An Homage to the Bicycle

By Avi Stopper, Bike Streets Founder

The Mindful Bridge, which connects Virginia Village and University Hills, has a bunch of plaques with great quotes about bicycles.

Like this one from Einstein:

And this one from H.G. Wells, the author of “The War of the Worlds” and the so-called “Father of Science Fiction”:

It’s so true. Southwest Airlines might have made it their slogan, but the bicycle is the original symbol of freedom. (With tips of the hat to the horse…and walking.)

This year, we launched the Bike Streets iPhone app for Denver. Folks rode with it for more than 20,000 miles and replaced more than 5,000 car trips.

On one such trip a few weeks ago, I rode nine miles from Wash Park to Central Park. Before I left, I snacked on a carrot. That’s all the fuel it took – about 25 calories. It would take a car about 11 million calories to produce the same trip.

Is there any invention that’s more efficient than the bicycle? Is there anything that allows you to create as much output with as little input? The sailboat? Paleolithic hunting tools like the atlatl?

The bicycle is a peculiar anachronism: it’s a simple machine from the 1880s that is improbably well-suited for modern city life. (Okay, so technically it’s an assembly of Simple Machines: levers, wheels, and pulleys.)

Bicycling in Denver, 1890-1910. Source: Denver Public Library Digital Collections.

That minimal input returns a shocking output: huge distances traveled and almost miraculous health benefits.

A Scottish study lasting 18 years and published in July returned amazing results: “Compared with non-active commuters, cyclists had 47% lower risk of death from any cause…51% lower risk of cancer death, and a 20% lower risk of receiving a mental health related prescription.”

If Einstein came up with the theory of relativity while riding his bicycle and riding a bike confers such remarkable physical and mental health benefits upon those who do it, it begs the question: where would we be if more people used bikes to get around our city?

Let’s build that City of the Future together and let’s find out.