30th
At an exceedingly punny press conference (hailed a ‘bike-partisan’ event) on the west lawn of the Capitol, Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Thomas Petri (R-Wis.), and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) asked delegates, staff, and journalists at the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions to ride bicycles around town.
Humana Inc. and the not-for-profit Bikes Belong are providing bicycles, racks, and equipment to host cities Denver and Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and a Humana spokeswoman announced much of the equipment would be donated to bicycle causes after the conventions.
Bicycling, according to the congressmen, is an answer to the country’s health, transportation, and energy problems, and Blumenauer called this high-visibility bipartisan challenge “the biggest bike promotion in the history of the nation.”
