Month: February 2022
February 28, 2022 / / Blog

BEACONS WITH KEVIN MAYNE

28th February 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 293: Beacons with Kevin Mayne

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Kevin Mayne, Chief Executive, Cycling Industries Europe

TOPICS: 40 minutes or so with Brussels-based Kevin Mayne the Chief Executive of Cycling Industries Europe, the bike industry advocacy group. We talked beacons. You know, the detection or connection tech I’ve been banging on about since 2018, and which potentially has ethical and safety ramifications for all forms of cycling, and just getting about as a pedestrian for that matter. Kevin puts my mind at rest, at least from an advisory groups point of view. I’m still not too sure the bike industry is fully cognisant of the concerns myself and others have got but hopefully the industry’s enthusiasm for the latest tech will be the tempered by those who have the interests of ALL cyclists at heart, not just those who can afford to sport detection tech.

Previous episodes on beacons:

2018: Historian Peter Norton – author of “Fighting Traffic” – discusses the historical, ethical and mobility-centre issues that such a call raises.

2018: Roger Geffen of Cycling UK
Chris Star of Australia’s 3CR community radio station
Technology writer Max Glaskin
Lloyd Alter of Treehugger.com
Caspar Hughes of Stop Killing Cyclists.

2020: Cyclist Detection Tech With Tome Software CEO Jake Sigal And History of Road Equity With Historian Peter Norton

March Bike Sale

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 293 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on 28th February 2022.

David Bernstein 0:25
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, Jenson USA, where you will find a great selection of products at unbeatable prices with unparalleled customer service. Check them out at Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast. And of course, I’m one of the hosts and producers of The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast since 2006. For shownotes links and other information, check out our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here’s my fellow host and producer Carlton Reid and the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:11
Thanks, David, and welcome to the show, which is 40 minutes or so with Brussels based Kevin Mayne, the chief executive of Cycling Industries Europe, the bike industry advocacy group. Wwe talked beacons, you know, that detection or connection tech, I’ve been banging on aoutt since 2018. And which potentially has ethical and safety ramifications for all forms of cycling, and just getting about as pedestrian for that matter. Kevin does put my mind at rest, at least from an advisory group’s point of view, I’m still not too sure the bike industry is fully cognizant of the concerns myself and others have got but hopefully, the industry enthusiasm for the latest tech – which I sometimes share – will be tempered by those who have the interests of ALL cyclists at heart and not just those who can afford to sport detection tech. Not everybody’s got an iPhone, or can stump up for helmets or bikes or whatever else that now or in the very near future may broadcast positional info, so you don’t get squished by inattentive motorists. This is now the fourth podcast I’ve devoted to this underreported topic, go check out the others, including with transport historian Peter Norton. And Tome Software’s Jake Seagal. I’ll link to those previous episodes in the show notes at the -spokesmen.com. But here’s Kevin Mayne, he starts out by explaining why he reached out to me.

Kevin Mayne 3:01
I reached out because I’ve seen all the chat and social media. And I’ve seen some of your own commentary. And I’ve seen a kind of narrative developing that everything around kind of beacons on bikes feels negative, and almost feels as if certain people in the bicycle industry have been somehow selling out some advocacy and safety values. And that deeply disturbed me. Because not not too much beacons on bikes, but the general and broad principles of connected bike the many things we can do with connected by including connecting to other vehicles, but also infrastructure and and to each other things that I’ve been battling to get on the cycling agenda for six or seven years now. And see many many positives. But I also see that as being in the room, when the sort of automated and connected vehicles conversations happen, is the biggest safety net our industry and our community could possibly have. Because certainly from the European work and a bit from the kind of us work I see this is happening in a kind of research bubble. Policymakers are desperately relying on kind of research and proof of concept and case. And just to give an example, I mean, the US last budget for this space was 162 million euros. And at the start of this programme, there wasn’t a single vote, cyclists voice in that conversation. And if that bubble develops its own narrative on what’s needed for cycling to be safe. Or in their terminology, vulnerable road users, which is a term that I hate, then we are at great, great risk. So my concern and I reached out to you because I know you’re one of the people that’s got to report it on this is to say it Just think we’ve got the tone wrong on this. And I think we need to balance our concerns with also what the opportunity is.

Carlton Reid 5:09
I understand that, and I understand absolutely the logic of feet under the table, just the fact that you’re in the same room where it’s happening, kind of thing. Totally understandable. But using that same logic, you’re you’re around the conference table with all these automotive concerns with the big pot of cash. That’s also one side of the table. Could not the cyclists voice at that table? Eventually say, Yeah, we’re here. We are in the same room with you at the same table. But we don’t think this will work. And here are the reasons why. So you’re at the table you’re being listened to. But you actually say, Yeah, but guys ain’t gonna work.

Kevin Mayne 5:57
Yeah, I mean, we, we run the risk of being an irritating kind of mosquito in that room. And that we are the voice of doubt. But if you take the other approach regard this as kind of, I know, we need a kind of code on sanitaire where we don’t touch this stuff, then we’re not even the mosquito. And the key thing about properly structured research is that the voices in the room have a certain degree of equality. It isn’t just the ones who bring the big bucks. But there is a need even to be in that room to kind of be willing to say, look, we’re we’re having a technology discussion. And what I found in the past was, you know, the conversation would go along those lines. Yeah, yeah, there’s a role vulnerable road users, we don’t want to run you over. But this is a tech session. What have you got? What can you bring? And what is your kind of technological agenda. And we might agree that our technological agenda is to make sure that nothing really really dumb happens. But we do need a passport. And in reality, there are some good things happening on kind of connected bike and connected tech, that are not all about beacons on bikes and some potential mandatory thing further on downstream. We’re in a fantastic project called the bicycles 90 s project, with OTS standing for intelligent transport systems. And for example, we’re looking at a lot of passive systems in the Netherlands and Denmark, where, you know, what historically would have been a bicycle counter, could now be a bicycle trigger. So as you approach the traffic lights, the traffic lights, no, there’s a cyclist, great in the Netherlands, Denmark, Flanders, okay, if you’ve got brilliant bike lanes and those kinds of facts, but there are potential future applications of those things on camera detection, a lot of very, very good artificial intelligence, Nova and develop that can clearly identify a cyclist from background traffic. And we can, we can bring a lot of that content to play. Without a lot of the kind of what I will call the red lines, we will not Crus around mandatary beacons, or you weren’t in the right place. We can also use an awful lot of detection and data and connected bike to improve the quality of infrastructure. And, you know, the infrastructure is going to be fundamental to the automated cars as well. Because basically the text not going to work. So there is there will be a battle for certain pieces of infrastructure maybe to be dedicated, or to be automated or to contain certain loops, or even have restrictions on them. And so we have to be part of the infrastructure conversation. Currently, the infrastructure conversation is going on away, because urban access restrictions are actually not saying bring automated cars, they’re saying bring no cars. Hmm. And someone has to bring that conversation into the room as well going wait a minute, we just talked to 100 cities 100 cities want less cars, they don’t want automated cars. And so we have to be that foil. And the big difference to where we were perhaps five years ago is you know, our industry is currently pretty hot in terms of policymaking, both in the US but particularly in Europe. We have access like we’ve never had before. And that puts us in a lot of platforms where we’ve never been before. Not you know we don’t have a quality with the car industry but we’ve we’ve moved an awful long way.

Carlton Reid 9:49
Kevin who’s we?

Kevin Mayne 9:52
I mean, first off, you know the association’s carry that voice but what we you know what we read present for the first time, maybe in 200 years, is we represent happening technologies that are regarded as extraordinarily useful. Step one, the E bike, very popular, a lot less intrusive than the E car cheaper, more accessible, and you know, outselling the cars by multiples of 10 to one in some countries, etc. We have the cargo bike. Now that logistics future of Europe is a complete and utter mess. If we don’t shift freight from its current structure, cities can’t take the trucks. There is not an EU policy document on urban mobility in the last five or six years, there hasn’t been a reference to cargo bikes. So and cities, as cities bring in urban access controls to solve safety, air quality congestion, those issues. The bikes are the vehicles that slip through the net.

Carlton Reid 11:01
What are pedestrian organisations? Do they have a seat at this table?

Kevin Mayne 11:07
Not that I can see. And I think that worries me a lot. But but they’re even perhaps worse than we were a few years ago, where if you ask the question, what tech Have you got? You know, there isn’t a product development process there that acts as a passport. And I think certainly I feel a very strong moral obligation to kind of represent, you know, the non motorised. I hate the phrase railroad users What the How to be, to some extent the voice of the others.

Carlton Reid 11:39
Isn’t that potentially a good reason why pedestrians aren’t there, because we’re all pedestrians, very often not seen as a user group in their own right, even though there are of course, pedestrian associations that that do lobby for these kind of thing. But might might the pedestrian element not be there, I’m gonna ask them this, but out of choice, and that they don’t want to be there for the reasons of that I might be quite cynical.

Kevin Mayne 12:08
Yeah. And possibly, I mean, I haven’t chatted to people. I was 21 about this recently, because I’ve been, you know, to some extent managing our own agenda. But there is equally I think, in some sectors, there has been a sense of almost where, again, parts of our sector where they’re going, this is nasty, it’s corporatism, you know, might we be selling out if we enter those routes? And, you know, I respect those views. My own view from cycling point of view is, that’s not the best choice for us. But we have to respect that to a certain extent.

Carlton Reid 12:46
So I cannot I do absolutely understand that if you’re not in the the room where the decisions are made, where the decisions that then get passed on to the policymakers, and they get rubber stamped, then you just don’t exist, you know, you do not exist as an entity. Yep. And pedestrians absolutely have long fallen down on that and similar extent, but to a lesser extent, cyclists, also. So I do understand that. But do you also not appreciate that? Yeah, I understand your talk about E bikes, and cargo bikes, etc. These are expensive products. Whereas the simplicity of being a pedestrian, the simplicity of being a cyclist on an incredibly simple, cheap machine is you don’t need that tech, you don’t have to have your phone connected. So you can see the speed on your, you know, your your, your lovely $2,000 machine, etc, etc, etc. So it’s the very simplicity yes, that might be a problem, but it’s also an absolute beauty of the simplicity.

Kevin Mayne 13:55
And, you know, the key point is the mature advocates and we have to, we have to bring the best of it. You know, these are tough environments. We have to bring the best and most professional of our community into some of these spaces to get maximum impact. You know, people are good speakers who have good knowledge, good knowledge of the data and the arguments. But in bringing those people in the room, they speak for our whole community. You know, I sit in some of these sessions wearing the bicycle industry badge. But I have talked this all through with our colleagues at European cyclists Federation where I used to work I have my own roots in cycling UK are never going to let that go. If we start sending people who are so in love with the tech they forget where we are, then we have Yes, we are a risk to our own community. And we’ve agreed amongst us and also including canopy others. There are some red lines that we all share. Not all companies share that they may want to sell the tech and they have great ambition and they see customers but as representatives of our sector, we’re very clear, no additional obligations. So no obligation to carry a mobile phone obligation to be chipped. And we have an absolute killer argument, which is children. We’re not like drivers in cars where you would let you, you know, any parent who has ever tried to stay in touch with their teenager via mobile phone, and knows how many times that’s not possible because of battery, I turned it off, I dropped it in the palm data that knows that this tech is not reliable in the hands of children. So

Carlton Reid 15:38
forget five year olds cycling on public roads, and obviously not four year olds three years.

Kevin Mayne 15:43
We’re not going to chip children or pets or animals in order to allow the car the cars to drive all over us.

Carlton Reid 15:52
So these are these red lines, I guess stems as though we are talking on pretty much on the same wavelength. And my red lines,

Kevin Mayne 16:00
no, but I mean, I’ve got two others I’ll share with you. Second one is location. I mean, a lot of automated driving other techniques will have a sense of it, it’ll work perfectly if you’re all in the right place. We know 101 reasons why a cyclist may not be in the right place. And the big red flag of race was when there was a tech one of the early Tesla deaths in the States. And the police report said the woman was not crossing the road at an approved crossing point. And anybody who’s sensitive to this throws their hands up and goes no, no, that’s that’s absolutely right. We were not going to recreate the circumstances under which jaywalking came into existence to support car safety. And there are many reasons why are even more so in countries with poor infrastructure, why the cyclist might not be in a convenient by blame. And the third thing we will not accept is any obligation to retrofit you know, there are multi millions of bikes in the system now that are never ever, ever going to be tech and I think use brushed it well and emotionally about the kind of love of cycling. But it’s it’s also the love and simplicity of that equipment. So where we’re, we’re absolutely in line with the concerns we think. And we see other people like League of American wheelman have done some publications around their own sort of red guidance on what’s acceptable and what isn’t. And I think it is better that we step up and tell the world very, very broadly what we can and can’t accept. So the red lines

Carlton Reid 17:40
that we we we talked about, and it sounds as though we kind of agree on do not risk going into the room going and getting your feet under the table. And then you’re accused of being you know, the 1930s phrase of cyclists being prima donnas, and disparaged. Because official cycling officialdom is seen as not to be terribly helpful.

Kevin Mayne 18:10
Yeah. I mean, I think we were, I mean, we move on, we’re, we’re not walking around rooms, we’ve been invited into making posturing speeches, were in there, and others are in there, and colleagues and colleagues in the US are in the opportunity to be in research environments, where you are there, but you have a you know, if you’re good at your job, you have a sensitivity and a subtleness and ability to get your points on the table. But you’ve always got escalation. So now I can always walk out of a research process or take my team out and go to people at the European Commission, Drug Safety Unit or other areas and go look I’m sorry, I have to whistle blow. What is happening in here is unacceptable. And that was when maybe we always have to have a nuclear option where you really are not a good player. Right now we’re nowhere near that. Right now. We are in conversations where to be brutally honest, say on automated driving, that the technology and the programmes are. Some are let loose under very poor regulatory regime in the States. But in Europe, they’re at baby steps. And, you know, we’re more able to say things like, you know, what, you Yeah, intelligence speed adaption so that people don’t speed is acceptable to everyone. Now you have the technology now. We could save X 1000 lives a year now. We’re quite keen on those parts of your technology. When can we have them? And you know, there is a almost a very, very experienced road safety expert quietly whispered in my ear after I said, you’re bound but this is schizophrenic You know, you have people sitting on one side of the room on behalf of major motoring companies saying, AV AV need the research, this is going to be kind of game changing. And when when they’re asked, Well, why don’t you release kind of level one, level two, now, the marketing head comes on and goes, is not ready yet. And there is of the parts of that industry is absolutely tying itself in knots. And there’s very, very little evidence that that technology is ready to be released into the wild, even in terms of very controlled pilots. So you know, we’ve got a long period ahead of us 10 years plus maybe 15, where we could be inside conversations about what is acceptable and what isn’t, but also challenging the kind of benchmark assumptions, because what happens in these research bubbles is, you know that there’s a drive to get the tech tested. The people from more of a policy background can say, Yeah, but what’s the comparison? Could we for the same amount of money? Could we get mode shift? For the same amount of kind of for less policy implementation? Could we do something on speed limits. And so we can be passed in very mature conversations. And we don’t have to slap people in the face with a kind of set of red lights. And I’m happy with this new record it it goes out there to certain extent, I want to give people confidence, the kind of cycling sector doesn’t need to sell out in order to be part of this conversation. Hmm, we do. I think we, you know, on a beragam, we do know what we’re doing. Naively wandering into this space, this has been a concerted effort by a serious group of people in the lobby space to say, we should be on the inside track of this conversation, not shouting from outside.

Carlton Reid 22:05
So the lobby space, as you intimated earlier, is different to the industry space. And as you intimated, also earlier is the industry wants to sell stuff. If you’re the maker of a very high end bicycle, you kind of got you got a fairly good interest to want to keep that owner alive. And you want to market that tech to that owner. Yeah, yeah, all you know, futuristic tech probably gets sold to very rich people to begin with and classify anybody you can afford a 2000 Euro dollar bicycle, as as intrinsically rich, then you’re going to want to introduce that technology, you’re probably going to want to sidestep, you know, fuddy duddy officials like you and go straight to Ford as as tome software has done and get this tech out there. And then it’s taken away from from people like you, or is that not the case, as the industry got less power than we might imagine?

Kevin Mayne 23:07
No, I think actually, I mean, what’s important is, to some extent, how this is regulated. And I’m particularly interested in how the car space is regulated and how the vehicle car interaction is, is regulated. I still believe the products are going to come. I have enough people now that I’m talking to some of whom are members who’ve got fairly advanced vehicle to x technology, as the jargon calls it and believe confidently, they can do bicycle car interaction to a high level of accuracy. Equally the conversations we’re having with them, they’re saying, Yeah, but you understand what our kind of policy positions are. And they’re like, Of course we do. That’s why we joined. That’s why we’re in this conversation. And we if we don’t understand we need you to explain it to us. Do I believe that there are no Tesla equivalents on the car side or people in the bike world that go out there? Well, we’ve already seen on E bikes, there were a group of companies that were happily willing to allow American speed bikes inside the European regulatory regime. And it caused us a lot of embarrassment with the regulators. But we doesn’t mean that our kind of position on this stuff wasn’t I think, right? Just because they were people pushing the boundaries. And we with the broader industry, when if suddenly you look at CIA’s membership, but when I look at the community, we work with economy, and I look at the national associations in many countries. Now that these are not cowboys. They take their industry very seriously and they take the reputation of the industry very seriously. And keen to get things right. But I do know, I mean, just as we might say, on helmets, or on bicycle lights, or on other tools on the bikes, there are people who, like the certain gadgets, they like certain accessories, it makes a big difference to them to feel safer. And I would give an example, very purely myself, that I would say, I 100% agree, for example, with all the conversations that we have around the world on the role of highways, it just so happens, I’ve lived for the last 30 years in rural areas. And when I ride a bike in rural areas, I’m often in the dark without street lamps, I choose to wear have high vis, it makes me feel safer. That doesn’t mean for one moment I’ve ever advocated for mandatory IVs. And I’ve ever wished to overstate the kind of actually what it achieves. It just makes me feel safer. And I have friends who have said, you know, can’t you guys come up with something we can put on our bikes, so the cars don’t run us over? Because they know I work in the industry.

Carlton Reid 26:01
So in the garage there, I’ve got a brand new month old Cannondale, that kind of cone let me have and it’s got a radar on the back. Yeah, it’s got all sorts of daylight running light, it’s got low, it’s bristling with tech. In other words, that cycling Weekly put it on its front cover, as you know, this is the bike of the future, etc, etc. So this this clearly this connected bike, you know, with all equipment on is kind of what consumers high end consumers at least, and certainly large parts of the industry think of as, as the future you know, you can you can you can make more money by having an equipped bike, etc. But is this not just also, you know, it’s only for one kind of cyclists, it’s for the high end cyclists, and yes, there’ll be some trickle down. But we were talking about, you know, these kind of cyclists, people like maybe me and you, and others who probably listened to, you know, podcasts, etc, and read the cycling literature, or just get a tiny 1% of the actual number of cyclists out there. And by actually, looking at this tech, and, and adopting this tech, there’s actually a danger, you know, 1015 years hence, of, we’ve made too much tech. And we’ve kind of taken away from what bicycling actually is for the majority of people, and we’re actually harming what the majority people want to do with their bicycles. Yeah.

Kevin Mayne 27:38
I think that’s classic kind of journalistic fallacy. Because you we live and some of us live, and I bet they’re in a world where we are presented with the products at the leading edge, we are talking to the brands and the companies about the things that excite them. And clearly, there’s a degree of you know, pro endorsement or whatever else, then you go and actually study your industry figures and your sales figures. And you study the consumer research that says, you know, a high proportion of consumers in many countries don’t even know the brand of their bike, that they are buying a usefulness, they are buying a lot of the basic values. And we’ve just done some consumer research not just released yet, but really implies that the bicycle boom of 2020 2021 was trembled by the simple pleasure of riding a bike. Some of those people chose to ride to buy ebikes and there’s been some price inflation, partly about supply chain, but a lot of people went back and refresh their mechanical bikes at the same time. And if you move away from where we’re exposed, you know the high end brands with their kind of tech that’s very focused at the kind of more sportive cyclist you know, some of the nicest connected technology I’ve seen has been in for example, in Sweden, you can buy a bicycle which has a whole load of connected technology for riding around on but it does things like connect you to your insurance company in detects the same you know, is your bike moved? That is someone tried to force your lock. You’ve done a few 1000 kilometres is about time you had some new tires. And it’s doing some stuff that yeah, it’s it’s more high end, but it’s actually promoting convenience and reliability. And we know convenience and reliability have a big impact on people’s perception of cycling just a bit difficult. Now, bicycles have punctures bicycles, if you have to repair your own bike or find a special shop that doesn’t happen a car so we can do more. You know, the, you know, the last 20 years we’ve seen you know, really good reliable puncture proof ties, for example, which take away a lot of consumer protection. auctions where the bicycle is just a basic daily utility, much like a family car run around. And that’s even more important when people go for car free families or when they for use technology like cargo bikes. So I think, you know, it’s really important that the brains excite a certain part of the community with a certain, the lightest, the fastest. The shiny is the ones that wins the most races. And I totally love what many of our members do in that space. And you know, you’re the brands are obviously there and the visible. But I see for the development of more cycling, we can be really, really excited about some of the just very easy facilitation of cycling. That’s also possible now that wasn’t there a generation ago.

Carlton Reid 30:51
Kevin, I also get excited by by this technology. And I can see that it can actually also bring people into cycling, if for instance, they feel as they’re going to be safer. If they’ve got tech, they’re going to come into cycling. I absolutely recognise that. However, when you have that, that that technology, and it sounds fantastic. I’m probably in the market for that. It’s like yeah, great. Why wouldn’t I want to be bristling with as much in effect radars and beacons. So, you know, I personally never get hit fantastic. For me, as a rich, privileged cyclist, however, does that not bring further and greater risks to the people who are not rich, privileged cyclists, that’s what I’m trying to get at is, people will never have this technology, but they are the bulk of the people out there cycling.

Kevin Mayne 31:49
That is the whole point of this conversation, is that we are inside technology conversations at European or international or global level. So that we can defend the interests of every single person who not only rides a bike today, but might want to ride a bike in is to skate. And dumb things happen in techno bubbles, when technologists are not challenged at the point of development, and they’re not offered up these perspectives. And that person on a horrible bike is also someone like me, with a bike I buy on eBay, and I buy a new another one every two or three years for leaving stations, because I’m afraid it’s going to get stolen. And I’d like maybe that to be better. But those bikes are as much part of the world even if some experienced cyclists, or people who would spend a lot of money as they are of the people, you talk about the high end. And I really worry that there’s some kind of caricature that the thinking people in the biking in his industry, have no love for that space. If you look at what cycling industries, policy positions are on any subject, we start with, what does it take to get more people cycling, number one, safe conditions, more infrastructure? When we go in our lobby to the European Union, we say look, there’s some interesting things can happen on tech. But by the way, we want you to spend 10 billion backing up member governments on building safe cycling infrastructure. So we are absolutely categorically clear that conditions on the ground lead. And then we ask ourselves, how can we help. And we can help in two ways. One is we might have some tech that makes people more confident or make cycling more accessible. Or we might have some financial models like bike sharing that make cycling more affordable. So that’s one part so we can help get people on bikes and more of them. And we also have a really important role to defend. There are other industrial sectors who are, you know, if if we get it wrong, they’re not our friend. And there we have a role to speak for this whole community. Some of the cycling citizens groups, the advocates, the more traditional groups, some of us is in industrial able to see him for the first time ever, really, we’re bringing an industrial voice to these conversations. So I can put the CEO of a large bicycle Corporation in a room with policy makers and have him or her say what I’m telling you now that this is we understand what it takes to deliver more cycling in Europe. Hmm.

Carlton Reid 34:47
Philip crease has a very pithy phrase when I’ve interviewed him about that subject and that is detected, not connected. So is that is that what Would that be something that the kind of the phrase that it almost sounds as though that’s where you’re coming from detached

Kevin Mayne 35:07
homes, on this stuff? I mean, we’ve done a few Villo cities together on the kind of where’s the smart tech taking us? And, you know, I think we’re pretty much in consensus. And the detected is interesting, because again, it doesn’t require entirely cars, there’s, there’s good things you can do with infrastructure and cameras and other technologies. And I mean, one of the examples I use is, you know, if you’re not counted, you don’t count. We can’t actually say, on a European level, how many kilometres are done in Europe by bikes, we can make estimates of how many Europeans cycle from consumer surveys and censuses and those kinds of things. And, you know, we’ve been bold and now extrapolating those figures and saying, Look, we think these are our numbers. And, and I’ve ever speech from people in our CIA summits saying back to us, wow, thank God, the last two years you brought data. That’s what we need. And with that data, we can make arguments and we can make economics. And thank you for coming and doing that.

Carlton Reid 36:17
So you talked about infrastructure a minute ago, and we obviously talked about the whole of this half now, we’ve been talking, we’ve been talking about the tech side, give me a like a potential percentage of how important these things are in your world. So how important is tech compared to how important is a physical curb separated? cycleway? So what how much time would you devote to these elements?

Kevin Mayne 36:50
Right, well, we just to clarify, I mean, we also partner with ECF, and others in the advocacy community, but we would, I mean, I did an estimate for our board and said that, you know, probably, even in kind of revenue terms, 70 80% of our work is on what will make cycling grow. Then within that, when we get the chance to make the arguments, you know, we lead every time with better infrastructure, better infrastructure, better infrastructure, and even our work on the European recovery programme. And when we, we asked for minimum, you know, billions to be spent on infrastructure, versus now a little bit on purchase premiums, and a little bit on innovation. But it was, you know, it’s you’re talking about kind of five to one or more in terms of the kind of ratios, and that’s just European stimulus funding, most money and infrastructure spent by national governments. So you know, we’re really, totally clear that it’s infrastructure first. And all the work that I did in the last two years on European recovery from COVID, huge proportion of that was on, let’s preserve the cycling streets, let’s preserve the pocket bike lanes, let’s get them made permanent, let’s get them segregated. Let’s get them high quality. And it’s a constant thread, totally backed by our industry.

Carlton Reid 38:22
So you don’t the kind of the corollary to that is you don’t think that, or if this did happen, you you have an immediate pushback to this, you don’t think that say the automotive interests will just say, well, forget bike lanes, we don’t need them, you know, forget all of these things. Because if we’re going to have connectivity, we’re going to have detection, you no longer have to worry in the future about motorists hitting you as a cyclist. Because we’re gonna have this tech, you’re still gonna be saying? No, that first and then maybe.

Kevin Mayne 38:53
I mean, the interesting one is you take the Dutch cyclestreets concept. Interestingly, not some countries feel uncomfortable with it, but it’s kind of 20 kilometres an hour, dedicated streets. Cyclists get priority, motorists are treated as guests. And in some urban cores, you’ve even got smaller you know, you go down to sort of 10 kilometres now cars are allowed access for access only and safely pedestrians and cars can all mingle. And if that is done well, you can gain enormous amounts of not quite dedicated infrastructure very, very fast because the implementation costs are very low. And you look what’s happened in Paris with say Rivoli in Rue Rivoli has effectively been clean of cars. So, gaining streets whole streets is a huge opportunity for us. And what’s interesting in the kind of automated vehicle discussions is I don’t think it’s a question of any but I think the least likely solution is the car industry comes and says we can all mingle happen No, I think our bigger worry is they will actually be saying you’ve all got to get off. Because many governments are not yet ready to allocate the space that’s needed for cycling and pedestrians and public transport. And the kind of dedicated AV lines, worrying me more. And also a lot of what’s happening on very small scale logistics, which is these kind of mobile pods, which are currently being put on to cycle lanes and on pavements as kind of tests and the things are adept. I mean, I feel sorry for you with your guide dog, you know, faced by something that looks like an AR two d two from Star Wars coming down the pavement, carrying a package for a logistics company, an absolute nightmare, but because these things don’t work in the road space and because they kind of embryonic tech, governments kind of go well let’s test it on a few pavements. And yeah, we genuinely we and the pedestrian movement and others, you know, we’ve got that, because again, we can say, actually, let’s look at the cost effectiveness and safety and reliability as compared to for example, cargo bikes. And the cargo by wins absolutely every time. Every time non negotiable. It works on speed, it works on safety, it works on volume, works on health, and we can win every single argument compared to those kinds of tech.

Carlton Reid 41:34
Thanks to Kevin Mayne there and thanks also to you for listening to Episode 293 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast brought to you in association as always with Jenson USA. Watch out for the next episode popping up in your feed next month. But meanwhile, get out there and ride …
February 5, 2022 / / Blog

What Would Jesus Ride? An Audience with @PedalingPastor

5th February 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 292: What Would Jesus Ride? An Audience with the Pedaling Pastor

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: G. Travis Norvell

TOPICS: Travis Norvell is the pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. On twitter he’s the @pedalingpastor. We talk about cars, parking lots, what Jesus would ride and Travis’ new book Church on the Move.

LINKS:

Print book

Kindle

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 292 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on the 5th of February 2022.

David Bernstein 0:25
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson, USA Jenson USA, where you will find a great selection of products at unbeatable prices with unparalleled customer service. Check them out at Jensonusa.com/the spokesman. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast. And of course, I’m one of the hosts and producers of The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast since 2006. For shownotes links and other information, check out our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here’s my fellow host and producer Carlton Reid and the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:09
Thanks, David. And welcome to the show, which is just over half an hour with Travis Norvell of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s the @pedalingpastor on Twitter, as in pastor in church, not pasta in Italy. And we talk cars, parking lots, and what Jesus would ride. We also chatted about Travis’s great new book, Church on the Move. You’re not religious? No worries. The book is evangelical mostly about bicycling, walking, and public transit. So Travis, you’ve been the pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis for 10 years. And your Twitter handle kind of gives it away in that it’s @pedalingpastor even though you’ve got one too few, many Ls. But anyway, pedalling, pedalling. Has anybody wants to follow you, and you’re from England. Don’t put an extra L yet you won’t get Travis. So @pedalingpastor kind of explains why we’re going to be gonna be talking today. But you’ve written a book, and I’ve read that book. But before we go, to talk about that excellent book, tell me about the weather where you are right now because my, my understanding is it kind of gets cold there.

Travis Norvell 2:31
Oh, yeah. I mean, today, it’s right now it’s negative two Fahrenheit, and a windshield will be negative 20 throughout the day, so it gets pretty cold. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 2:39
yeah. And I’ve seen photographs on your social media of you been wrapped up pretty warm, and you know, full on, you know, gloves on the handlebars and and you’ve got to have spike tires, all this kind of stuff. So you’re gonna be riding year round. Yeah.

Travis Norvell 2:56
Yeah, me year round writer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s it’s fun, though. It’s fun. Once you get started, you know, your body creates enough body heat, you get warmed up pretty quick. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 3:08
You’re part of Minneapolis, cos you’re only a couple of miles from where George Floyd was murdered aren’t you?

Travis Norvell 3:16
Yeah, yeah. George Floyd. The murder site is about about a mile and a half north of where I live, and about two miles east of where the churche is, yeah.

Carlton Reid 3:26
Mm hmm. Are you riding from your home to your church every day? Is that is that kind of what you’re using your bike for? You’re using your bike for everything?

Travis Norvell 3:35
I use my bike for everything. Yeah, when we first moved here, I had a Volkswagen and I loved it. But the heater in it went caput, and I was tired of putting money in it. So I sold it. And the story is, you know that, that it’s happened on a Sunday that the heater went out? And I was preaching a sermon. It was basically on how do people? How do you sacrifice something so other people can experience joy for the common good. And my daughter who was 12 at the time, I went to tell her good night. And she said, Hey, Dad, I was listening, thinking about your sermon today, which is, you know, totally unusual for a 12 year old, I understand. But she said, you know, what are you willing to sacrifice so others can experience joy? And that just that just floored me? I felt like a complete phoney. And I said, you know, honey, I don’t know, but I’ll have an answer for you in the morning. So the heater in the car went out. And I decided I was just gonna start biking, walking, taking public transit full time. And that was you know, that was nine years ago. So I use my bike for everything. You know, go to the store, go to the Good work, good library entertainment. My wife and I we go out on dates. We ride our bikes. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of endeavour.

Carlton Reid 4:47
That’s kind of a preview of your first chapter because you mentioned that that’s that’s how your book begins about that. Yeah, yeah. Here we go. Tada. Now another thing that’s in that first chapter, which tickled me and which I’ve told you I’d tickle me when we’re emailing this. And it kind of describes your your community as well. And so I’ll just I’ll just quote it back to you. You’ll know of course very well. But you’ve got to explain what you mean by this because I love it. So you say your congregation of mostly quirky people who live at the intersection of the television shows the Vicar of Dibley and Northern Exposure. What do you mean by that?

Travis Norvell 5:25
Well, you know, every meeting that wherever in, I keep a little journal, and I’m like, when do we cross the Vicar of Dibley line. And last night, we had a weird a two hour meeting, and we made it all the way to an hour and 23 minutes before we crossed it. So we it, you know, it’s hard to really pinpoint, but there’s always some point where we segue into like, over these minute details, that don’t really mean anything except to us. And we start, you know, not bickering, but having these deep conversations on. How, what is the sentence of this motion going to actually look like? You just kind of devolve into it, or you know, you’re sitting in the middle of a meeting. And someone just comes up with the most off the wall question. And then it feels like you’re in an episode of Northern Exposure, like somebody just walked through the door. And, you know, like, they you know, that all they have is a pair of shorts, one and nothing else, it just feels one of those kind of weird meeting. So that’s what I was talking about the congregation that way, it’s, you never know what’s going to happen. There’s always going to be somebody that’s going to have some kind of off the wall, comment to say, but then they’re also going to be this, you know, kind of loving, compassionate people at the same time. So it just makes for a very interesting day at work. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 6:36
Yeah coz both those programmes, they’re they’re definitely quirky, the people involved, but there is absolutely tonnes and tonnes of warm heartedness in both shows, isn’t that right?

Travis Norvell 6:46
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, this is the kind of beauty of everyday people, you know, kind of, in the midst of bizarre circumstances, but then also just common everyday things you see,

Carlton Reid 6:59
As I said, you’ve written a book, titled Church on the Move, a practical guide for ministry, in the community. And I do want to ask you in a minute about, you know who that book is for. But first of all, tell us about your personal journey. So in the book, you talk about in your college years being hit, you’re running a bike, getting around, and you were hit by a beer bottle, thrown by some, some yield, and then you kind of said, I’m never going to get on a bike again. And then, you know, fast forward a few years, and you’re actually at a funeral, give giving the funeral. And then you said the person you were, you were eulogising, at this burial service was a lifetime cyclist, and that kind of got you inspired again, so tell me about that journey.

Travis Norvell 7:50
Yeah, you know, I grew up in a on a, on top of a mountain in a country on a, you know, in the middle of country on a dirt road. And I loved riding bikes. But to get to the nearest place to ride a bike safely, you know, had to go off the mountain and then down to town. And, and I just loved riding bikes. I just, you know, as a kid, I just, it was something I love to do. But there wasn’t like a real, there wasn’t a biking community in my hometown. And there wasn’t really a safe place to really ride. I mean, I don’t know how many times almost got hit, as a kid, just people taking corners too fast and running through stop signs and such. And then when I was in sixth grade, though, our patrols you know, there’s the there’s the people at public schools, who stand is crossing guards for people across the street into the school. Our patrol group, we went to Washington DC for spring trip. So we got on a bus and we drove eight hours to DC. Everyone else is looking at the, you know, the DC, all the monuments in Washington, DC, but I was amazed, because that was the first time I ever saw a separated bike lane. And, you know, I was 12 years old. And that’s all I wanted to talk about. And I came home and my parents like, what do you think a DC I was like, Mom, dad, they have these bike lanes that are that are separate from the road and people ride on them. And they can go all over town and and they were they were just like, Yeah, but did you go the Washington Monument? Yes, yes. But there were these bike lanes, and they just kind of rolled their eyes at me. So I’ve always had this as a dream to be in someplace like this. But it just never would work out. And then I’m at the I’m doing the funeral. And one of the family members is talking about this guy. And he said, you know, he was a really kind of bizarre person. He rode his bike year round to Providence, Rhode Island, and he would ride it in the winter and he had these special tires. And everyone just kind of chuckled at him being you know, centric person. And I’m sitting there going, you can ride you around your bike and you don’t have you don’t have to have a bike lane. So that that just started then I was off after that. And I kept trying. And I just couldn’t but just never did work out when we moved to New Orleans. I thought I finally found that you know, this, this city, it’s flat, it’s compact, it’s easy to ride around. It’ll be no problem at all. And then I started riding but the one thing I didn’t think about New Orleans is a subtropical climate. So every day at four o’clock, it rains pretty much, and I would get stuck in these rainstorms unprepared. And there was a real boundary that was crossed, because it’s so hot and humid there, I would I would go into a parishioners house, and I would just be covered in sweat. And one time I go to visit and and the person that I’m visiting says, Can I get you an extra shirt? It just felt like a really odd boundary to be in, not to say, you know, kind of an odd place. So I said, Can I just sit by the fan instead? So So, so I kept trying it there. And then when we finally came to Minneapolis, you know, that’s when my daughter preached a sermon. But there’s also this great biking community in Minneapolis, and they were just a lot of people, the people that bike shop, when I told him the perennial bike shop, when I told him what I was wanting to do. They just, you know, took about a half hour and walked me through how you’re going to do winter biking, the, the gear you need, the problems you’re going to have and here’s, you know, Blessings for your ride. So it was just a, it’s been a very supportive place.

Carlton Reid 11:15
In those two years that you’ve spent in Minneapolis in your community. You’ve used that many of those anecdotes in this, this this book church in the loop. So it’s this book for your community is this book for and it could have been for the Vicar of Dibley equivalent in the UK, you know, vicars who are wanting to, you know, ride around their parishes who this book is for?

Travis Norvell 11:41
Yeah, I mean, the primary audience is, you know, pastors and vicars and priests. That’s the primary … that’s who I wrote it for. But the other part of his is, I think a lot of other people can find some inspiration from it. But just because it’s just a way for people to get to know their neighbourhood, by riding your bike by walking by taking public transit. If you take that way of transportation, you’re just exposing yourself to so much more in the community. You’re making yourself open for new relationships. So even though it is geared specifically for parish priests, and pastors, it has a broader appeal in a lot of ways. So I’m hearing from community organisers. Also, just hearing from from people, nonprofits, you know, how do we get to know our community better? Well, here’s, here’s a great way to do it.

Carlton Reid 12:37
Now there’s a whole chapter in the book about parking lots. And how to depend I mean, this is for me, as a as a UK resident, I don’t get this quite so much, but we don’t Yeah. And I know that you get that in America, and basically how auto dependent churches have become. Tell me why being automobile dependent, isn’t good for a church. And, and I know you do mention many anecdotes in the book about but so what can be done with parking lots instead. And this is, of course, a parable for everybody, not just for churches, but just describe your thinking around that.

Travis Norvell 13:20
Yeah, you know, parking lots. They enable … well, first, I should say, you know, most churches in America, city churches in America before WWI they were all built around our being accessible for walkers, bicyclists, and people that took the streetcar so that none of these churches had parking lots. And for you know, think churches for 1,900 years did not have parking lots. This is a recent phenomenon. And then what happened when churches became auto centric, and in parking lot dependent, they became disembodied from the neighbourhoods that they serve. So before you had everybody within probably a 20 minute drive, or walk or streetcar, ride, attending church, but a car enables you to drive 45 minutes to an hour. I’ve heard from some people that that right into church, so rather than a neighbourhood church, you become a church that’s in the neighbourhood, but nobody from the neighbourhood attends. And so it just becomes this kind of vacuous place, and then a parking lot just increases that. So you tear down houses in the middle of neighbourhoods. So you can have parking, which is a parking lot, just a temporary storage of an automobile at maximum a few hours a week. And it just creates these barriers between the church and the community. And it enables people to just kind of slip into the church community for an hour or two a week and then slip back home to their house. wherever they reside, but there’s also kind of some psychological and I would say spiritual parts of this as well, let’s say that you count the number of churches that you pass on your way driving to church, the number is going to be here in America is going to be quite large, regardless where you are. And let’s say that you’re the church that you’re at, you kind of get in a disagreement with someone, it’s so easy with a car to say, You know what, I’m just going to go to the next one, I don’t have to worry about it. But if you are walking, biking, taking a bus, to a place, you’re kind of committed to it, you’re gonna have to work out through workout some of those feelings and emotions. And you’re gonna have to learn how to get around, get along with people that you don’t really maybe you wouldn’t invest your time with. If you’re in a car, it just creates a little bit ease of way of getting out of relationships. And I think that’s a that’s a bad move for churches for faith communities for any kind of, you know, neighbourhood organisation. Hmm. So, so that’s why I think parking lots, you know, are not exactly the best investment of space and money for faith communities. But I think there’s things you can’t let’s say you have like a gigantic parking lot, there’s things you can do. You know, here here in Minnesota, somebody started what’s called the straw bale gardening movement, where you just basically grow vegetables in a straw bale that has some fertiliser, and it’s just some nitrogen really … in one parking spot, you can grow enough to feed a family of four for an entire year. Or my thought is like, don’t think of ’em as church parking lots, think of them as church plazas. In a way that’s just more than just temporary storage of automobiles, but it’s a place where people can gather, you can have farmer’s markets, you can have basketball courts, you can have soccer pitches, you can have arts, marketing, just there’s so many things you can do other than just store a car.

Carlton Reid 17:03
You know, look, you talk about how one parking lot of a church where there was some hoops, basketball hoops, yeah, put up. And then that was deemed by the church elders or by whoever, as Oh, that’s, that’s just not good use of this space. And then they came along and and chopped it down and how unChristian, that is when you’ve got a lot of kids there. And people using this as a community space. And then you you take that away again, that’s that’s kind of unChristian.

Travis Norvell 17:36
It is it’s totally and you know, that was the that was one of the highlights of my youth was at basketball court. We loved going there, we spent so much time there. And they it this was a perfect place to a parking lot was for people from the outside of the community to drive into park their cars, go to worship and to get in their cars and leave. But the parking lot for us was a basketball court. And we all lived in the community. And it was our place to go and hang out. And rather than try to see how these two could be combined the church and in the basketball court, the church only saw it the only imagination they had was this is only for cars and cars only. And it’s it’s disturbing. Our Sunday morning worship. So once one day we were out playing and as we were leaving, we saw a guy come with a blowtorch and cut the basketball poles down and we just you know we just started crying it was it was terrible. Yeah. I just thought that was a poor imagination on their part. Hmm.

Carlton Reid 18:40
So cycling, I mean, your book it majors on cycling, but there’s definitely tonnes of walking in there. And and transit is in there a lot too. So all of those ways of getting around not in cars. Good way, as we know, of really seeing and experiencing a locality. Now driving can be doesn’t have to be but certainly saved a lot of times is quite selfish. It’s even. And you mentioned a poster that you put up the seven deadly sins. You could say driving everywhere actually has quite a few of the seven deadly sins. So you’ve got sloth, obviously. Yeah, there’s some envy in there plenty of times when you’re looking at the you know, the other car and you want to upgrade and stuff. Definitely a lot of pride in that. So again, we’re coming on to the unChristian stuff about driving here. I’m not trying to put too much in your mouth, but anyway. So my question is, What would Jesus drive?

Travis Norvell 19:45
There’s a whole campaign about this. Maybe 10 years ago, there was a minister who came up with an idea what would Jesus drive and you know, obviously, they came up with a, a Prius at the time, some kind of, you know, hybrid vehicle, but you know, I don’t I think Jesus would drive it all. You know, I think that he would, obviously he liked he loved to walk. We read the gospels, but I think Jesus would be out there on a bike. I think Jesus would be walking, I think Jesus would be taking public transit because he wanted to be around people. So he would, that’s the best way to be around people. He wanted to be around those in America, a lot of times that people on public transit are people who can’t afford to have a car. There are people who are trying to struggling through life. And I think that’s definitely where, you know, Jesus would be hanging out at the bus stops hanging out the rail stops and would be on those places rather than in a car. Yeah. And I think that he would take the money that he would have put into a car and put it to better use and for the common good. Mm hmm.

Carlton Reid 20:51
Now as as somebody who has studied this professionally, as in I did religious studies at university, I would say yeah, I’m, I’m pretty much with you there. Apart from the smiting the Romans, but all that kind of stuff, but anyway. So continuing this seven deadly sins theme, another another sin is wrath. So getting angry, people get angry. And we know this people get angry driving in, in cars now I have I, I put this in my in my Roads Were Not Built for Cars book actually has a whole chapter or a whole section on people getting angry, but, and I mentioned that I’ve seen nuns driving at me aggressively, you know, about to knock me off my bike. It says something about driving turns mild mannered, goodly people into something very different. And you mentioned in your book, the very famous Disney cartoon Goofy, where he turns into, you know, Mr. Wheeler, after being really you know, Mr. Mr. Walker, see becomes like this, this, this this horrible person when he gets behind the wheel of a car. So how can we, how can we be made to recognise that we shouldn’t be Mr. Wheeler, the selfish, angry wrathful Mr. Wheeler, we should be much more like the mild mannered, kindly. Mr. Walker?

Travis Norvell 22:25
I think it takes a lot of intentionality on the driver’s part, you know, the big I think the driving disconnects you from life, it puts you in a, you know, in a steel box, where you can have, you know, temperature, temperature control, and you have also, you know, aroma control, depending on how what sense you want emitted in your car, you also put in this in this box, whatever, music or podcast or whatever you want to hear, everything’s controlled about it. And so you’re so disconnected from other people. And studies have shown you once you go over about really 15 to 20 miles an hour, you can’t read another human face. So people, rather than just humans, it’s almost like they’re transformed into objects. So the intentionality on the driver’s part has to be so much but, but I mean, people just get in a car and just drive I don’t think there’s much intentionality at all. The I in the book, I talk a little bit about, you know, the Vatican came out with the rules for drivers. People dictum, and, and we’re talking about that the Vatican had to say that, you know, that drivers should occasionally pull over on the side of the road and pray that prayer, just to kind of just to kind of break up the monotony. And, I mean, think about that, what other what other task, does the Vatican say, when you’re in the middle, you should probably stop about every half hour and pray.

Carlton Reid 23:53
I picked that out of your book, I definitely highlighted that. So the diktat said, “when driving a motor vehicle, special circumstances may lead us to behave in an unsatisfactory” and and this is amazing, “and even barely human manner.” I mean, just wow!

Travis Norvell 24:11
It is wow. Exactly. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 24:14
But that’s never really I mean, that’s, that’s just a, you know, a tiny footnote, it’s never really expressed out loud. So as you said, right at the beginning there, you know, about that guy who did the eulogy at the funeral is the you know, you’re seen as pretty peculiar people. So to be a pedalling pastor, is seem to be peculiar.

Travis Norvell 24:39
It’s peculiar, and it’s even peculiar within my own profession. You know, I have a little licence plate I had made for $6 that just says clergy on it. And I put that on the back of my bike and ride it around. And the reason I did that one time I was, I mean, I like cars. I’m not gonna say I’m not I’m not anti car. They’re parts of motor vehicle. Was it I love my dad used to work with him all the time. And that’s what I spent most of my weekends doing was helping him rebuild engines. But here I was sitting at a stoplight, and another person of the clergy pulled up, and they were driving a car, well name it, but I knew that car very well, and it costs $65,000. And as they pulled away, they had the clergy sticker on it. And I thought, okay, what are we saying about our profession, that this is, this is how we, this is what we are projecting, you know, presenting to the world. So, you know, I so even within our own profession, when I show up to events, there’s there starting to be some other people ride bikes and on Twitter, you know, I found some people that around the nation that are doing this, too, and especially, you know, in the UK, there’s more. But still, we’re viewed as a little bit peculiar that why would you ride a bike to, you know, to for a pastoral visit, or to a conference or to appreciate event? Hmm,

Carlton Reid 25:57
I mean, doctors get the same, district nurses get, anybody who chooses a very practical method of getting around gets the same stick really to be hit with your peculiar for doing something that’s actually incredibly sensible.

Travis Norvell 26:14
And, you know, in the middle of, you know, the climate crisis. Here’s a way that okay, until there’s, you know, full electrified vehicles, which I don’t think solves much problem. But until then, here’s something you could do right now that would cut emissions that would make you happier, and make you healthier, and would put you in better touch with your community. And yet, it’s still not adapted as this, you know, cure all which I think the bikes a miracle is a miracle machine.

Carlton Reid 26:43
Hmm. You also wrote that, in the book that bike lanes are not just for privileged, Spandex-clad, Lycra-clad speed-racing bicyclists, but I’ve still remember when we’re talking, when you’re talking before I had this image of our own bird was couple of years ago, maybe a bit more than that of an African-American church who were complaining about bike lanes being put in outside their church. And they were almost saying this is a racist thing to do. Because all you’re going to get is middle class white guys coming past that African-American church and how bad that was. And I found that quite odd. But there is this, it’s almost a stigma of this as a middle class white thing to do, even though the great majority of people on bikes are actually poor people. But there’s a stigma attached to the fact that bike lanes are for white middle class, people. So how do you square that circle?

Travis Norvell 27:50
Yeah, I mean, it’s tough. It’s tough. Very much. So. And the article you’re talking about, I believe, was in Washington, DC. And I think that’s something that bicycle advocates need to think about, you know, is kind of these undertone racial themes that are running through it. And I had a, that’s the churches in DC, if you look at there, there are, you know, historical, African-American churches that are still present in areas where the membership of the of those congregations can’t afford the gentrification of the neighbourhood. So they’ve had to move away. And so I have kind of a very soft spot, that soft spot in my heart that we need to create a lot of space as much as possible for African-American churches and other churches in those regards that need to have I would hope that we would give them more leniency when it comes to bike lanes. You know, there’s ways you can work with the community, though we can a bike lane be for a few hours on Sunday, can it be can parking be allowed in it? I mean, I think there’s ways that the bike community and churches, African-American churches could work together, rather than being you know, it’s a it’s either or it can be both and in that regard, but for me, the the, you know, the part where I started seeing racial justice and bicycling happened in Atlanta, Georgia, when I got off the bus, was going to the Martin Luther King centre, and there’s Ebenezer Baptist across the street where he was where he was pastor, you know, there’s a bike lane in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church. And I started thinking, Okay, what is the connection between bicycling and social justice and racial justice? And you start thinking about it, okay, in America, the civil rights movement was, you know, a movement but it was, you know, as a movement based on the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which, if you think of in America, that was the greatest moment for bicycling, walking and public transit in a America that the African-American community organised and for a year plus, they walked, they took bicycles and they had community carpools to get to work and do errands. There’s a wonderful picture of a Montgomery city bus empty. But it’s surrounded by African-American kids on bicycles riding around it that was taking place during the Montgomery bus boycott. So So I think that if we look historically into this, we can see that bicycling primarily and walking in public transit can be ways for us to form new relationships in our divided democracy. Hmm, that’s, that’s right. That’s the best way I try to square that circle.

Carlton Reid 30:44
Hmm. You describe your parish as a bikable parish, not not not because it’s veined with bike lanes. But just because you can get everything in your locality. So like the famous now famous, you know, the 15 Minute city? Yeah, where everything everything is is is close. But you also discovered by using Excel documents and Google all sorts of different tech that you discovered of where your people in your community live. You found that the 75% of your community also lived close to the to the church. So are automobile centred churches getting it wrong?

Travis Norvell 31:33
I think so. Yeah, I think so. You know, and a study came out, but in Baylor University, which which I quote in the book, you know, most people drive 15 to 20 minutes to church, that you know, it, they’re already not driving long distances, they don’t live that far away. And it’s usually that 25% of people that live far away, it’s how churches have kind of imagined, that’s their target audience, which, which I think they got it wrong. Our target audience is the people within the that 15 to 20 minute city, the 15 to 20 minute neighbourhood. Yeah, and it’s great. And let’s, let’s use the parking lots, then if we have parking lots, let’s use those for the people who live far away, you know, where we’re at with what’s called a welcoming and affirming church, we are, you know, LGBTQIA+ affirming congregation, you may not be able to find that in a community that’s maybe 40 minutes away. So let’s reserve our parking for families and individuals who are looking for a more inclusive neighbourhood mean more inclusive faith community, let’s save our parking spots for them and really concentrate on those within the walkable, bikable, public translatable parts of our neighbourhood. And I think if a lot of churches did a Google Map survey where they put in their directory, and then you can pin each address, I think they would find a great majority of their congregation would would be within that 15 to 20 minutes circle and to begin with, so focus on that, and leave the parking spots and other other places for people outside that circle.

Carlton Reid 33:15
Of course, many people would, even if they live just five minutes away by walking, prefer to drive. You how’d you get around that?

Travis Norvell 33:26
Well, you know, we haven’t really succeeded that. Well. Judson I mean, I’m trying, I’m trying it, it’s it’s tough. But however, you start to see it happening slowly. You know, when I first started this experiment, my kids were mortified, and thought that this meant that we were going to walk or ride or take the bus everywhere. And I said, Look, this is my experiment for my job. You know, if y’all want to join me, you can when you want to. And, you know, it took a few years, and then all of a sudden, you know, my, my kids started riding bikes with me everywhere. And then they started realising that, you know, we don’t need to have a driver’s licence, we don’t need to be have a car to go around the city and hang out with our friends. In fact, they actually found that they were a little bit freer than their friends who were car dependent because their friends who were car dependent had to either get permission from the parents for the car, or they had to get a job to help pay for the car. But my kids, they were able to do otherwise. And then my wife started after a couple of years. One day she just came down one morning she had a cup of coffee and she said okay, I’m going to do it. And I said do what and she said I’m going to start biking to work and it just kind of slowly happened within my family but then also the I’ve noticed church people there’s been a few Sundays in the summer when I went out and we had there was no place there no other spots for bicycles everyone had at their was taken up all the bike parking spots, and there were more people walking. I’m just hopeful that you know, little by little we can we can try to change things. For example, But I’d say that recently, the one thing that I’ve been noticing is, I haven’t really done a good job of myself myself promoting bicycling, walking, taking public transit, as a viable option for transportation, for health, and for community engagement. And that is something that really changed during the pandemic. You know, because biking was one of the great ways we could get around and be together as a community. So we started doing bike tours of the neighbourhood. And you could tell that there’s, we’re gaining some momentum on trying to be less car dependent.

Carlton Reid 35:35
Hmm. Travis it’s been fascinating talking to you. Where can people get your book and spell out your pedalling pastor name for people who, who don’t realise that there isn’t two L’s in it in the American spelling. So tell us that. And then I want to finish actually on on a prayer. And if you don’t remember your own prayer, that’s in the back of your book, and you can’t flick through it, then I’ve got it written down here. But anyway, first of all, tell us where people can get the book, what you are who you are sorry, on Twitter, and let’s let’s finish on that prayer.

Travis Norvell 36:10
Yeah, well, you can find the book at Judsonpress.com. That is, that’s the press that published it Judson Press, that’s the American Baptist press. You can also find it on Amazon. It will be on bookshop and other kinds of independent places, but the best place would be actually just to go to Judson Press in order from there or to, you know, order on Amazon. If you you can find me on social media on Twitter primarily at @pedalingpastor and the prayer. Do you mean the prayer for sidewalks?

Carlton Reid 36:43
No. No that “may your wheels always spin true” that one

Travis Norvell 36:49
May your wheels always spin true. May your brakes always grab. May drivers always see you, and may the smile only riding a bike can evoke, always remain on your face. Happy riding.

Carlton Reid 37:03
Thanks to Travis Norvell there. And thanks also to you for listening to Episode 292 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast brought to you in association, as always, with Jenson USA, watch out for the next episode popping up in your feed later this month. But meanwhile, get out there and ride …