Life is better for everyone when more people ride bikes.

Admittedly, we have an unfair advantage in Fort Collins. With New Belgium Brewing Company being the drum major of the literal and metaphoric bike parades in our town, the bar was set high a long time ago for what it means to be a bicycle friendly business. To a large degree, New Belgium is responsible for the creation of our city’s bike culture and identity, and for demonstrating that bikes are good for business. For Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch, founders of New Belgium, this was a key part of their corporate plan and culture goals when they founded the company nearly 25 years ago. And, now in its 16th season, the company’s Tour de Fat festival — taking places in 11 cities in 2015 — has raised nearly $4 million for bicycle non-profits nationwide. So, in a spirit of fairness, perhaps Fort Collins should have been issued a handicap before we were announced as the new top-ranked city for the most Bike Friendly Businesses.

This morning the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee met to debate and discuss the DRIVE Act, the Senate’s proposed transportation bill. The hearing today was a feel-good show of bi-partisan support and compromise for a long term transportation bill. The Committee rightly congratulated its leaders (Sens. Jim Inhofe, Barbara Boxer, David Vitter and Tom Carper) for moving the conversation forward on the need for a long term and sustainable transportation bill. While the Committee discussion today was uneventful, it marked the end of a whirl of activity for the Committee members in terms of amendments to the bill — some of which improve the bill significantly from a biking standpoint. Roughly 30 amendments we filed on Tuesday, and a few key ones were passed through by the committee leadership and the committee as a whole. Read our analysis of the original bill here. Here are the new changes that are good for biking.

Nashville is incredibly proud to be recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Community. In the past 10 years, we have seen enormous improvements in our city’s walking and biking infrastructure. We now have a Complete Streets policy ensuring that new roads take into consideration all road users; we have a full-time Bicycle Coordinator in Public Works and a full-time Active Mobility Planner in Planning; we have a thriving bike share program; we have been rapidly expanding our greenways and bikeways; and we have seen growing commitment throughout the city to ensure that all Nashvillians can choose healthy, active transportation. However, this award also provides us with a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the work we still have to do as a community. The League’s Bicycle Friendly Community program gives Nashville some clear goals to strive towards improving the bicycling culture in our community.

I’m not despairing because in the past three days I’ve met with several mayors and numerous council members, and strategized with dedicated staff and advocates. I’ve had loaner bikes delivered from three different bike stores, and drank free craft beer and pizza at a bike center. I made the front page news of The Anniston Star, and even got to join 30 club riders on a Tuesday evening ride! And I won’t even tell you about my trip down to Fairhope to deliver an evening presentation or the special reception hosted by Alabama Bikes. Dear reader, if you think I’m just making the best and enduring a challenging stretch of my journey across the country, making visits to cities and towns that could never be mistaken for Bicycle Friendly Communities, you would be wrong. In fact, the opposite is true.