sarisparking.com/bikenerds and sign up to win a free Bike Fixation Outdoor Public Bike Pump.
Alex Ellis, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition, joins the Bike Nerds to continue their conversations with leaders of local bike advocacy organizations. Alex discusses the blurred lines of state and local advocacy in the country’s smallest state, and talks specifics about growing a bicycle culture in the capitol city, Providence. Alex talks about the challenges of balancing the need for better on-street bike infrastructure with efforts that simultaneously create vibrant bike cultures and use. Also, Alex, Sara, and Kyle share in their mutual love and use of the word “ya’ll.”
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products
Kicking off our 6-week series talking about local bike advocacy, the Bike Nerds chat with Bike Austin Executive Director, Mercedes Feris. Mercedes talks with Sara and Kyle about the strategies that she and her team use to reach diverse residents in Austin - from a sophisticated network of community volunteers to working directly with city officials - in order to achieve big goals of making the Texas capitol a hub of bicycling activity. Mercedes offers some practical advice for those starting local bike advocacy groups and leads Sara down a path towards IRS reconciliation.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Register now to win one of 25 Saris water bottles! Visit www.sarisparking.com/bikenerds before March 2 for a chance to win.
Sara and Kyle are back to introduce the new 6-week topic…local bike advocacy! The Bike Nerds have a full schedule of some of the top bike advocates working in cities across the U.S. planned for this spring, just in time for you to shake those winter riding blues. Kyle shares anecdotes about water bottles, Sara tries out cyclocross and road bikes for the first time, and both work themselves into a frenzy over the phrase “really interested in…”
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Register now to win one of 25 Saris water bottles! Visit www.sarisparking.com/bikenerds before March 2 for a chance to win.
This week, Sara and Kyle catch up with Ayesha McGowan, a California resident on a mission to become the first ever African-American female professional cyclist. Ayesha talks about the importance of women and people of color to be represented in bike racing, her personal journey to become a professional cyclist, and her podcast: Fix It Black Jesus. Ayesha also talks about the launch of her virtual ride series at her website, A Quick Brown Fox. By joining the “Do Better Together” ride series you can set riding goals and earn prizes right along side Ayesha as she makes her way through the 2017 race season!
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
This week, Sara and Kyle talk with Charles Brown, Senior Research Manager and Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University. Charles talks about his Mississippi roots, the life experiences that led him to New Jersey, and how those experiences help to shape his work and research today. Charles also talks about recent research he and colleague, James Sinclair, conducted about barriers to bicycle use in black and hispanic communities and how the results provide a baseline for future understanding of ways that culture and society influence active transportation and safety.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Sara and Kyle continue discussing the intersections of personal experiences and bike advocacy with Fernando Martinez, an active transportation consultant working in Brownsville and Harlingen, TX. Fernando shares insight gathered over years of bicycle advocacy - strategies for engaging community members, the unique aspects of working in Mexican-American communities, and the importance of knowing the right dance moves to advance bikes. From his earliest introductions to bicycles on a racing team in Mexico City, bikes help shape Fernando’s world view and continue to move him forward.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Continuing with theme of intersectionality in bicycling, this week’s guest is Zahra Alabanza, co-founder of Red Bike & Green - Atlanta, a collective of Black urban cyclists improving the health, economy, and local environment of African Americans by creating a relevant & sustainable Black bike culture. Zahra chats with Sara and Kyle about the roll that RBG-ATL plays in advocacy in Atlanta, the ways in which Dr. King’s legacy is still present today in the Georgia capitol, and her experience at The Untokening conference that took place in Atlanta this past fall.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Opening our 6-week series covering topics of intersectionality in biking, Sara and Kyle sit down with Dr. Melody Hoffmann, author of "Bike Lanes Are White Lanes," co-host of the Feminist Killjoys PhD podcast, and a member of the Diversity and Equity Committee of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition. The Bike Nerds talk with Melody about her observations on the ways in which bicycles become symbols of joy and freedom to some communities and of oppression and obstruction in others. Through her work, bicycle advocates are learning ways to better build broad coalitions of support for bicycling in diverse communities across the U.S.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.sarisparking.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
A new year brings a lot of excitement to the podcast! Fresh off the holiday break, Sara and Kyle discuss cold winter weather, their recent cycling activities (or lack thereof), and the hats worn by participants in NYC's NYE celebration in Time Square. Intersectionality is the theme for the next six weeks. Our upcoming guests will be speaking to the perspectives and lived experiences that shape their work and of those impacted by bike advocacy across the country. And a new sponsor joins the Bike Nerds family in 2017 - Saris Cycling Group! There will be lots of new opportunities this year thanks to Saris. Right off the bat, register to win one of ten, 6-pack bike holders. Visit www.sarisparking.com/bikenerds before January 19 enter a chance to win.
The Bike Nerds Podcast is sponsored by Saris Cycling Group. Visit www.saris.com for a full array of bicycle parking and infrastructure products.
Our final episode of 2016 is capped by a conversation with friend of the podcast, Cort Percer. A former Memphis resident, Cort has been a long-time friend of Sara and Kyle through the cycling scene working to get people on bikes through his various roles as manager of a retail bike shop, advocacy leader, organizer of local alley cat bike races, and his overall enthusiasm for getting more people on bikes. Now working as a regional sales representative for a large US-based bike manufacturer, Cort is spreading his zeal for bikes throughout the midwest.
Sara and Kyle reach into their seemingly endless supply of great Tennessee advocates this week and talk with Chris Carr, current Chairman of Bike Walk Chattanooga. Chris began his advocacy work in Hattiesburg, MS, became interested in making Chattanooga a better place to bike when he moved their a little over three years ago, and has been instrumental in the formation and continued success of bicycle advocacy in the southeastern Tennessee city. He talks about drawing influence from his neighboring TN cities through the Bike Walk Tennessee networks of advocacy organizations, his aspirations for Chattanooga, and his hope to wear a Santa suit one year while riding a bike.
This week, Sara and Kyle chat with new Memphis resident and bicycle transportation user, Vishant Shah. Vishant works for Littlebird Innovation, a consulting firm that uses a human-centered approach to tackle complex problems and achieve consensus and buy-in. Prior to Memphis, Vishant resided in Indianapolis and was engaged in interactive games that help residents and visitors experience their city, surroundings, and neighborhoods on a deeper level. Vishant talks about the joys of seeing his son experience the neighborhood through biking to school and his perspective on moving from one up and coming bicycle city to another.
This week Kyle and Sara catch up in a "hosts only" episode. Sara talks about the changes she's seen in Memphis bicycling since the opening of the Big River Crossing, Kyle talks about some big wins for bicycles during the November election cycle, and both share some real-life stories of making a podcast behind the scenes. Closing out the episode, Sara and Kyle talk briefly about some plans for the podcast in 2017. Make sure to listen all the way to the end for a musical outtake that will revive the '90's in all of us.
Inspired by the discussion last week related to bicycle data, Sara and Kyle chat with Dr. Jennifer Boldry, Director of Research at PeopleForBikes. From broader discussions about data and research to more definitive talk about how data can influence and be used in bicycle advocacy, this episode truly lets you nerd out with one of the best bike data geeks around. And we're not just saying that because she works with Kyle...
This week, the Bike Nerds are joined by Kyle's advisor from graduate school, Dr. Charlie Santo. Charlie is the Chair of the City and Regional Planning Department at the University of Memphis and works to equip students with the skills and situational contexts needed to be effective planners one day. Sara and Kyle talk with Charlie about the methods of teaching city planning, the background behind data usage and its relevance to the field, and what it was like to have Kyle as a student.
Sara and Kyle sat down together in the Memphis podcast studio a couple weeks ago and talked with the City of Memphis Director of Housing and Community Development, Paul Young. Paul is part of a team working to complete Memphis's first comprehensive plan since the 1980's and The Bike Nerds inquire about the ways in which this kind of long term land use planning can impact the work that bike advocates do everyday. While we weren't able to cover all aspects of this kind of advocacy in just an hour, we do start a conversation we hope to continue on future episodes.
Bike Fort Collins's Executive Director, Chris Johnson, joins Sara and Kyle this week to talk about the work of a bike advocacy organization in a town known best for its bicycle-friendly reputation, the community's outdoorsy Colorado lifestyle, and craft beers. From transit access to affordable housing, Chris's work expands beyond movement on two wheels, refocusing the activities of a "traditional bike advocacy" organization around issues that impact the most underserved and vulnerable populations. Sara hears to words "winter cycling" and sets her on a quest to discover what people bicycling north of the Mason-Dixon Line experience when white snow begins to fall.
This week, Sara and Kyle talk with Carolyn Szczepanski-Reinertson, Communications and Marketing Director at Minnesota Housing Partnerships. Carolyn is also the former Communications Director for both the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking and Walking. The Bike Nerds chat with Carolyn about the transition to housing advocacy, the relationships her new work has with bike advocacy, and the upcoming Untokening Conference taking place in Atlanta on November 13. Registration for the conference is still open and you can join many of the show's past guests for conversations around racial and social justice and transportation - /react-text www.untokening.org.
For our last podcast from Vancouver, Sara and Kyle sit down with Kristen Jeffers, blogger and creator of The Black Urbanist. Kristen talks about the life experiences that shape her perspective on public life, community engagement, and the democracy of public spaces. You can read her thoughts regularly on The Black Urbanist Blog ( /react-text theblackurbansit.com react-text: 135 ) and hear now as co-host of the new podcast, Third Wave Urbanism ( /react-text thirdwaveurbanism.com react-text: 138 ) - available wherever podcasts are sold!
Brent Buice, Executive Director of Georgia Bikes, joins Sara and Kyle in Vancouver for a chat about working in the American South, a part of the country dominated by sprawling urban environments and deeply rural small communities. Brent shares the story of his beginnings in bike advocacy, the strategies he uses to communicate the benefits of bicycling in a "rolling coal" culture, and, his love for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team. This is the second part of the interview began last week with Bill Nesper on Episode 31. Be sure to check out that episode for the full breadth of this bike nerd conversation.
Our second guest for the Vancouver recording session is Bill Nesper, the Bicycle Friendly America Program Director at the League of American Bicyclists. Bill's work helps to focus communities towards the policy and programs that best create an environment friendly to cyclists and has resulted in nearly 400 communities in the U.S. receiving designation as Bicycle Friendly Communities. Sara and Kyle cover a lot ground with Bill, reflecting on the impressions of Vancouver and the conference as well as MacGuyver (original television series), bikes, advocacy, playing music around the world, and soccer.
Kicking off our four-part interview series from the Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Place Conference in Vancouver, BC, Sara and Kyle are joined by Jamison Hutchins, the bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the City of Indianapolis. Jamison and the Bike Nerds reflect on their time at the conference together, the experiences they have had riding bikes in Vancouver, and the takeaways for working back in the states. Jamison reflects on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, a separated bicycle pathway system throughout downtown Indy, and its impact on the city for bicycling and beyond.
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Sara and Kyle are joined this week by Keith Holt, the Community Education Manager for Bike Easy, New Orleans' bike advocacy organization. Keith is an experienced advocate having worked in Chicago and Milwaukee prior to moving south last year. Keith shares his viewpoint on bike advocacy in the American South, the impact that Hurricane Katrina continues to have on New Orleans, and the ways in which bike advocacy groups can be more relevant to the people they serve. Make sure to put 2018 on your calendars so you can join Keith in New Orleans for the next Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference!
Environmental psychologist, Do Lee joins Sara and Kyle this week to discuss The Public Biking Project and Do's work with delivery cyclists in New York City. Do's work helps to elevate the experiences of delivery cyclists in meaningful ways in order to combat the negative stories and language often used by media, community leaders, and advocates. We get Do's opinion on the changing nature of bike advocacy, the value of Participatory Action Research in community engagement, and a preview of the upcoming NBA season (Do's Golden State Warriors vs. The Bike Nerds' Memphis Grizzlies).
Prolific bicycle advocate, writer, and public speaker, Elly Blue joins Sara and Kyle this week to talk about the changing nature of bicycle advocacy - from its earliest inceptions at the turn of the 20th century to modern day shifts in leadership and strategic direction. The discussion touches on the ways in which feminism and racial/ethnic identities influence modern bicycle advocacy, as well as some the challenges still being faced in cities across the U.S. The end of the episode also offers some insight into Elly's far-reaching capability to carry large items by bikes, including a piece of furniture commonly found throughout American homes.
This week Sara and Kyle chat with Amy Benner Johnson, a personal injuryattorney with the Bike Law Network. From her work representing people involved in bicycle crashes, Amy offers a unique perspective on the legal culture of bicycles in America along with some sobering stories of those seeking seeking justice in our legal systems. Feel free to pause that "Law and Order" marathon and enjoy the procedural investigation of this week's show!
This week Sara and Kyle are joined by Jordan Exantus, a planner working in Prince George's County, Maryland. Jordan talks about his perspective as a public planner working to develop walking and biking projects in an environment where car driving is much more prevalent and the impacts of historical residential displacement from the DC metro region are at the forefront of residents' minds. Kyle and Jordan also talk about the excitement of the new English Premier League soccer season while Sara listens on as if witnessing a conversation in another language.
This week Sara and Kyle are joined by Nora Kern, Executive Director of Walk Bike Nashville. Nora talks about her time working on a fishing boat in Alaska and all the great biking and walking advocacy happening in Tennessee's capitol city. Alaskan bushwhacking, bike share, social media campaigns, and a crazy theory about the Sith Rule of Two - it all gets covered in this episode.
Jimmy is the Executive Director of Boise Bicycle Project, one the country's largest community bike programs. Sara joins Kyle for the intro, but was unable to record the podcast with Jimmy. Left to their own devices, Jimmy and Kyle dig deep into the role that community bike shops play in communities as organizers, advocates, and technical experts all in one.
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This week Kyle (sans Sara) talks with with Angela van der Kloof, a transportation and sustainability consultant from the Netherlands. Sara and Kyle met Angela while attending a study tour in Amsterdam last fall. Angela is involved with a program targeted at teaching immigrant women how to ride bikes in the Netherlands as well other urban consulting strategies for growing the diversity of bicycling around the world. Angela provides a unique perspective on bicycling culture, inclusive practices, and urban strategies for creating safe and healthy communities on two wheels.
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This week The Bike Nerds debut a new segment called 'On Our Mind.' The new segment will bring together a panel of bike nerds to talk about timely subject relevant to recent events in the world and in our communities. This week, Naomi Doerner and Roshun Austin, Executive Director of The Works CDC based in South Memphis, talk with Sara and Kyle about race, privilege, and the impact of institutional violence on the bike advocacy and planning profession. If you like this format and the discussion, don't worry - On Our Mind will continue to appear periodically in the future between the regular Bike Nerds podcast interviews you've come to love.
Sara and Kyle talk with Todd Drezner, NYC resident and filmmaker, currently working on a new documentary titled "Ways To Go." Todd talks about his motivations for making this documentary, the creative process of filmmaking, the art of storytelling, and that time he worked to film a Chinese sitcom in Chicago. To watch the film's trailer or to make a contribution visit/react-text www.waystogomovie.com.
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Darren Flusche, Senior Planner at Toole Design Group, joins Sara and Kyle this week to catch up on Darren's recent honeymoon visit to Germany, the current state of national bicycle advocacy, and that time Darren worked as a back-country guide/life coach/actor/chef in the mountains of New Hampshire.
The week before Kyle headed west to Colorado, the Bike Nerds held a live show at the Bikesmith bike shop in Memphis. Sara and Kyle were joined by old friends and family, share stories of biking adventures in Memphis, and go head to head with audience members the first ever Bike Nerds Trivia.
Sara and Kyle sit down with "Bicycling and the City" founder, Renee Moore to talk about her inspiration for getting more people in the DC regions out on bikes. Renee talks about the reason she started biking, why she loves getting other people on bikes, and a shared connection with Kyle over soybeans.
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This week Sara and Kyle chat with Anna Ray, Community Outreach Coordinator for Capital Bikeshare in Washington, DC. Through her work, Anna is creating an equity program that assists with improving access to bikeshare for the existing system and also planning future expansion of bikeshare into underserved communities throughout the DC region. The interview takes place during a day where Anna led a group ride, taught a "learn to ride" class, and attended a Women On Wheels event taking her bike nerd achievement to 10th level wizard.