More and more pros are confirming that for them, cycling is not just a competitive sport but a way of life. At the Amgen Tour of California this year, the UCI’s friends at PeopleForBikes made a video explaining how professional road riders are using their bikes as part of their everyday life. Like most of us, they started riding for fun as children.
For Evelyn Stevens (Boels-Dolman), “the bike is my means of transportation… where I live, I’d much rather just take my town bike to the grocery store and bike home than have to find parking.”
The role of bikes in solving some of the world’s problems is highlighted by Ted King (Cannondale-Garmin) who told PeopleForBikes:
“Bicycles have the potential to save the world. There’s so much that a bicycle can do, from an environmental standpoint, from a health standpoint, and their social impact.”
“There’s going to be a lot of infrastructure change that we need - in the United States especially - to really push that forward.”
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In a previous video, ex-UCI Hour Record Holder Jens Voigt explained how, even after his retirement from the sport, he’s still on his bike, along with his family, riding in everyday life.
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Over 1.2 million people now support PeopleForBikes, the US-based campaigning organisation and bike industry coalition. PeopleForBikes lobbies for better bike infrastructure in the US and has directly invested in community bike lanes.
Their goal is to increase the number of trips made by bike, the number of protected bike lanes, mountain bike parks and investment in cycling five-fold, by 2025.