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Featuring posts about cities, scenic vistas, gear reviews, bicycle friendly businesses, family travel tips, transportation challenges and first class experiences.
Many cities who operate bike sharing programs pack up their kiosks for the winter months, rather than operate through potential snow and ice. Some cities, however, have decided to keep their bike share systems open and running during the winter months, which means that visitors coming in for the holidays have an easy option for getting around town.
Bikabout donates 25% of its revenue each year to support local non-profits that advocate for better biking. And while that may sound altruistic, we want to be explicit about the fact that our motives are entirely selfish. We're trying to remake North America the way we'd rather it be. Let us explain.
If you’re a bike shop who offers rental bikes, there’s good news: You are the “default” model for people who come to visit your town and want to borrow a bike. That’s a big advantage over your emerging competition, namely bike shares like Citibike (NYC), and online “new economy” sharing services like Spinlister.
It’s Thanksgiving. You’ve probably traveled. Even if you didn’t descend upon someone else’s house, someone probably descended upon yours. The result is always the same: Come Friday after Thanksgiving, you’re ready to get out of whatever house you spent the prior day over-indulging in, and go do …something. Traditionally in America, this has meant waking up at an obscene pre-dawn hour to go wait in huge lines at big box stores to get a discount on a flat screen tv you didn’t exactly need. We at Bikabout feel there’s a better way to spend Black Friday.
Seattle has a location problem. It's sandwiched between Bicycle World darlings Portland and Vancouver, both of whom have deservedly hogged the lion's share of what precious little press space there is for bicycles in North American press. Right in between these two lies relatively ho-hum Seattle, ever the bridesmaid, never the bride. Arriving downtown (by train, naturally), one would be forgiven for failing to lift a finger to challenge that viewpoint, really. It remind me very much of the most buttoned-down parts of downtown Boston, but with massive, weapons-grade, "this is not cool" hills. Picture traffic, few trees, drunken Seahawks fans, concrete, and 1st gear hills that go on for 20 blocks.
