There’s never been a better time to get involved with cycling in Hampton Roads. Ride this wave of enthusiasm and advocacy with us, and we’ll
see some real change on the roads.

Statistics show we are hipsterer than I thought.

“We look like the Beverly Hillbillies,” said Cindy Lewis at one point. To drivers passing by we might have looked like gypsies, or a low budget circus on bikes.

When you get behind the wheel of a car you are arming yourself with a potentially lethal weapon. If you kill someone with that weapon, you should be held responsible. “I didn’t mean to do it,” just doesn’t cut it.

The citizen/cyclists of Bike Norfolk are fighting for you, and change is coming.

There’s something profoundly askew in the American perception of transportation safety, an unthinking acceptance of the risks of driving, and a blindness to the accumulation of deaths that result from our car-centric policies.

If you take away one message from my column today let it be the phrase “complete streets.”

Ours is a tough city, a military town with an enlightened soul, a town that knows violence and yet clings to its cultural assets with fierce pride, knowing, as a city of veterans, that the alternative to civilization is unthinkable.

Tide saves cyclists!, Big news in Richmond, Cycling community in cities grows, and more in If You Read the Bicycle News for Tuesday, October 4, 2011.

In the cycling world, the mantra is, “don’t get mad, get active.”

Local bicyclists in the world amateur finals, down with the Brambleton barricades!, urban cycling tips, and more from BC Wilson.

Working out the kinks in the Tide/bicycle relationship, riding vegan in the Pro Cycling Challenge, and more.

A healthy serving of fresh, local (mostly) cycling news.

The good, the bad, and the smelly, today in If You Read the Paper.

I’m reading the news backwards, skipping over the headlines that are clamoring for my attention, and instead, digging deeper to find the stories that actually interest me.