The bike sells for $400.00.  I have no idea what quality to expect, but that isn’t the point of  today’s article. My point is to illustrate how fashion affects the popular conversation. I’m not sure I could have come up with a better example of how the fashion media can lead a lifestyle trend conversation and begin to open minds and hearts to something new.

Apparently this new bike has been a buzz item since May. Recently on SFist.com writer Brock Keeling wrote on Arts + Events online, “This, if anything, could get us hitting the city streets on two wheels,” on August 16 it made it into the L.A. Times Home section online along with other highlights of the new Missoni Target collection.

If we want to seriously engage and enroll a much larger portion of women into the bike movement we will need to take heed of what the great fashion houses do so well, which is plan ahead and give their lines time to flourish beautifully by keeping things fresh with new takes, new colors, new innovation, and of course great marketing and p.r. campaigns. FYI: it could not have been easier to find a beautiful photo of the bike to show off and share with you today.

Brenda and Shereef Moustafa on the first LB "Wine Tasting & Bike Tour" with a view of Rainbow Harbor behind them

One of the most important concepts Bikeable Communities wants to encourage both the greater public and local business community to understand is that “bike friendly = business friendly.” People on bikes are customers just like everyone else. People on bikes have money to spend, and communities and cities alike are wise to court their business. Long Beach’s bike friendly stance is currently being profiled on L.A. Streetsblog and today editor Damien Newton posted a blog featuring our local Bike Friendly Business Districts. We hope you’ll take a look!

Bike friendly cities are also tourist friendly cities. The bike is the perfect vehicle for truly appreciating the sights of a city. On that note the L.A. Streetsblog piece features local LB entrepreneur Elizabeth Williams of Calibiketours.com who I had the pleasure of collaborating with on the first downtown LB “Wine Tasting & Bike Tour” last week. The tour was quite a success. It was such a beautiful evening, clear and cool and the view from the lighthouse hill was spectacular. We had so much fun, and Elizabeth and her team did a terrific job. Both the Wine Down Lounge and the District Wine Bar knocked themselves out to educate, entertain and delight our palettes. Both locations have perfected the chic-but-comfortable wine lounge aesthetic, have dedicated staff offering excellent service and offer delicious accompaniments to pair with the wines.

Stay tuned for more wine + dine bike tour collaborations coming this fall. And special thanks to Bikestation at it’s beautiful new location (more on that soon too!) for their help with bike rentals!

Casey, Rebeca & Tori in front of Berlin coffee house on 4th

Yes, people we are in a bike boom and it’s a beautiful thing. I have taken to carrying my camera with me wherever I go so I can try to capture a bit of our unique LB bike flavor. Recently this summer I was sitting downtown at Berlin Coffee House enjoying a delicious breakfast (Have you been? No? You need to go!) when I spied these lovely young riders. I was inspired by their energy and their look.

I’m afraid I have their order mixed up (girls, please forgive me) but I wanted to share that Casey is a hairdresser, Rebeca works for Apple, and Tori works for homeless services. These young women are passionate about bicycling and Long Beach and they are exactly the type of young women I’d love to recruit into Bikeable Communities (hint hint) for an upcoming project focused on the importance of style and design for successful advocacy.

And now to my headline. Can you imagine how delighted I was when I picked up the latest issue of Time Magazine on Friday? Here’s why, right in their “Briefing” section in the front under “Economy” is a short piece called “Another Day Another Dollar.” The piece illustrates a selection of items that we are spending both more and less on – comparing first quarter 2007 to first quarter 2011.

No one will be surprised that both lottery ticket purchases are up (16%), and alcohol consumption is up (5%) but the truly exciting part is that bike sales are up 9%! For the LBC that means about 41,400 new bikes on the road. I would so love to know how many of those riders are “first time since childhood” riders like myself. I have a feeling it’s a large majority.

Of course anyone who stands on any corner just about anywhere in Long Beach could have told you this.  As could the owners of the several new bike shops that have opened in the past year around Long Beach. For some reason though, it makes it feel even more important that Time (quoting data from the Department of Commerce) would notice this trend and include it in their article. This is especially sweet for me because for the past several months I’ve been trying to interest a journalist who writes frequently for Time into the whole bike boom story (starring Long Beach of course) and she just hasn’t felt it has reached a tipping point. Perhaps now she will.

There was another very positive increase – foreign travel is up in the U.S. 17%. I’ll get into why that’s good for Long Beach in my next blog!

Image by Bernhard Angerer for Cyclepedia: A Century of Iconic Bike Design

We live in an era where style matters more than ever. On Charlie Gandy’s recommendation I’m currently reading the entertaining best seller “The Substance of Style” by Virginia Postrel. If you need to get the word out about your bike minded service, product or advocacy I highly recommend you read it. In the book Postrel notes that “sensory appeals are becoming ever more prominent in our culture” and “in a crowded marketplace aesthetics is often the only way to make a product stand out.”

Bikes and bike riding are “in” right now and I say we strike while the iron is hot. Let’s take the ball and run with it. Let’s move into a new era of bicycle advocacy and learn from the masters and see how fun and alluring we can get.

On that note September’s Vanity Fair magazine (both print and online) features a fascinating array of photos from the upcoming book  “Cyclepedia: A Century of Iconic Bicycle Design” by Michael Embacher and photographer Bernhard Angerer.

Consider yourself a fine bike/pedestrian related photographer in your own right? The Alliance for Biking & Walking just launched the “2011 People Powered Movement Contest” with more than $8,000.00 in prizes to give away. I wonder if our own Allan Crawford knows about this…

On the apparel front a recent treehugger.com article (as well as a variety of trend reports) noted that Levi’s has a new style of jeans coming out focused at cyclists. As thrilled as I am about the new Levi’s, I have to agree with Alexis Lantz of the LACBC – where are the bike focused jeans for the ladies? Hello? The Gap is apparently moving some of its creative staff to an office in downtown Los Angeles to be more connected with the “street” vibe. Might some lean and mean fixie riders show up in some of their next campaigns? Stay tuned to find out.

I am in the market for a new bike. I’m so excited, but a little overwhelmed too because there are just so many wonderful choices out now. Why? Because the slow bike movement is picking up steam. Articles are popping up in places like Bicycling Magazine (which normally is focused on the athletic side of the bike world),  Tree Hugger and Reuters (which is taking note of the gospel Copenhagenize.com has been spreading for several years now). New companies like Linus and Public Bikes are taking the media by storm with eye catching designs that are perfect urban transport tools.

Everywhere I look in Long Beach I see people sitting up straight, looking very happy, cruising along at easy speeds on the most marvelous assortment of bikes.  Last month I tested the “townie” (shown above) from Electra Bicycle Co. at Jones Bicycle and loved it (and may I say that my salesperson Chris did an excellent job of sharing the pros and cons of the different comfort/town bikes they carry). Yesterday I road one of LB City’s bike share bikes, a Raleigh, and loved it too, but the townie is still high high on my list.

I am not exaggerating when I say these new comfort bikes are a personal revolution. I am not currently “athletic.” I have been enough of an athlete in the past t0 know that’s not where I am now; a middle aged woman (47).  A decade of dealing with some challenging health issues have taught me that it’s best if I increase my fitness levels in a slow and steady manner.  Maybe you can relate? My old 70′s cruiser was a real challenge at times. It was just so hard to pedal that I frequently walked or road the bus instead. I’d convinced myself I wasn’t usually up for the 8 mile loop of Charlie Gandy’s “Long Beach’s Bike Innovation & Infrastructure Tour.”  Yesterday on that Raleigh I rode the tour with relative ease. Wow. I’m still very proud of myself.

I don’t think enough can be said about the joy of a comfortable bike. I know the forward stance of most road bikes means more speed but my back just can’t take it for very long, neither can my wrists. I don’t need to ride very fast. I don’t feel safe when I do. And I feel safer when I’m sitting up straight on a bike too – here’s why, it’s much easier to turn my head and keep note of cars behind me, and all around me, when I’m sitting up rather than hunched over.

I am looking to buy my new bike by the beginning of September and still have many slow bikes to test drive. Yesterday while stopped at the beautiful new state-of-the-art  Bikestation in the downtown Long Beach transit Mall I saw a lovely girl riding a brand new Schwinn that was obviously a replica of an old Schwinn. Add one more to try out to my list!

Andrea White-Kjoss of Bikestation by Allan Crawford

Chances are if I asked you why you ride your bike, you’d answer something similar to what I would say,   “I love the sense of freedom,” or “I love being outside on a beautiful day feeling the wind on my face.”  Most likely you wouldn’t answer, “because I’m trying to save the planet” or “because I love my spandex” (though of course if you look good in your spandex, that might be a reason…)

Yes, you might admit you want to save some gas money, or you get bored easily at the gym (like me!) and wanted a more interesting way to exercise, but I doubt you would answer “because I should.” We humans are not good at should. We’re not good at should. That has a nice ring to it.

And yet, very often in advocacy (and bicycling advocacy is no different than any other kind) we often move forward in our outreach with “should” firmly entrenched in our sensibilities and vernacular. Then we wonder why friends and neighbors and other perfectly nice people avoid our phone calls, or don’t friend our cause on Facebook, or don’t follow our urgent pleas on Twitter (why yes, we do have both Facebook and Twitter accounts but we’re still working out the best way to share those links – on twitter we’re @BikeableCommuni & on FB you should search for Bikeable Communities)

As I began to prepare today to replace the irreplaceable and oh so charmingly gregarious Charlie Gandy at the Dwell on Design conference in LA on June 26 for the “Are Two Wheels Better Four” panel (Gandy has been called away to Wyoming to attend the 15th reunion of the “Thunderhead Alliance scheduled for the same date;  since he is the founder,  I guess he should be allowed to attend) I pondered just what the heck I’ve got to bring to this important and often heated discussion. And then I had a “no duh” moment and realized, “of course, my knowledge of fashion is power.”

The bike fashion writer/blogger/commentator, head and shoulders above the rest, is Danish filmmaker and creator of Copenhagenzine Mikael Colville-Andersen who originally started the whole “cycle chic” concept. Anderson is challenging advocates to “think differently” about bicycle advocacy and how to engage and recruit new bicyclists. Check out his recent blog on “the car industry goes to the next level” and the Nightlife.Ca post on Andersen as Montreal welcomed him for his conference “Four Goals for Promoting Urban Cycling.”

We have a very strong bike-fashion culture in Long Beach. As a marketing and PR person I would wager good money that it is the style and the fun, more than anything else,  that Long Beach riders portray that seduces others to dig out their bike from the garage or visit one of the new bikes shops popping up around town.  Watch Bernard Serrano of Cyclone Coasters float by on one of his many antique cruisers jauntily dressed in matching retro garb, or Andrea White-Kjoss of Bikestation zip by (who is always stylishly appropriate for every occasion no matter how far she had already ridden) and you too will long for the fun and freedom of two wheels over four. Yes, I do believe the seduction of style wins over should almost every time. Anderson has a very strong case.