Pedaling for gender equality

Women do not need anything more or less than men do to ride a bicycle. So, why do only a few do it?

To ride a bicycle, anyone should only need … a bicycle. What type of bicycle? Does not matter. A helmet? Nope; but if the law enforces it? Well, put it on. If your hair gets messy, just comb it again. No big deal. No item or piece of clothing should prevent a woman, or anyone else, from riding a bicycle freely.

Have you noticed that at the gym there are always more women than men in spinning classes? Maybe it’s because, generally, those who go to the gym go with the same purpose: exercise, sweat, and feel good about themselves. But, women make up only 10-30% of the ridership in most Latin American cities, from Mexico City, to Montevideo in Uruguay. Women on bicycles are more stared at than men. Instead of thinking “great, she is riding a bicycle,” people judge “I don’t like her outfit, the colors don’t match, she is riding a men’s bike, she is fat, she just wants to show off.”

The 5 Best Routes to Travel Santander, Colombia, by Bike

The Government of Colombia, through the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, announced 38 routes to travel the country by bicycle in different regions. However, none of these routes included Santander, which immediately caught the attention of the cycling community, being a region particularly rich in places of interest and roads to travel on a mountain bike.

For this reason, we decided to talk to experienced riders and cycle-tourists to put together the best routes to travel Santander by bicycle and make them known to Colombia and the whole world. Most of them start in Bucaramanga, but the cyclists can approach the route from any section, according to their criteria and convenience.

So, get your bike ready! Put it in the best conditions, make some time, get the necessary equipment, and put together some money. We promise you that, with a little effort, it will be a blast!

In our opinion, these are the Top 5:

Is Bucaramanga a City for people or for cars?

Día sin carro, 2017. Car-free day, 2017. Viaducto García Cadena, Bucaramanga. Photo: Ciclaramanga

A study by the Department of Transportation of Bucaramanga found that in the metropolitan area there is about one motorized vehicle for every two inhabitants; at the end of 2016 the car park consisted of 632,104 vehicles, with an average automotive occupancy rate of only 1.1 people/car. But what does this mean for Bucaramanga? We all know that Bucaramanga is a city that is growing rapidly “upwards,” where houses are thrown down, sometimes with historical and cultural significance, to build massive buildings. While this form of urbanization creates housing for more people in a reduced space, this has caused an accumulation of motorized vehicles on streets that have nowhere to expand. While buildings are rising, the streets do not expand, and this is how traffic and traffic jams increase in the city.

One of the main reasons why Bumangueses (and in general Colombians) continue to buy cars and drive them is because our cities lack incentives not to do so. A transit service with exclusive bus lanes (Bus Rapid Transit) that barely works is not enough for the Bumangueses to get motivated to leave their cars at home -or better yet, not to have one- and use alternative means that are friendly with the environment and with our health. What we need are stimuli that make us want to walk and take public transport, and why not, to ride a bicycle.

We attended One Young World Summit 2017 in Bogotá, Colombia. What is next?

Audi Scholars and Delegates during the last day of OYW 2017 and first ever OYW Peace Day

OYW 2017 in Bogota, Colombia has ended, and there are now 1,300+ new OYW Ambassadors. It was an inspiring summit that made all of us laugh, cry, scream, sing, dance, and imagine a new, better world together. It also ignited some of us to rethink our goals and passions, as there were so many wonderful ideas from a wide range of new perspectives. There was no way we could have been fully prepared for this. Even though we had watched videos from previous summits and had set expectations, learning and relearning from the speakers we listened to and the conversations we had will better prepare us to share a message of hope to those that surround us.

So, what is next? Now it is time to reflect and take action. What are we going to do with all we learned? Is it going to stay in our memories, perhaps in our notes, photos, and social media, or are we going to do something about it?

The UpTica Team Experience in Costa Rica in August, 2017

Rita’s family hosted the nine of us at different times during our trip. Her hard-working, fun family is a true inspiration for all of us, and we look forward to reconnecting with them soon!

Although I had already met some of the individuals and community groups UpTica is working with, my experience in Costa Rica in August 2017 was very different. Thanks to the Wisconsin Idea Fellowship 2017 and two prizes we won at the Wisconsin Energy and Sustainability Challenge, five other UW-Madison students (Brooke Nelson, Anna Ostermeier, Kyle Powers, Thomas Bihler, and Max Kahn) joined me on the trip this time. Max’s dad, Mr. Kahn, who is the engineering manager at a company that makes high quality products out of recycled plastic, called Max-R, also joined us with the support of the company. Similarly, Nicol and Sasha (UpTica’s other two Co-Founders) also made the effort the be there with us. Although it was very hard to figure out a time that worked for everybody to travel to Costa Rica, and decide on an itinerary, we were all able to go there from August 10th thru September 1st.

To begin with, not everyone knew each other, and none of them knew Nicol or Sasha. Some had never been to Latin America, and none spoke fluent Spanish. We had only briefly introduced each other before. Thus, before establishing relationships with community members, we enjoyed building stronger relationships within our team. We shared lots of stories and updates of our projects while traveling, cooking, and developing new ideas. Although we had to split up to divide and conquer at some points, we tried to move together as much as we could.