Put your money where your mind is

Woman-owned business? Check.
Building community? Check.
Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles? Check!

Usually when I get a request to fund something, I have to just run with my initial no-thank-you-very-much response and justify it by lamenting that I don't have nearly enough myself to wantonly spread it around. And it's true, I don't. But no one considers their stash "enough," it's positively un-American!

But some things matter more than money. Empowering women and girls, for one. Community oriented businesses and events, for two. And energy neutral transportation counts for a HUGE third.

I can't stress the benefits of bicycles enough, especially in an urban environment like New York, where anyone able bodied enough to walk or ride should feel it is their utmost duty to reduce the amount of energy, space, and time they take up to an absolute minimum. Cities are made for cycling (except, perhaps, San Francisco...but hills are no excuse! Just think of the Shwarzeneggerian thighs you'd develop riding up just one SF hill every day?!), and so I feel called by a higher motive than money when I have a chance like this:

Bicycle Roots is doing their damnedest to reopen after a bad deal with a landlord, and I'd like to see them do it! So far, it's the only bike store in the metro New York area that I've ever stepped inside feeling like a competent , intelligent human and left feeling the same way.

On the whole, bike shops are populated by boys whose phallic references are made of Chro-Mo or Carbon, rather than steel and chrome. But it's still the same damn metaphor.

So here's my $50 bucks towards a better bicycle shop! Go, Bicycle Roots! Go!