People For Bikes

People For Bikes

I recently noticed that People For Bikes inclusivity program neglected forms of cycling other than traditional bikes and abled cyclists. I brought this to their attention and I was pleasantly surprised that after only a couple of days from the time I sent a comment to them they responded to me. And it was not a simple boiler plate letter that I usually get when sending comments to organizations.

I will include People for Bikes on my list of organizations I support.

Here's their response;

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Hi Mark - 

Thanks so much for your generous donation to PeopleForBikes and for taking the time to write to us about the need to include people who ride recumbents, trikes, handcycles or other types of cycles in our advocacy work.

Your comment was both timely and absolutely correct. Telling the stories of, advocating for, and sharing images of people who are disabled has been a gap for us. It is one we are working to fix. 

A few current or upcoming examples:

- PeopleForBikes hosts the Bicycle Leadership Conference for members of the bike industry every year. The virtual event in November will feature two keynote speakers who participated in this year's Paralympics in Tokyo; https://www.bicycleleadershipconference.org/

- We are publishing two blogs in October that feature these stories. One from an adaptive rider who is documenting all the trails in his hometown for how they accommodate him and others like him, and one from a Seattle planner who is disabled and speaks to her experience and the need for more people who are differently abled in the transportation field. 

- Our imagery does not reflect the diversity of people who ride cycles and we are working to change that. In the short term, we will use more stock imagery (as available), and in 2022 we will host our own photo shoots to ensure the diversity we are looking for. 

Finally, since I manage our Community Grants program, I'll add that I am seeing more proposals for infrastructure projects that accommodate handcycles and trikes. We have helped fund a few and hope to support more.

Thanks again, Mark, for reinforcing that our path is the right one and that we need to move faster. If you have specific ideas or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share.

Best,

Zoe