Author: chiara-canzi

In 1790, Comte Mede de Sivrac of France constructed a new device—wooden wheels held together by a wooden rod. He called it a celerifere. Then, in 1818, Baron von Drais introduced a much-improved two-wheeled vehicle to an audience in Paris.

The apparatus sported two in-line wheels but no pedals. The rider of the “hobby horse” pushed with both feet and steered the front wheel with both hands. What the vehicle lacked in efficiency, it made up for in public attention. By 1870, the famous high wheel bicycle came along. It was also the first bike with a metal body and pedals that were directly attached to the front wheel.

Thomas Stevens had reached Boston from San Francisco on a bike in 1884, as chronicled in his diary Around the World on a Bicycle—Volume 1. From San Francisco to Teheran. The following year, John Kemp Starley designed the safety bike, which used a chain with a sprocket to enable the rider to push on the pedals in an upward manner and ride the bike from the back wheel, the basic model we still see on the streets today.

At the intersection of Fifth and Market streets, one of my bike mentors, Paul Buschi, noticed my slightly terrified expression. “You O.K.?” he asked. I smiled and relaxed. “See,” he said, “it’s not hard to go from one place to another on your bike.”

What Buschi wants me and others to know is that bike commuting doesn’t have to be a burden, but a pleasant experience for the body and mind. He’s part of the Bike Mentor Program, sponsored by Blue Wheel Bicycles and Performance Bicycle Shop, which began when Shawn Strubbe and Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation Executive Director Zachary Shahan teamed up to support those who are nervous about switching to a two-wheeler.

Shawn Strubbe (right) of the Bike Mentor Program lends some expert help to former city councilor Kendra Hamilton. Hamilton bought a bike three years ago to help with her rehab after surgery, but barely used it because she didn’t “know how to take care of the thing,” she says.

“With the program we help you get to know your bike,” says Strubbe, and that means everything from adjusting the seat to correctly inflating the tires. I walk to work every day, and don’t know the first thing about tuning my bike. I always thought I could just hop on and fly like the wind. Apparently, I was wrong. They also help you to select the best route to commute to work, and escort first-timers on their new commuting routine.

I contacted Shawn and set up a meeting with two of the 19 volunteer mentors. On a Monday after work, we met in front of my apartment. Me: fully decked out in sports gear. Them: shorts, t-shirts, and Shawn was even wearing a skirt. Paul Buschi and Megan Tillet were my mentors. I had to borrow a bike from a friend, because mine sported flat tires, rusty brakes and a hanging chain. “First thing is to fit the helmet properly,” Tillet said. I was about to choke before she loosened it up. “You have to be able to breathe.” Right.
 
Next were the brakes. “No rust should be present,” said Buschi. “They shouldn’t sound like chirping birds.” Note to self: no squeaking brakes. We embarked on our journey down West Main Street. “Let’s stop in front of the Main Street Market. There are bike racks there,” said Buschi. The bike lane that parallels West Main is narrow and dangerously obscured by parked cars. We stop a couple of times to let cars through. It’s far more dangerous than I originally thought. We arrive at our destination only to find the bike racks were removed. “Where do people park their bikes if they want to come and shop here?” asked Strubbe. She has a point. With no bike racks, people are forced to leave their bikes unattended.

We decided to keep going and tour the Downtown Mall. So there I was, sandwiched between Buschi and Tillet at Fifth and Market. After reassuring me, Buschi showed me how to give way to impatient drivers and wait until it’s safe to cross.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Virginia placed in the middle of the bike commuting scale with 4,438 commuters. Vermont sits dead last with 706. “Riding is safer than driving a car,” says Strubbe. “I was nervous at first, but once you do it constantly, it doesn’t feel so bad.” Strubbe decided to start the program when she started feeling isolated in her car. “There is a sense of community when you bike that is absent when you drive,” she says. Strubbe says she has seen a sharp increase in the sheer number of commuters. “It’s crazy,” she laughs. “I see an old lady biking every day in her high heels.”

“There are so many ways to get from point A to point B, and we chose the one that is most unfamiliar to the public.” Christoph Herby is describing the counter-cultural move that led him and business partner Ian Ayers to start Happy Rickshaw, their campus-area business, after a few years as competitive road cyclists.

After graduating from UVA, each earned Division III professional cycling contracts racing for Colavita/Sutter Home and Rite Aid-sponsored teams. Two years of globe trotting was enough, so they decided to come back and set up shop. “Bikes bring out the child in you,” says Herby. “You go outside and smile at people.” To which Ayer interrupts, “Oh yeah, it’s hard not to be happy when you are on a rickshaw.”

“We actually don’t do it for the money,” says Herby. “It’s for the pleasure of riding.”

Happy Rickshaw’s 20 drivers serve the UVA area and Downtown most weekends, including football weekends. These specialized three-wheel machines are bikes, and, like their two-wheel counterparts, they have to put safety first when they encounter narrow or nonexistent bike lanes.

For a non-New York-taxi price, Christoph Herby (left) and Ian Ayers’ rickshaws serve the UVA area and Downtown most weekends.

“We train our drivers,” says Herby. “But rickshaws move at a human pace. You can only go as fast as people can pedal.”

On a typical night between about 8pm to approximately 2am, a driver can make $16 an hour, more or less. Fares range from $2 to $7 per person, based, according to Happy Rickshaw’s website, on “many factors: how far, number of passengers, how much time it takes, the service demand, up/down hill, driver mood.”

Driver mood? “Yes,” says Ayers. “Riding a rickshaw is a hard thing.”

Wrack up another accolade for UVA. This time, the University, which was ranked 23rd by U.S. News and World Report for its college and ninth for its law school, has been flagged as one of the “IT Schools to Watch” by Computerworld Magazine.

Specifically, the Master’s of Science in Management of Information Technology is named for pushing people in mid-career to the next run. Troy Raines is one such fellow. After graduating from UVA in 1994 with a bachelor’s in psychology, Raines worked for Microsoft as a major accounts manager for eight years. He wanted to climb the career ladder and fine tune his problem-solving skills. In 2007, he decided to go back to school and, faced with a need to upgrade his tech skills, he returned to Charlottesville.

Stefano Grazioli, faculty director of the Charlottesville Section, says the program’s concentration on strategic IT management is a major part of its appeal.

“I enrolled in the program in the hopes that what I tell my customers or my clients is the most up-to-date information, and to get a different perspective of what is actually going on in IT world,” says Raines. “It far exceeded my expectations,” he says of the one-year program.

The program, part of the McIntire School of Commerce, admits up to 90 students each year who want to retool while remaining employed full-time. The typical student has been in the workforce about 11 years and bunks up in Charlottesville once a month for a Thursday-Saturday training intensive.

Stefano Grazioli, faculty director of the Charlottesville Section, says the program’s concentration on strategic IT management is a major part of its appeal. That, and a “great pool of successful executives” who mentor and teach, including such names as Steve Cooper, former chief information officer for the American Red Cross and Mike Higgins, chief security officer for LexisNexis.

The curriculum, for which in-state enrollees pay $34,900 in tuition and fees, includes IT architecture, IT project management, enterprise IT management, and strategic IT management—all of which we think businesspeople probably understand better than we do. Raines says the coursework was very applicable to his job. “I was taught concepts and ways to help ensure that projects are successful,” because in technology, he says, the majority of projects fail.

Raines graduated from the program in May and says he expects to see a 10 to 20 percent bump in salary soon as a direct result.

But while Computerworld is quick with praise for the program, Grazioli says there is room for improvement, especially in the area of recruitment. Most students attend from Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. With the relatively recent switch to the three-days-per-month schedule, they’ve been able to extend the reach to New York, Florida and elsewhere.

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