Way back in 2013 I made my new year’s resolution in advance: In 2014, I would travel to talk about bikes and Bikenomics.
Talk about setting myself up for success….maybe too much success.
At the end of January, I kicked off this year of travel with a book event in Detroit, where the book begins—and where record-cold sub-zero temperatures kept things interesting. I’ve been home for a bit over a week and it’s nearly time to go again: This will truly be the year’s theme.
Amtrak doesn’t go to Brazil yet, so on Monday morning I’ll be heading out into the Portland rain to board the first of three airplanes that will take me to Curitiba for the 3rd World Bicycle Forum. (Third refers to the number of forums in the series so far, not to a problematic global economic category.) Here’s a spooky video about it:
At the end of February, I’ll be home for four days and then head to DC to collaborate with some great folks on a media training for bike advocates, sell radical feminist bike literature at the Women’s Bicycle Forum, meet up with friends and colleagues who are coming in from around the country for the National Bike Summit (will you be in town? want to meet up? let’s talk!), and do a presentation for planners (who will likely be able to earn AICP credit for attending).
[Instead of linking all of this up, I’m going to send you to my Events page, which I’ll endeavor to keep up to date…]
Straight from DC, I’ll head to Reno to speak at the Nevada Bicycle Summit. A lot of exciting bike activism is springing up in Nevada (and Reno is a rad town). Keep an eye on them!
Then it’s on to the Bay Area for the annual Anarchist Book Fair. Anarchists aren’t always as deeply into feminist bike zines as one might hope, so instead of setting up my own shop I’ll be joining forces (and sharing a table) with my publisher, Microcosm—come out and find us there! There will likely be some other East Bay or SF festivities…stay tuned.
Then there’s a breather. The only thing on my schedule so far in April is a trip up to Tacoma, Washington on the 4th—Bikenomics is their active transportation book club pick this year! We’ll be doing a totally dreamy combination of activities—hanging out at a bookstore and talking about transportation. Yes! And there’s a women’s bicycling group up there, too, and there’s an event with them later that evening—way to go, Tacoma.
In May, it’s back to Oakland, where the public library system is asking everyone to read Everyday Bicycling. The big event is on the 10th; we’ll go on a bike ride between different library branches and then settle in to talk about bikes. In the library. It doesn’t get much better than this.
At the end of May we embark on this year’s five week edition of the Dinner and Bikes tour. We’re picking up the waste vegetable oil powered touring van in Pittsburgh and heading first north and then south all along the eastern seaboard, from Montpelier to Miami.
We get home in mid-July. After that (and in the spaces in between the litany above), things are pretty up in the air. I imagine they won’t stay that way for long, though. Some of the gaps are already in the process of filling up. Feel free to get in touch to help fill in more.
As I travel, I do plan to blog. I mean, really blog, not just post hasty calls for proposals and Kickstarter updates (though several of those are in the pipeline). The nominal purpose of all these trips is to get up and talk about bikes, but while I enjoy that part the aspect that really sticks with me is the people I meet and the local bike movements and traffic cultures that I get to learn about and briefly be immersed in. I know you read all this stuff because you love that to, and I’m going to do my best to share it with you here. (And possibly over at my blog on Bicycling, where I just signed up for another year of weekly posts.)
I have already resolved my theme for 2015: The year of not traveling. My cat approves.