I just gotta say that Ellen Fletcher is my hero.

She’s a perennial presence at the Palo Alto City Hall Energizer Station on Bike To Work Day. She rides her Breezer bike there in spite of her advanced age and recently poor health. She was at City Hall handing out maps, talking to people and encouraging them that they, too, can ride a bike to get around.

Ms Fletcher was instrumental in getting Caltrain’s bikes on board program years ago, and before that she pushed for Southern Pacific to allow bikes on board, and she still actively participates in Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition discussion on how Caltain can improve the service for bicyclists. She also pushed for converting Bryant Street in Palo Alto into a bicycle boulevard, which is now named in her honor.

Ms Fletcher began riding a bicycle to get to her job as a teen in World War 2 England, and she’s never stopped. Ellen Fletcher is totally an inspiration.

I saw this family on San Fernando Street in San Jose, where they were biking to the Bike Away from Work Bash at Plant 51 on Thursday evening.

Here’s a slideshow of my Bike To Work Day 2009 photos from yesterday.

Don’t miss San Francisco State of Cycling.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released its 2008 State of Cycling report this week. Some tidbits from this report:

• From 2006 to 2008, the number of cyclists counted increased by 43% in San Francisco.
• The number of female cyclists increased slightly from 25% to 27% from 2006 to 2008 after a slight dip in 2007.
• Six percent of all trips in San Francisco are made by bicycle.
• In San Francisco, over 60% of bike trips are for utilitarian purposes rather than leisure or fitness rides. Nationally, this figure is only 5%.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and East Bay Bicycle Coalition all report record numbers of cyclists during yesterday’s Bike To Work Day. A record 200,000 people rode their bikes to work in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday. On San Francisco’s Market Street, bikes outnumbered cars two to one.

More –>

• San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
• Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition
• San Francisco Streetsblog.

Amazon recently opened up their publishing to allow bloggers to publish to the Kindle. You can read Cyclelicious for free online via the web or RSS, or you can pay $1.99 per month to read it on your Kindle reader.

I followed the lead of Bike Hugger and Bicycle Design which are also available to read on Kindle (for a price).

More ->

• Bike Hugger
• Bicycle Design

Happy Bay Area Bike To Work Day, everybody!

Ride with me in the Mountain View to San Jose bike convoy this evening and get free stuff (while supplies last).

The best (IMO) prize is the “Roadie” mirror for drop bars from CycleAware. I have one to give away. If you want it, be the first one I hear say “Cyclelicious rocks!” (or something to that effect).

The other stuff will be some Action Wipes body wipes (handy for the after ride bash at Plant 51) and degreaser wipes from Grease Monkey (handy for cleaning up after a tire or chain repair). I might have a couple of other goodies. I’ll hand these out until I run out.

The plan is to start from Mountain View Caltrain after 5:30 PM. We’ll wait for southbound Caltrain #266 (scheduled arrival 5:36 PM, though you can count on it being about two minutes late). Meet at the north end of the parking lot on the southbound platform side of the Castro Street train station.

I’ll be on a gray Specialized Roubaix with red tires and a little GoPro HERO cam mounted somewhere on the bike.

Meli and Adrienne in San Francisco are a pair of friends to Cyclelicious, even if they didn’t show up for my BBQ the other weekend! 🙂

They’ve joined forces to start a new biking blog: Change Your Life Ride a Bike.

Photos by Adrienne.