It is a strange world in Nashville today. Our beloved city has endured hours of downpour, resulting in extensive flooding, destruction, and death.

It is truly heartbreaking to watch your hometown endure a disaster on this level. If you are in Nashville, I hope you are safe tonight. For those outside the Nashville area, please spread the word on our city’s plight- it is getting very little national media attention, and we are in great need of help. Many people have lost everything, our city’s economic centers (the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Opryland Hotel, all of Downtown Nashville, our major sports facilities, and more) are under water, and the city’s infrastructure is fragile at the moment, with limited clean water, electricity outages, and government closures citywide.

photo by Rebecca Gillespie

Now is time that we come together and fight for our amazing city. Everyone’s help is needed- Hands on Nashville is leading the recovery effort locally, including volunteer sign-ups. Join your neighbors and help our city recover!

If you are out of the Nashville area, please consider donating to the Red Cross to help those who have been devastated by the flooding. You can text ‘REDCROSS’ to  ’90999′ and automatically donate $10 to the recovery effort, or visit their website for more ways to help.

WE LOVE YOU NASHVILLE, OH YES WE DO. WE LOVE YOU NASHVILLE, WE WILL BE TRUE. WHEN YOU’RE NOT WITH US, WE’RE BLUE. OH NASHVILLE, WE LOVE YOU.

Ah yes, springtime is upon us, and no longer are we bundling up everytime we take a spin- it is the perfect time to celebrate and promote cycling. And May is National Bike Month, so there are plenty of opportunities for awesome cycling right now!

Riders all over Nashville have created over 70 events, which you can view at Nashville Bike Month. Anyone can add a  bike related event to the calendar, so don’t hesitate to add.

We will be keeping you updated all month, so you can always check back here, but get out and ride!

Whether it is early morning rides, commuting to work, or cruising with friends through the night, nothing beats a bike ride in the springtime.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is awarded large grants to cities across America as part of a national effort to fight the obesity epidemic, and Nashville has been awarded $7.5 million.

This money will considerably impact the cycling world in Nashville. The City has announced that portions of the money will be used for the Share the Road initiative, which seeks to improves policies, education, and accessibility for cyclists and motorists to safely share roadways. Another program that will receive grant money is a city-wide bike rental program, which I hope will be modeled after the Yellow Bike program in Austin. Money will also be put into creating safe routes for children to walk and bike to their schools, something that Walk/Bike Nashville has worked diligently through Safe Routes to School.

All of this is great news, I encourage you to read the entire article at the Tennessean.

Good news from the national Bike Summit that occurred in D.C.  this week- Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced that “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” adding that next year’s budget includes initiatives for more bike and walking paths planned around affordable housing, and more money for public transit.

He continues:

“People want to live in livable communities. People want streetcars that are made in Portland, Ore. People want walking paths, biking paths, and opportunities for families to really do the things they do best — which is to hang together and have fun… They want out of their cars; they want out of congestion; they want to live in livable neighborhoods. We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects. We are discouraging transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians. And we are encouraging investments that go beyond the minimum requirements and provide facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.”

You can read the entire article at The Trucker.

Finally! Google Maps has just released bike-friendly directions, which will include trails and bike lanes. The feature will also help cyclists avoid congested streets, large hills, and other potential problems. To use the feature, go to Google Maps, click on ‘directions’, and select ‘bicycling’ from the pull down menu (the other options are by car, by public transit, and walking).

The bike maps are only available on the web right now, and are in beta. After playing with the option a bit this morning, I would say so far, so good. The coolest aspect, in my opinion, is that once Google maps a route for you, you can adjust the route by dragging across the map. This way, you can compare different options. We all have favorite routes around town, but it is always fun to go a new way.

This is a huge step for cycling, giving millions of people access to biking as transportation. It will make biking in new cities much easier, and hopefully will encourage more people to dust off their bike and ride it to work, if even just a couple days a week. Small changes yield great results. Thanks, Google!