Getting into the spirit of biking might be as easy as turning on your smartphone. An organization called My City Bikes has now launched 14 different smartphone apps all aimed at providing a simple and user-friendly tool for bicyclists.
Courtesy of MyCityBikes.org
Sara Villalobos with My City Bikes said the goal of the project is to make bicycling accessible to everyone in each city they create an app for.
“Biking is a simple pleasure (and) it’s something that almost everyone learns how to do in childhood,” she told me in an interview for KTAR in Phoenix. “But especially as we grow into adults a lot of people get away from it and it’s such a simple activity, but it can have such a profound, great effect on one’s own health and also on the community overall.”
Villalobos said they partnered with local bike shops in each city to create a comprehensive application for users that provides information such as routes, local repair shops and beginner bike tips.
“It’s a place where you can find trails throughout the city and in and around the area,” she said, “as well as road routes that you can get commuter bikes lanes, where you can bike safely from here to there and get to school or get to work on your bike.”
In places such as Phoenix, where hot and arid climates present health risks to riders, Villalobos said a useful tool in the application is a heat monitor to help people keep track of how much water they should be drinking based on the current temperature and how much they’re exercising.
The app is available for free on Android and Apple smartphones.
To find out if My City Bikes has an app in your area, visit MyCityBikes.org