Thursday, July 16, 2009

Practical Cycling Defined

I define practical cycling most succinctly as "cycling miles that displace motor vehicle miles."

A group of six (only six?) high-school counselors has done a significant bit of practical cycling by touring college campuses (in my stomping ground, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) to check them out for their student counselees. Twelve days, more than a dozen colleges. 400 miles. (Now that I think about it, although that's only 33 miles a day, it still would take some selling to convince most people not doing serious cycling already that they could handle that.) This is significant. Yes, it's billed as "combining a serious tour with their love of bicycling," but this is ordinary people doing a sustained tour at 1/4 to 1/3 the rate of the Tour de France.

The story in the New York Times is here.

I'm impressed, and I hope their numbers grow next year.

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