Bike friendly city attracts riders

Although IU is known for its Little 500 race, the excitement of cycling can be as simple as riding to class.

“It is a great way to get around campus,” IU Parking Manager Doug Porter said.
Bloomington has numerous bike racks available for cyclists, especially on campus near each building. There are clubs, trails, events and programs for bicyclists as well
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“It is a lot better than walking in car fumes,” said Kara Cifizzari, a student in the Independent Major Program focusing on sustainability.

Cifizzari said Bloomington’s biking community was a factor when she transferred from the University of Evansville.

Bloomington resident David Parsons, 50, has been strictly riding his bike for eight years.

“I can live on them,” Parsons said. “A rolling living room.”
Attached to his bike are various items ranging from clothing, musical instruments and food to thigh masters and Hannah Montana saddlebags. Parsons said the best feeling about bike riding is the meditation.

“It’s a product that improves people, improves as in a sense of independence, doing stuff for yourself instead of getting upset. Changing it,” Bikesmiths Bicycle Shop employee Steph Becker said.

Becker, who has worked at Bikesmiths for five months, started biking while living in Boston, where her school was three to five miles away and using any other means of transportation would result in getting caught in traffic.

The store has been open for more than 30 years. There are about 84 bikes in the front and 50 to 60 in the back repair room.

Not all cyclists share the same lifestyle. Former Chicago bike shop employee and IU recording arts major Matt Holmes fixed his own bike at the Bloomington Bike Project, which is a non-profit organization that repairs old bikes.

“They should worry about their carbon footprint,” Bloomington resident Matthew Norris said about IU students. Norris rides around town with a bike lock wrapped around his neck.

“It’s a fashion statement,” he said, smiling.