You don't need me to tell you that bicycles are good for the planet and good for your health. But what else do you know about the most energy-efficient vehicle ever created?

1. The slow cycling record was set by Tsugunobu Mitsuishi of Japan in 1965 when he stayed stationary for 5 hours, 25 minutes.  (Can you really imagine doing that?)
2. An estimated 130 million bicycles were produced worldwide in 2007 (more than twice the 52 million cars produced)
3. There are at least 400 bicycle clubs in America, with membership ranging from 10 to 4,000 members. 
4. According to Transportation Alternatives, 10% of New York City's work force--approximately 65,000 humans--commute by bicycle.
5. Research has shown that tripling the number of bike riders on the street cuts motorist-bicyclist crashes in half.
6.  Bicycles use 2% as much energy as cars per passenger-kilometer, and cost less than 3% as much to purchase. 
7. How many bikes can be parked in a single car parking space in a paved lot? Anywhere from 6 to 20.
8. Bicycles currently displace over 238 million gallons of gasoline per year, by replacing car trips with bicycle trips.  (it totally makes me smile just typing that!)
9. There are about a billion bicycles in the world, twice as many as motorcars. Almost 400 million bicycles are in China. Every year some 50 million bicycles – and 20 million cars – are produced.
10. Air-filled tyres were used on bicycles before they were used on motorcars.
11. Although Leonardo da Vinci drew some rough sketches of a contraption that looked like a bicycle, the Frenchman De Sivrac built the first bicycle-type vehicle in 1690. It was referred to as a hobbyhorse. However, it did not have pedals. Those were added in 1840 by a Scottish blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who is credited with inventing the real bicycle. 
12. The bicycle as we know it today – with two wheels of the same size – looks almost exactly the same as one from 1900.
13. The bicycle is the most efficient vehicle ever devised; a human on a bicycle is more efficient (in calories expended per pound and per mile) than a train, truck, airplane, boat, car, motorcycle or jet pack. 
     
    
    • Nearly half of all trips in the US are three miles or less; more than a quarter are less than a mile, distances easily covered by bike while saving you money and getting you fit. 
    • Every mile traveled by bike rather than by car keeps one pound of climate-damaging carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, while reducing cash draining stops at the pump.
    • Bicycles outnumber automobiles almost two to one worldwide, and their production outpaces cars by three to one.
    • Of all the trips in the United States, just two-thirds of a percent are made by bicycle.
    • Only 1 percent of Canadian commuters report bicycling as their usual mode of transportation.
    • The average car produces about five tons of carbon dioxide per year. In the US, cars were the source of about one-third of global warming pollution in 2005.
    • If Americans replaced just one in five of their average length car trips by bicycling, each driver would spare the atmosphere more than one ton of carbon dioxide emissions. Collectively, the effect would be comparable to taking 48 million vehicles off the road.
    • Short car trips are the easiest to replace with a bike trip. Mile for mile, they are also the most polluting.
    • For each mile of new lane, the materials and machinery used to build a highway release between 1,400 and 2,300 tons of greenhouse gases.
    • Among major U.S. cities, those with extensive bicycle lanes have three times the rate of bike commuting compared to other cities.
    • Bike-friendly policies, from traffic calming to car free downtown zones, have boosted cycling rate ·  in five European nations to 10 percent or more of urban trips; one-fifth of all trips in Danish cities are made by bike, and one-third in Dutch cities.
    • It costs as much as twenty times more to support a passenger mile of automobile traffic compared to one of bicycle traffic.
    • In the long run, the measures most crucial to getting more people on their feet and on their bikes are those that fight sprawl and encourage dense, livable cities. On average, city dwellers drive a third as much and half as fast as suburbanites.
    
    
    Peace 
    Pedal Strong