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Hyerim Lee
PROV 502
March 6, 2014
Conference Review
Attending National Womens Bicycling Forum

The League of American Bicyclists holds the National Bike Summit every year to
promote better bicycling environment. In fact, this is the nations largest bicycle advocacy event
where people from around the country attend, to make more people participate in bicycling, to
support bicycling safety and to build more bicycle-friendly communities. On March 3, 2014, I
had an opportunity to attend the National Womens Bicycling Forum included in the National
Bike Summit in Washington D.C. This forum specifically focused on bicycling environment
associated with women. For instance, it mission was to make more women participate in
bicycling, and to discuss some challenges that women bicyclists face.
The forum started with opening plenary that six female leaders talked about their
experiences and works for 15 minutes each. Those six females were: Shannon Galpin, a Founder
of Mountain2Maountatin and Combat Apathy; Nicole Reedman, a Director of Bicycle Program,
City of Boston; Kristin Gavin, a Founder of Gearing Up; Jill Nickels, a Senior Strategist of
Gensler; Dorothy Nichols, a National Sales Manager of Shebeest. Their speeches on bicycling
were very emotional, and all the people in the room were enthusiastic about their stories and
achievement. Also, their personal experiences have very strong power to inspire people. Among
the presentations, I found Shannon Galpins speech very inspiring that bicycling can represent
freedom and womens right. For instance, women and men in Afghanistan do not have an equal
right, and womens activities are very limited. She believes that bicycling can empower these
women to have womens right, and she has been working on bicycling advocacy in Afghanistan.
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From this presentation, I learned that bicycling advocacy can be meaningful not only to
individual, but also to one nation.
After these presentations, people had opportunities to talk to people and share their
research and projects. I also talked to a man who is working for a small college transportation in
Pennsylvania. His main focus was on building bike-friendly college community. Even though I
did not know much about bicycling program, I was able to understand what he is doing to
promote bicycling-friendly community and to bring more people to participate in this movement.
Also, another group of women seating next me talked about their bicycling project which
facilitates the development of transportation in Sen Jose, CA. These conversations also continue
in the entire forum that I saw many people exchanged their name card, and shared their
experience. From these conversations, I learned how people are passionate about bicycling and
how many people are actually working for improving bicycling community. It was also
interesting to see how people who share the same goal were able to provide advice on their
projects.
The next part was break-out sessions that provided three session, and people chose one
subject that is most interesting among the three sessions: Winning In Women Bike Advocacy.
Power Of Storytelling To Engage Women In Bicycling, and Bike ED: Coloring Outside The
Lines. Among them, I chose the last one that talked about education strategies and classes that
inspire women. In this session, four women presented their work about 20 minutes. The speakers
were Kimberly Kinshen, a Co-founder of NYC Biketrain; Kim Cross, a founder of Magic City
Cycle Chix; Dr. Talia Mccray, an Assistant Prefessor of Community & Regional Planning in
University of Texas-Austin. All of the presentations were really inspiring; however, I was deeply
impressed by Dr. Talia Mccrays presentation. Her presentation was about African American
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womens perspective toward to bicycling which was not positive, and she worked to increase
women participations in bicycling. This topic was very interesting that different ethnic groups
can have different perspectives toward to bicycling, and I found this quote really powerful, you
dont ride a bike if you do not see people like you ride a bike. I think this can embrace not only
riding a bike, but also a wide range of human activities. This quote will significantly affect my
attitude and my life. Overall, I learned that people should not wait for someone to solve problems
and fulfill their needs. I should be the first one who encourages other people from this session.
After attending this session, there was a lunch keynote & plenary. Terry Oneill, a
President of National Organization of Women, spoke for 30 minute about the relationship
between bicycling, and womens equity, diversity, and womens right. Also, she discussed this
topic with other speakers: Lexer Quamie, a Senior Counsel of the Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights, and Dorothy Le, a Senior Transportation Planner at Rutgers University.
In the keynote, she said that women are less likely to participate in bicycling because of safety
and sexual harassment while riding a bike, and we should solve these problems and provide
friendly community for bicycling.
There was also second break-out sessions divided into three sessions: Cultivating The All
Powerful Bike Lobby, Gearing Up, Climbing To The Top, and Streetfilms U. Among the
three sessions, I went to one that taught how to make bicycle advocacy films. Clarence Eckerson,
a Founder of Streetfilm first shared his experiences making transportation films. Then, he
showed how to make a film that appeal to the public.
In the closing keynote, three women spoke for 1hour on the topic Women And
Bicycling: What Are We Really Selling? The speakers were: Lela Rose, a fashion designer,
advocate and city cycling style icon; Kristy Scrymgeour, an owner of leading womens pro-
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cycling team Specialized-lululemon and a Founder of Velocio womens cycling apparel; Susi
Wunsch, a Founder of Velojoy.com, and a Women Bike Advisory Board Member. They
discussed what images of bicycling can attract more people to participate in bicycling advocacy
and to increase number of women bicyclists beyond race. This discussion mainly focused on
bicycling from a marketing perspective, and who people become aware of benefits associated
with bicycling. Also, from a designer perspective, they discussed how to make bikes more
attractive and vivid and how to make people feel bicycling is in everyday life.
Overall, it was very exciting to learn that bicycling can represent freedom, womens right,
and independence. Not only this, but also bicycling can bring people together beyond gender,
and ethnicity. Therefore, bicycling can make better community for everyone. By attending this
womens bicycling forum, I was also able to meet people who have the same goal and who are
passionate about the same thing and see how people work together to achieve their mission and
advocate bicycling in nation. Indeed, attending this forum allowed me to think about how to use
my skills, my experiences and my talents to promote better environment and nation, Also, I
learned that it is important to make a meaningful contribution to the society and nation, not for
my personal need. In addition, this experience helped me understand the power of sport which
can bring people together from all over the word and change out life.

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