To Promote Cycling For Health

Various healthcare and health insurance plans are realizing that encouraging healthy practices and lifestyles are cheaper, in the long run, than paying for expensive medicines and procedures. They offer things like smoking cessation programs and discounts on gym memberships.

I've heard that a few plans, offered by employers, also give discounts for bike commuting-related expenses. So, for example, they won't pay for a $12,000 S-Works racing bike, but they offer vouchers or discounts at participating bike shops.

Now, as a cyclist who writes a bicycle blog, I may just a wee bit biased in saying that if insurance programs will subsidize gym memberships or exercise equipment, they also should do whatever will encourage bicycle commuting and recreational riding.  After all, more than a few people have lost weight and seen their blood pressure and anxiety levels drop after they rode their bikes to work or school for a few months, or even weeks.  

I also believe that encouraging kids to ride bikes to school is a good idea.  I'm thinking, specifically, of kids who live just far enough away from school to make walking a non-viable option, but not so far that they need to take a bus or be driven.  

Matt Milam, the Executive Director of United Healthcare of Nebraska seems to understand as much. He has announced that his organization is giving away bicycle helmets and cash prizes to kids in two of the state's school districts.  One reason for doing this, he says, is "encouraging healthy activity." He observes, "active kids grow up to be healthy kids."

I think it's a good start.  Of course, other measures are needed to encourage, not just the kids, but the parents.  And I think that the biggest hurdle to developing lifelong transportation and recreation cyclists is to keep kids on bikes when they start driving.     

If You Want To Buy It...

 This bike is for sale.

It's a 1970s ladies' English three-speed.  You've probably seen hundreds, if not thousands, of bikes like it--whether in actual use, a yard sale or a Craigslist or eBay listing.

Not so long ago, you could get something like that for a few dollars--unless, of course, someone gave it to you when he or she was moving or cleaning out a garage or basement.

It looks like something your neighbor's mother or aunt rode on her college campus or to her first job.

And, indeed, someone's mother did ride it to work.  Of course, she's not the mother of your neighbor--unless you happen to live next to Prince Harry or Prince William.

The bike in the photo--and up for sale--is the one Diana rode to the nursery school where she worked before her wedding to one of the world's three un-sexiest men. (Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are the others, not only because of their politics.)

What that means, of course, is that you won't get it for an already-inflated on Craigslist, where shysters get away with calling all manner of junk "vintage."  No, Diana's bike is expected to fetch 20,000 GBP at Sussex-based auction house Burstow & Hewett.  

In the days leading up to the royal wedding, palace staff advised her to stop riding it because it was unbecoming of a royal-to-be.  So, she sold it for 211GBP to the father of a friend who kept it in his garage for 27 years.

If you buy the blue 1970s Raleigh Traveler, you'll also get a copy of a 1981 newspaper article and a framed letter from Gerald Stonehill, who bought the bike from Diana.

In case you're interested, the auction will be streamed on 28 April by Burstow & Hewett. Good luck!

Growing His Passion In Soddy-Daisy

 Here in New York City, we have Hell Gate, Hell's Kitchen and Gravesend.

There are other funny, interesting and unusual place names all over the world.  I think now "Cheesequake," in New Jersey, just a couple of towns over from where I went to high school  And Condom, in the southwest of France (I've been there)-- which, of course doesn't have the same meaning in English.  Speaking of English, there's Upperthong, in West Yorkshire.

For a cuter, more family-friendly toponym, how about Soddy-Daisy in Tennessee?  

Somehow I imagine that there must be some interesting people in a place like that.  How can you not move--or tell people you're from--there without at least cracking a smile.

One of the folks in that place is probably one of the first I'd want to meet:  Tom Jamison.

Tom Jamison.  Photo by Matt Hamilton, for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press

He bought his first bike as an adult in 1997.  But, he says, he didn't start putting in "serious mileage" until  retired as a Tennessee Valley Authority project manager at age 50, in 2004.  Almost immediately, he jumped on his bike and pedaled over 500 miles to Orlando, Florida for a vacation with his daughter.  

Since then, he reckons he's pedaled 160,000-170,000 miles.  With his riding buddies, he does two or three trips a year.  "I even pedaled to Hampton, Virginia for a high school reunion," he recalls.  "They were in amazement."

He's done about 100,000 miles, he figures, on his go-to bike:  a Trek 520.  From looking at his photo, I have little doubt he'll make it to another reunion--whether on that bike or another, from a town called Soddy-Daisy.