Can a bike ride fix the worst year ever?

Two cyclists are killed each day in the United States at the hands of drivers. From road design to the way crashes are investigated and reported, our transportation and legal systems all too often fail people on bikes. Here are six profiles of cyclists failed by the justice system.

The gym was a flurry of bikes, wobbly riders, and decimated circles of orange that had once been traffic cones. Determined adults from all over New York City had come to this room on Roosevelt Island to finally catch up on a childhood rite of passage—learning how to ride a bicycle.

For 50 years, Arlene Pieper had no idea she was a trailblazer in women's running—then came a phone call from a historian. Race organizers from the Pikes Peak Marathon had spent four years trying to track Pieper down. It was 2009, and the 50th anniversary of two milestones: the first woman to run Pikes Peak and the first woman to officially run any marathon in the United States, a little-known fact. When Pieper crossed the finish in 1959, she did so seven years before Roberta Gibb and eight years before Kathrine Switzer became icons of the Boston Marathon.

I was a bike messenger for seven years. In fact, Bicycling's fact-checker will doubtless confirm I was the coolest, fastest courier to pedal the streets of Portland, Oregon. I could ride across the Burnside Bridge without spilling my coffee. I could carry my body weight in architectural blueprints. I could make captivating small talk in elevators about the weather. But here's what I couldn't do: deliver packages in a full-body banana costume.

Last spring, we issued a challenge to Bicycling readers: By the end of the summer, get one person on a bike. The rules of #GetSomeoneRidingwere simple: Find a noncyclist. Pick a riding goal. Change someone’s life (maybe your own).

NBD, right?

Lanikai takes her job as floor manager at American Cyclery seriously. When she’s not roaming the bustling interior of the store—recognized as the oldest bike shop in San Francisco—the 7-year-old Golden Retriever is parked on the sidewalk, doing her best to drum up business. “She has more friends in the neighborhood than I’ll ever have,” says Bradley Woehl, 47, who has owned the 75-year-old Haight-Ashbury business for 19 years.

Huey is my wife's half-Maltese terrier, and until recently, he lived to give bike riders hell. Not a walk went by when Huey didn't zero in on a passing cyclist and launch into a yapping, snarling rage. I was not only embarrassed by this berserk behavior, but I felt slighted by proxy, too. It was driving a wedge into our fragile stepdog/parent relationship. Then the Timbuk2 Muttmover arrived. 

The first time Becca Schepps tried kombucha, she thought a conspiracy might be afoot. The label on the bottle of fermented tea claimed that it was low in sugar and loaded with natural health benefits, but the drink gave her “a buzz of clarity” and tasted like a slightly tart soda. So Schepps, a Type 1 diabetic and Cat 1/2 crit racer (and co-owner of the team LA Sweat) used herself as a guinea pig and tested her blood sugar after downing 16 ounces of the stuff. 

It was one of Pope Francis’s more obscure miracles—for one weekend, in Philadelphia’s typically car-clogged Center City, the streets were wide open for bike riding and other types of motor-free gallivanting. 

’90s fans, rejoice: ’Zine culture is alive and well, especially when it comes to all things two-wheeled. Whether you’re into bike commuting, touring, the Tour de France, or all of the above, chances are there’s a bike ’zine dedicated to just that. Here are 10 of the coolest.