The Kansas City Star recently put out a call for bicycling stories, and were apparently inundated with response from their readers. In Saturday’s paper, they printed a few of them:
We asked if you are biking more, and the e-mails started rolling in. We’ll take that as a yes.
Bike sales are up, with local shops reporting as much as 20 percent increases. Many readers told us they are riding their bicycles because of gas prices and to lessen their carbon footprints. Some have paved new paths to work and for running errands. And the social aspect — whether meeting new people or spending time with friends and family — is a bonus.
Respondents included cyclists from communities across the Kansas City Metro area, including Olathe, Overland Park, Lenexa, Shawnee, Mission, and Leawood on the Kansas side, and Brookside, Raytown, and Kansas City in Missouri.
Some ride for recreation, some for fitness, but many also seem to be using their bicycles for everyday transportation — to work, to the grocery store, for errands, even to church.
As Dawn Parsons of Brookside said, “I love the bike as transportation concept. It saves gas, I get a great workout and it is good for the environment. What could be better?”
The article was a follow-up to a previous piece, More people keeping cars at home, traveling by bike, which looked at the trend from a broader perspective, and featured a few paragraphs about bicycle commuter Jack Wilson, who, coincidentally, was the August winner of the Car-Free KC Challenge.
