“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

Suffragette Susan B. Anthony, 1896

The bicycle went through a radical change in design from the high wheeler  (aka the Ordinary or Penny Farthing bicycle) to the new Safety bicycle  . The next great bike design was the invention of the drop-frame in 1886, which meant the center bar swooped down low to make room for skirts or dresses. This new bike design soon became the standard “women’s bike” and the popularity of cycling among women took off!

The bicycle brought about some big changes to women’s lives in the late 19th century, bringing them a measure of freedom, a sense of equality and a self-confidence they’d never had before. The bicycle became connected to the women’s suffrage movement both by feminists and also by the men who felt threatened by the changes it brought about.  As Maria Ward once wrote in her book, Bicycling for Ladies, ”Riding the wheel, our powers are revealed to us…”.

The bicycle gave women true freedom of physical mobility without depending on male family members for transportation that it truly expanded their world. Bicycling gave women the freedom, to go off on her own, as far as she could pedal, unaccompanied by a chaperone.

Bicycling was difficult with the restrictions of Victorian era clothing including corsets, hoops, heavy thick undergarments and long, floor-length skirts. The fashions quickly changed as women sought for clothing that allowed them freedom of movement and the ability to ride a bicycle. Bloomers were worn by the fashionably brave and other women soon adopted what became known as “rational dress” which included shorter skirts and a limit of no more than 7 lbs of undergarments (this in a century when women often wore up to 14 pounds of undergarments.)

“Just to give you an idea of the benefits of a divided skirt, it is almost impossible for a lady to ride any distance…with the ordinary skirt. You get too much of the dress on the one side of the wheel, and you do not get enough of the dress on the other side.”         -Dora Rinehart

“The wearers of the bloomers are usually young women who have minds of their own and tongues that know how to talk.”

-Editorial from the Chicago Sunday Times-Herald

Women began to compete in cycling races and endurance events and several soon gained fame for winning races or pulling off amazing feats of endurance. As the exploits of women such as Louise Armaindo (“champion lady bicyclist of the world”), endurance racer Frankie Nelson, the famous Annie Londonderry who took on the challenge of riding a bike around the world and “America’s Greatest Cyclienne,” Dora Rinehart, who rode over a hundred century rides.

The bicycle helped change the self-perception of women in the 1890’s as never before. Women began to see themselves as the equal to men and deserving of equal rights as well. The term “New Woman” was coined to describe women who broke with convention by working outside the home, or changed from the traditional role of wife and mother, or became politically active in the woman’s suffrage movement or other social issues.

Want to read more about this? Check out the book Wheels of Change: How  Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom with a Few Flat Tires Along the Way by Sue Macy

It’s time to vote for the winner of

Cycle & Style’s  2011

 “IN MY HOMETOWN”

Photo Contest Winner.

Please take a look through our great photographs and vote for your favorite.  C&S have ten entrants from across the United States this year with over 35 photographs to start with that have been narrowed to the following field of 10.  All GREAT … but the discussion is up to our readers!!

Voting will run for 2 weeks and then our winner will be awarded their KEYHOLE – Hands Free Camera Harness thanks to backcountrysolutions.com.  Also we’ll have prizes for 2nd and 3rd place … thanks to Liberty Bottleworks.

Thanks again to all the “Bike Enthusiasts” that entered … keep on snapping those pics!!

The contest will run through January 14, 2012.

VOTE … and tell your friends to VOTE!!

HI ALL!! We have had some nice comments on specific pictures … but they aren’t showing here in the “comments section” because of how they were done. If you would like to make a comment … you need to do it here at the end of the article not by clicking on the individual picture. If you do it that way the comment is not going to show!! If you want to make a comment about a specific photo … remember … do it at the end of the article and then you’ll just have to tell everyone which picture you LOVE!!!

THANKS for voting!!

Tavia – “Riding in SugarHouse”

In my hometown cyclists, pedestrians and automobiles exist in harmony. You know you live in a bike friendly neighborhood when you see "bike only" parking in front of the local businesses. (Salt Lake City, UT)

Anna – “Bike Prom”

In my hometown, Salt Lake City, we held "Bike Prom" a fundraiser for the Salt Lake City Bike Collective. "The mission of the SLC Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transpiration and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provide refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households". Participants dressed in prom attire and rode bikes around downtown SLC. We then danced, posed for photos, ate, drank and were merry! (Salt Lake City, UT)

Katie – “Mountain Biking”

Out Mountain Biking with her parents one of her favorite activities to do with them!! While taking a break ... look what they snapped - a memory to last a lifetime!! (Texas)

Susan – “Happy Birthday!”

This is taken in my hometown of Pleasant Hill, California. It was my daughter's 14th birthday and her cousin brought her balloons for her birthday and I took this photo of them together. I used a filter to create a painting like affect. (Pleasant Hill, CA)

Mary – “Blue Grass Ride”

... Here is one of the chosen pictures from around the Lexington, Kentucky area. There has been quite an explosion of bike usage here in the bluegrass state, especially near the University of Kentucky!! (Lexington, KY)

 Heather – “A New Mexico Treat”

Although I live in Eastern New Mexico and do most of my riding in the mountainous part of the state ... this photo was taken on a gourmet food ride in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's a 70-miler very October, most delicious bike ride I've been on! This location was our lunch stop - it's where many Westerns were filmed! (Santa Fe, NM)

Sharry – “An Alaskan View”

My Madeleine is waiting for me to finish stretching by Allison Point at the end of the bike path along Dayville Road, the road to the crude oil terminal for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Allison Point is a popular place for silver salmon fishing in August. Across the bay is my hometown of Valdez, Alaska caught her in Late March (early spring for us). (Alaska)

Melissa – “St. Paul Classic”

The St. Paul Classic - an annual ride in which streets of St.Paul are closed to car traffic and cyclists take over. This year there were about 7,000 riders on a gorgeous Sunday morning - September 11, 2011. (St. Paul, MN)

“Litter Patrol”

This is a shot of my sweet sweet wife out with me on litter patrol. I transformed a bike into a garbage truck and we go around sour town and pick up trash. People also encouraged to make food donations to the local food bank by dropping non perishables in the bins. As part of this we are also trying to encourage more people to walk and bike.

Mary – “Celebration @ DAR Constitution Hall”

Washington, D.C. is the place I've called home since 2001. I live in the city and my bike is central to my lifestyle. It's my main form of transportation. I ride to work, to dinner, to the gym ... we go almost everywhere together. D.C. is a bike-friendly town, and with all of the monuments and green space, it's a beautiful place to ride (thought it can sometimes get crowded with tourists). This picture of my Quickbeam and me was taken via automatic timer at DAR Constitution Hall one Friday after work. DAR is a tranquil afternoon spot. It was the perfect day, one of the last warm days of summer, and the afternoon light on DAR is always lovely. (Washington, D.C.)

Please VOTE for your favorite:

Tavia – “Riding in Sugarhouse”

Anna – “Bike Prom”

Katie – Mountain Biking”

Susan – “Happy Birthday!”

Mary – “Blue Grass Ride”

Heather – “A New Mexico Treat”

Sharry – “An Alaskan View”

Melissa – “St. Paul Classic”

“Litter Patrol”

Mary – “Celebration @ DAR Constitution Hall”

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

“I am not a pro biker, but I’m passionate about cycling.” –Summer Sanders

You would think that for a retired Olympic gold medalist in swimming that taking on the challenge of competing in a triathlon for the first time would be a huge advantage.  The expectation was there that Summer Sanders, the world class swimmer, sports commentator and reporter would do very well and with that expectation came some pressure.  Yet Summer had just entered a local triathlon with her girlfriends with the simple thought that it would be a “fun girlfriend moment,” and she had always wanted to compete in a race “where they wrote my number on me.“  But being a athlete/celebrity has its drawbacks as people knew who she was and expected her to win the swim, even though there were some pro triathletes competing as well.

It turned out that Summer was indeed the first woman in from the swim leg, beating out all but two men and she breathed a sigh of relief. Once out of the water, she quickly ran into the T1 (the first transition) zone she grabbed her bike for the ride. Sadly, the bike she pulled off the rack wasn’t going to keep her in the competition: “It was my husband’s old high school mountain bike, circa 1986. It had baskets for my feet and my gear shifts were down low on the bar. It weighed like 30 lbs.”

She laughs now when talking about making a “classic rookie” mistake and dropping the water bottle after drinking from it when she tried to put the bottle back into her water bottle carrier and it didn’t go in.  She added, “I had to do a U-turn and go back for it.” Many other competitors passed her as she rode the heavy bike. Summer remembered that first triathlon as ‘just hard’, especially when she got off the bike to start the run and her legs felt like cement blocks. But when she crossed the finish line her husband and two young children were waiting for her. It was an emotional moment: “It was just awesome!  I had a little tear!”

Summer had loved the training for the triathlon and loved making it a fun, social thing. She and her girlfriends set up a training schedule with their morning workouts revolving around coffee afterwards and evening workouts with some wine or beer afterwards.  “We just wanted to do something different with girlfriends and rather than movies or dinner, we worked out together. It’s a building a rich experience and story together. We had many date nights with all our husbands where we’d go for a 20-mile ride on our bikes and then go out for pizza. Then we’d ride home in the dark. It was so fun!”

Summer is absolutely hooked now. She’s had a major upgrade on her bike from the 30lb. vintage mountain bike to a new Cannondale Synapse road bike. She’s enthusiastically challenging her mother and other friends to do a triathlon with her. Summer highly recommends finding a fun triathlon, especially a “destination triathlon” event, to train for. Training for something, rather than merely working out each day is the key, Summer feels:  “Working out can be so emotionless, but with training for something, you have something that you do every day. There is a purpose for it and a challenge.”

Her now-it’s-kinda-funny moment:  “I don’t like those shoes where you clip in. But I’ve got to do it. I did it once, where I had one shoe clipped in and one not, and I just fell over. This guy looked at me like, are you okay? Did you have a stroke?“

Fun bike rides with her girlfriends are great, but Summer truly enjoys rides with her husband and young children, Skye and Spider. (Her husband, Alpine skier Erik Schlopy, is also a former Olympian.)  She and Erik have made an active lifestyle a priority for their children. As her children are just learning their bike riding skills at this point in their lives,  so rides of just over a mile are a major event and take more patience on Summer’s part than actual exertion. Her classic cruiser, a Schwinn Jenny is the perfect bike for the easygoing pace of family rides.

Summer is now Schwinn’s bicycle ambassador and is an ardent advocate for making cycling a natural fit into an active family life. She writes a blog for Schwinn which offers tips and advice aimed at other young families.  She contrasts the different experiences each of her children went through when the training wheels came off their bikes. Has one of your kids decided helmets are uncool? Summer has recently been there and dealt with that. She is well aware that  two-mile round-trip bike rides with small children can be a major undertaking. It also takes a little motherly creativity to make it fun and give the kids incentive to do it again. Among other great tips in her Schwinn blog, she gives great advice to parents for helping their children ride safely to school.  It’s a great fit that this Olympic champion is now championing another cause: a healthy and active two-wheeled lifestyle!

Summer with her husband Erik and children Skye & Spider

Everything about Lori Harward exudes enthusiasm, passion and commitment, especially her involvement in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA). After only meeting her once briefly at a press conference about NICA I knew I wanted to talk with her more in depth because her gusto was infectious… A few short emails later and she had eagerly agreed to meet me for lunch and discuss her current role within NICA as, Utah League Director.

The National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) “is the National Governing Body for grades 9-12 interscholastic mountain biking. NICA provides leadership, governance and program support to promote the development of Interscholastic Mountain Biking Leagues throughout the United States.” Under NICA‘s governing body, high schools within a state can have mountain biking teams that compete with each other on a collegiate level.

It was this mission statement along with other visions of NICA that truly inspired Lori. She had been a road and mountain biking coach for over 5 years, and a biking enthusiast and racer for most of her life when she heard about NICA. At the USAC coaches summit in October of 2010 she met a coach from the Southern California NICA League and learned enough about the organization to realize she could take it to her home state: Utah. Once she was back in Utah she quickly got her coaching license and started a team at Bingham High. It didn’t take long for parents and supporters within the Bingham community as well as the greater Salt Lake community to start asking Lori how they too could become involved in such a great organization. With support and encouragement growing steadily she realized this idea could really grow so she looked into what it would take to start an official league in Utah. There were many components that needed to be completed before anything could move forward, but Lori was committed and saw the project through. In June of 2011 Lori submitted the final piece; the bid for the Utah League, which was a comprehensive collection of information including everything from racer demographics to race maps and even parking for events! The bid was approved and the Utah League became official within a month or two and will begin in the high schools in September of 2012.

According to Lori, all of her work was made possible by the clear, and accessible steps from NICA. Everything a potential coach, director or volunteer needs to know is right on the website with easy-to-follow instructions. This concept is outlined in one of NICA’s mission statements which states that “NICA is more than just a governing body, it provides direct League, event, coach, team and rider support including defined programs, education, licensing and insurance” (nationality.org). Everything from risk management to the race timing system is under the NICA umbrella, making it so that potential coaches do not have to start from the beginning when they want to get started. This was a huge plus for Lori as she pursued the League, there was never a time that she felt like she was being left to recreate the wheel.

Lori and her husband Dave enjoying the mountain trails on their bikes.

Not only does Lori have continuous logistical support from NICA, she also finds herself continually in agreement with the organizations visions, goals and overall mission. She told me about NICA’s scoring system, which is one-of-a-kind on the high school level, incorporating both the boys and girls scoring together to create one overall total. This type of equality means every person on the team has the potential to contribute points. Lori also loves how NICA works to instill important morals in participating student athletes. For example, the Utah League vision states that NICA wishes to “enable every Utah team to strengthen body, mind and character through cycling.” And Lori could not agree with this idea more! Coming from a fitness background herself, she supports the notion that teaching kids at a young age to appreciate outdoor, physical activities, will inspire them to be more physically fit throughout their life.

Toward the end of lunch I asked Lori about some of her “best moments” since being involved with NICA. She smiled and had two words for me, “so many”. She reiterated how personally invested she was in NICA and its visions, but then she also talked about how amazing people within local communities have been. She explained how since she began toying with the idea of starting a League in Utah, community members and parents have been coming up to her, asking how they can help and what they can do to be involved. In most cases people have come to her, she hasn’t even had to ask for any help. She told me a story about how the Parks and Recreation branch of the government of a Salt Lake City suburb enthusiastically agreed to pay for students within the community to participate in the League if they could afford a bike. There definitely seems to be natural community growing around Lori Howard and the NICA Utah League.

It's truly a team sport with the requirement that both the girls and boys scores are combined for a school win.

Come September 2012 we will see high school mountain biking throughout the state of Utah and we can thank Lori Harward, her enthusiasm and the NICA organization for making it happen. If you would like to learn more about NICA, which states already have a league or how you can help with the local League please visit the NICA website or contact Lori directly at: lori@utahmtb.org .

Article by Stephanie Tomlin

Other NICA Chapter Leagues & Project Leagues:

Editor’s Note: This year students who participate in NICA were given a survey and in the survey 98% said they see themselves continuing to ride for life. Their parents who were also surveyed also felt their child would ride for life. As the NorCal League itself is the first league and they are only 10 years old, they yet don’t have statistics with past participants. NICA is striving to keep track of past particpants and while they do know that some kids have gone on to pro racing in either mountain biking or road cycling, they would also like to know if the other alumini are in fact, continuing to ride.

Tami Cromar, owner of the gourmet cookie bakery, RubySnap, is an avid cyclist. She keeps “baker’s hours” which often means she has to get up well before the sun to have time for a good ride on her road bike. Early on she learned that her talent was endurance; she loves the long rides. “I have to ride at least 200 miles,” she says, “before I really feel like I’ve done the equivalent of a runner’s marathon.”

From outside the bakery, you can smell the aroma of freshly baked cookies. The RubySnap ’s red door opens and you’re in a pleasant shop with a few vintage touches splashed with bright red and white.  The walls show off posters of old-fashioned pin-up girls, evocative of classic all-American, girl-next-door beauty.  RubySnap’s cookies range from the classics to the gourmet, and each type has been given names of women that owner Tami Cromar admires and loves: daughters, mother, friends, and customers. It becomes a true honor to have a cookie named for you.

Says, Tami: "Women naturally are powerful, that’s why they are so popular in art. I think sadly, we have a new trend, where they feel like they have to be naughty to be sexy, but I don’t think that’s necessary, instead we can celebrate beauty the old-fashioned way. I try to promote that. We have a pin-up model every month, a woman who is the spokesperson for our cookie of the month. It’s just celebrating simpler times of yesteryear."

The bakery shelves are beautifully filled with trays of some of the best cookies you’ll ever eat.  There are classic favorite cookies, baked to a pinnacle of perfection, such as the “Penelope,” a thick and soft peanut-butter cookie dipped in chocolate, and the Virginia, a chewy, molasses-ginger cookies sparkling with turbinado sugar. Still other cookies show off  Tami’s whimsical culinary imagination such as the chocolate-cinnamon cookies with a molten milk chocolate mint center, or citrus cookies full of mangos and dark chocolate and the popular Lily, a lemon sugar cookie with lemonheads and lemon frosting.

The Judy cookies: a velvety orange dough full of zest, topped with a buttery cream cheese frosting.

Tami Cromar’s Salt Lake City bakery received national attention when it opened under the name of “My Dough Girl” and the powerful General Mills, owner of Pillsbury, went after the little bakery with a “cease and desist” order, saying that its name was too similar to its iconic Dough Boy character, and represented a trademark infringement. Although Tami had supporters who felt she should continue the David vs. Goliath battle over principle, Tami decided she’d rather be in her beloved bakery, than in court. The bakery’s new name became RubySnap and  the cookies are just as delicious as ever. She is free to continue to bake cookies that Pillsbury could even never dream of, such as the delicious Evia cookies, made of vanilla bean dough and featuring  a marzipan center and pears, bedecked with  pine nuts.

What her customers might not know, is that Tami has been an avid cyclist since 2004 and regularly gets up at 5am to ride or workout. For Tami, a workout can mean weight workouts or swimming, especially in the winter.  Bikram Yoga is another favorite because she feels it helps her to stay flexible (“in case I crash”) and be less prone to injury. “But mostly,” she says, “I like to cycle.”

Off before the sun is up, with lights to help her see her way and reflective clothing so others can see her, she rides up various canyon roads near her home. There are very few cars or even other cyclists out at that time, but she does have to watch out for the deer: “They are territorial. Once I had to turn around and just go back down the hill because I felt threatened by a deer. He didn’t like me going in his path.”

Tami finds a lot of joy with her business, but it does add a special challenge to working out and spending time with her family: “The business just wants to hog all my time yet I also try to find time for my family. It just means being methodical and disciplined in everything I do. It means: wake up, work out, then go to work and be productive so you can get home and have time for your family. When I go home, I check my telephone at the door and I try to just turn the whole day off and give my time to my family. It doesn’t always work out, but that’s the goal.”

How the Bike Love Began

Years ago, a group of women were running by her house when Tami stopped them and asked what they were up to. They told her they were training for Southern Idaho’s  Spudman Triathlon and asked if she wanted to come. Although she had little idea of what she was getting into, she found herself the very next week competing in the Olympic-distance triathlon.

“I rented a bike and I went to the triathlon and I blew through it and I felt like a superhero. I had been riding my mountain bike up Millcreek Canyon, thinking I didn’t know how to cycle because it was really hard. I rode a heavy 18-year old  mountain bike, so when I rode on the rented  road bike, I just flew through the triathlon. It was really exciting and I was hooked. That’s when I decided that I was in love with the cycling portion of the triathlon!”

The next spring she registered for a century ride, the famous Little Red Riding Hood Ride. It was a big goal, but she decided to go easy on herself. As she told us, “I just gave myself permission to drop out and I thought if I only make it 30 miles, that’s fine. At least I got there and tried. But instead I got through the whole 100 miles in 7 hours. I was just hooked every since. That’s how I discovered what my talent was in sports, because I just have legs that are really strong.”

If the RubySnap cookies are making your mouth water, know that these delicious cookies can be ordered online and some are available at select Whole Foods grocery stores.

Who’d have ever thought that falling down the basement stairs and breaking an ankle, would lead to becoming a cyclist and becoming a multi-state organizer of some great women’s rides? That unlikely start is exactly what set Dani Lassiter on her road. Her broken ankle had been ”destroyed” and required 3 plates and 15 screws to put it back together. Her physical therapist recommended cycling as therapy to help her ankle heal. She was soon riding her cruiser, huffing and puffing up the  hills near her house, pulling her children in a trailer behind her.  She borrowed her husband’s hybrid bike and quickly noticed it was lighter and better able to handle the hills. Dani was soon riding more often and recruiting friends, sisters and even her mother to ride with her. It wasn’t even a full year before Dani was transformed and went from cycling “ 3 miles in yoga pants on my Electra cruiser to clipping in on a road bike for a 40 mile ride around the valley.”

Soon after, she signed up to ride the Little Red Riding Hood Ride, her very first riding “event.”The Little Red Riding Hood Ride was an inspiration to Dani. She saw so many women from so many different backgrounds and body types on a variety of bicycles. It was the place to feel comfortable; to go from beginner to  avid cyclist, to learn from other riders and to have fun and meet more women who like her, were falling in love with cycling. 

Dani was also involved with her local community’s ‘get healthy’ campaign (Healthy Herriman) and its family oriented cycling event,  Pedal Palooza . With an embullience stemming from cyclng endorphins and natural enthusiasm, she proposed they add a women’s only bike ride and she fully took it on. It was dubbed the Goldilocks ride, a fairy-tale homage to the Little Red Ride. She wanted every woman to feel empowered by taking on a cycling challenge that was “just right” for each one, and so, in its very first year, it offered mulitiple distances up to a metric century.

Although, its origins came out of Dani’s experience of riding in the Little Red Ride, the Goldilocks Ride has a girlish-ness to it that is very different and it stands out on its own quite distinctively.  The decor, food, t-shirts, jerseys, the fun finish-line party have a bright, cheerful festivity to it all. I’ve gotten to know Dani in the past year and have realized she is part party-planner, part cycling enthusiast and yet has another essential part to her that is incredibly detail-oriented. This makes for a well-organized, supportive ride where no one gets lost, a fabulous party atmosphere, and great memories that last.

There were plenty of good things to eat at the Goldilocks Ride!

The first Goldilocks Ride was held in Herriman, Utah in May 2010. (Herriman is a bedroom community about 25 miles SW of Salt Lake City.) Dani successfully took the Goldilocks ride across the state line to Las Vegas last fall and will bring it to the Boise, Idaho area on July 9th. The second Goldilocks Ride to be held in Utah was on May 7th. This year’s ride featured a full century ride,  had over 1000 participants and was sold-out weeks before. What’s Dani planning next? She is partnering US Tri Sports to a women’s beginner-friendly triathlon, Triathamom! This triathlon for women is scheduled for Saturday, September 24, 2011 in her town of Herriman, Utah.

Check out these scenes from the 2011 Goldilocks Ride in Herriman, Utah in the video below. (It may take a bit of patience to let it load–sorry!)

Goldilocks Bike Ride 2011 from Tara McKee on Vimeo.

By Sara Salo

 Is it possible for one girl and her bicycle to positively impact America’s school cafeterias? I intend to find out! My name is Sara Salo, the cyclist behind The School Food Tour and an ardent healthy kids advocate. I have a big year ahead of me – I’ll be pedaling over 6,000 miles, visiting 30+ schools and engaging numerous communities in an effort to promote healthier school meals. 

This exciting project began to take shape late last year as I was completing my graduate studies in public health. Following a few serendipitous encounters with bike tourers and an inspiring internship in school food reform I soon found myself plotting how I might combine my love of cycling with my newfound passion for promoting student health. I wanted to interview students and record their suggestions for school food improvements, but I knew that to document the true diversity of US student opinion I was actually going to have to visit these locations. And what better way to travel from town to town and create enthusiasm for healthy meals than by bike!

Though in its preliminary stages, the School Food Tour has already become my full time occupation, and every day is dedicated to advancing the initiative. My kitchen table has slowly begun to resemble a strategic planning station: it is covered in oversized maps of the United States labeled with a flurry of orange, green and purple tags. Today I ate my breakfast on top of Oregon and my lunch hovering near South Carolina. Scheduling nine months of bicycle travel has proven to be a substantial challenge but I recently completed my projected route and timeline that includes 30 official Tour communities. I budgeted 4 to 5 days in each location and estimated a conservative distance of 50 miles per riding day. I receive daily invites to visit cities across the country and I hope to include additional stops as time allows.

I plan to kickoff the Tour mid-August in my home of Bend, Oregon at the Cascade Gran Fondo and ride south down to Los Angeles. I’ll then turn east to pedal across the southern states, turn up to Washington DC spring 2012 and conclude the Tour in my small Midwestern hometown of Houghton, Michigan in June 2012. Excitement builds each time I examine my route and I am thrilled for the opportunity to explore communities large and small, rural and urban, northern and southern. My equipment list is extensive and though I have not secured a bicycle sponsor yet, I anticipate riding a traditional touring bike and pulling a trailer. The Tour will be self-supported and I plan to tow camping supplies along with my classroom materials, video camera and computer. I’ll also be flying a super-sweet carrot-shaped flag in lieu of the common orange safety pennant!

While in each community I’ll be conducting a variety of activities all designed to energize and empower students and communities to get involved in further healthy kids programming. School classroom sessions will get kids thinking about how they can take action to improve their personal health, school food and physical activity settings. I will also be organizing community bike rides that will provide youth and adults with an opportunity to pedal together and share both the utility and enjoyment that accompanies two-wheeled travel. I hope that these activities along with media appearances will increase public awareness about the important role that wholesome school meals and daily physical activity play in the development of healthy kids.

There are a number of ways that interested readers can get involved with the School Food Tour. As the Tour is self-supported I will welcome warm showers and backyards to camp in as I travel. I am also eager to connect with organizations, schools, individuals and bike shops along the Tour’s route that I might be able to include in my activities. Additionally, I am seeking sponsors and partners with missions similar to my own. Any ladies (or gents!) willing to pedal a few miles with me should also get in touch via my blog  – it would be fabulous to enjoy some company while on the road. 

I know that one girl riding her bike across America will not revolutionize our school food alone. However, I do hope that my fairly ambitious endeavor might inspire sparks of activism in students and communities worldwide. I can’t wait to hit the road and start pedaling for school wellness – I hope you will join me in supporting the health our future generation.

One day, Jayson Orvis and his daughter were driving  from Las Vegas to their home in Bountiful, Utah. Allie asked him if it was possible to bike that distance. He told her that it was possible , but  the 420-mile jaunt  would be “very hard”. 

The high-school sophomore wasn’t discouraged by the distance, though, nor by the fact that she wasn’t evena cyclist. She was intrigued with the adventure. Impulsivel, she proposed a dad-and-daughter ride to Vegas from Salt Lake in July. To Dad’s credit, he accepted the challenge. He even bought road bikes.

Allie remembered feeling klutzy on her first bike ride in April, and the 15-mile distance was tough. “I thought I was going to die at mile 13, because I was so tired and it was so hard!” Yet a few  rides later, she discovered something else:

 “I started loving biking. It felt effortless, like flying!”

Both father and daughter were joined by cycling friends who were soon caught up with Allie’s enthusiasm for a multi-day ride to Vegas. This long desert ride through the heat of July was starting to attract other cyclists, and Allie wanted to give the organized ride a meaningful purpose. Allie had been on the Navajo reservation several times and was aware of the poverty and need for decent housing. She was familiar with Hearts and Hands in Action, a non-profit organization that provides housing for Native Americans in need. She decided she’d make that her motivation.  That’s how “Hearts and Bikes” became a real cause for this teen.

 Allie assembled a website (Hearts and Bikes) for the ride, started the fundraising, worked out the logistics for  40 riders,which included stretching the route to 565 miles simply to make it safer. She even went on local TV to publicize it. As a high school student, Allie didn’t let up on her studies nor did she drop out of the school play.

She was usually not home from school until 6:30 at night and it was difficult to get in much riding time. Dad wondered how Allie was going to do it by training mainly on Saturdays until school was out. Blessed with youthful passion and confidence, Allie pulled off  the six-day Hearts & Bikes ride to Las Vegas and raised $10,000, enough to build a home for a Navajo family.

Riders started their  65-mile final day with a long climb through red rock canyons.  While the other riders were tiring, Allie enjoyed an energy surge as she finished.  A novice cyclist only three months earlier, she had just biked over 500 miles for a cause she calls, “close to home and close to the heart.”

She is eagerly planning the next cycling adventure for summer 2011.

(Allie’s website is http://heartsandbikes.com/)

Nona Varnado – Performance Fashion!!

Nona of Nona Varnado - Performance Fashion

“To create one’s own world, in any of the arts, takes courage”
Georgia O’Keeffe

Are you struggling with the balance between practical features and looking like a very sophisticated urban bicycle princess?  Tired of looking the same with each trip to work…carrying extra bags of hidden clothes?  Is it time to have some fun with your commuter fashion?  If so, then we have found the new look for you. Meet Nona Varnado of Nona Varnado – Performance Fashion …  hip, young designer from New York City with her finger on the pulse of commuter bike fashion.

“Good design is a personal response to existing solutions”, says Nona.  She has been an avid cyclist for over a decade.  As a competitive cyclist, she didn’t want to look like a man or be funneled into always wearing pink.  She wanted to get to work in Manhattan on her bike and not always have to struggle to get into the office without being seen.  Hauling around extra clothes for work, the gym, biking and a date seemed like too much. “Too much stuff, too much to carry”.  This struggle, accompanied with the experience of living in Europe and experiencing a whole world of cycling, put Nona on the road to creating apparel that flows effortlessly between work, play and simple errands.  Ultimately, allowing us the potential to make our lives healthier and happier.

Nona has found a sophisticated way to infuse urban fashion into practical and functional commuter bike wear.  “With the jackets, for example, this should mean that instead of buying a cycling specific jacket and an everyday fashionable jacket – you only buy one,” she points out.  Nona Varnado clothing bridges the gap between fashion and real athletic apparel.  She has even added reflective piping and trim to some of the items – stressing the safety factor.    Each piece is manufactured in NYC.  They use high-tech and traditional fabrics such as cotton, silk and wool.  As Nona told us, “This Company is unique not because the focus is simply on women + cycling, but because a lot of the trendy ideas in eco-friendly apparel happen in real life.

“Have fun, sweat, love your clothes.” – Nona Varnado

Crop Jacket & Classic Hipster (set)

Fuchsia Jacket

The “Riding Hoodie in Grey”

Go and check out the rest of Nona’s items in her lookbook & catalogue.  ”Nona Varnado apparel makes cycling more comfortable, fashionable and safe.” – Nona

“It’s not the duration of my life that counts, but the donation.” –Beth Sanden 

Beth Sanden was 44 years old when she competed in her first triathlon, swimming the backstroke because she didn’t want to be face-down in the ocean. But she loved it; she especially loved the feeling of riding with the wind on her bicycle and soon became a great cyclist and runner. Beth also wanted to help others achieve their dreams of doing a triathlon, so she became a coach. Just a few months after certifying as a coach with USA Triathlon Association, she was competing in a bike race and coming around a corner at a high speed when she and a few others hit a patch of broken asphalt. The accident threw her off her bike and shattered two of her vertebrae. She was left with a severe concussion and paralysis. 

It took fourteen tough long months of rehabilitation after her life-altering accident.  Beth was relatively lucky in that she was able to get out of the wheelchair when she regained the partial use of her legs with the help of a brace and crutches. Her love for coaching triathletes and competing in triathlons was still strong so she renewed her coaching credentials and began competing in triathlons again. For the last 6 years she has been a coach and more importantly, a mentor for challenged athletes. Sometimes she meets these future athletes in the hospital: those who have had amputations or who have become paralyzed. Beth offers them hope, telling them that they can become active again if they want to. She is a shining example of resilience and how to continue to be an athlete despite the physical challenges. Just this year, Beth competed in 11 triathlons and finished two marathons: Boston and New York and raised money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation in the process. 

Beth Sanden (in the center, wearing black) and many of those she coaches and mentors at the Tinsel Triathlon 2009‏.

A hand-cycle  makes a big difference for athletes who might otherwise use a wheelchair. Using their arms to power this vehicle, challenged athletes can compete again in triathlons and marathons. Beth puts on hand-cycling clinics in San Clemente and Sunset Beach. She also serves as a volunteer swim coach at the Ocean Festival for Jr. Nationals and a coach for the 2010 USA Junior Triathlon Festival in San Diego. This is in addition to the work she does as a volunteer coach for the CAF. She was excited about using her skills as a certified USA Triathlon coach to mentor challenged athletes at the Paratriathlon Camp. 

Just recently, Beth was just named the Volunteer Coach of the Year by USA Triathlon. She is excited, but her main focus is on the challenged athletes she mentors, and she hopes the attention will help her further promote the Challenged Athletes Foundation. She has found her volunteer work with the junior-level athletes especially rewarding. “I hope it will bring more recognition to the young people who are training for the Para-Olympics.” 

Beth has really enjoyed coaching Umida Lesicko who will be competing in the World's Championship Para-Triathlon in Bejing next September.

Meet Umida Lesicko

One of the young athletes that Beth is coaching for the Para-Olympics is 18-year old Umida Lesicko, who will be competing in the 2011 ICU World Championship in Bejing in Sept. 2011. Umida shares Beth’s can-do attitude in regards to athletics. To qualify for the World Championship, Umida will have to complete the 1.2 mile swim, the 24-mile cycle leg and the 10K run in less than 2 hours. Umida has an additional challenge: she will be biking and running while wearing a prosthetic on her left leg. 

As a world-class athlete, Umida had an unlikely beginning. When she was 7 or 8 years old, Umida was brought of the most dire circumstances in an orphanage in Uzbeckistan by her adoptive mother.  Umida had several birth defects including missing and fused fingers and toes, and was missing her left leg below the knee. She required several surgeries, but a loving adoptive mother and a chance to use her athletic gifts really helped this young girl blossom. Perhaps her difficult beginnings had toughened Umida, because she was running on an ill-fitting prosthetic for several months. On the track she ran until she bled and often found it difficult to walk around her school the next day. Beth and the CAF helped Umida get a better fitted running leg and she was soon setting new PR’s.  (And yes, she did qualify for the Paratrithlon World Championship in Bejing!) With her new prosthetic legs and a new tri bike (thanks to a kind donor,) Umida is ready to take on other world-class athletes like herself in ICU triathlons. The future looks even brighter for Umida with the announcement just two days ago that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Governing Board has voted to add para-triathlon to the number of sports at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.  So watch for Umida Lesicko in the Paratriathlon ITU World Championships Bejing 2011 and perhaps also in Rio in 2016 and cheer her on! 

Life has thrown Beth Sanden a few curve balls, but she counts herself lucky:  “I love what I do. Sometimes I break down and start crying. This is what I’m meant to do. It’s incredible. I thank God, I get to do it!” 

Sarah Reinertsen is another triathlete and mentor who inspires others and volunteers her time, abilities and more to the Challenged Athlete Foundation. (She also lives just a short distance from  Beth Sanden.) You can read her story here.