West Town Bikes

I don't remember the first time I met Carmelita Sams, the well-loved bike mechanic and instructor who recently passed away, but I do remember one of the last times I saw her. Carmelita was a volunteer at West Town Bikes, a bike education center in Humboldt Park, as well as the only female staffer at its attached shop, Ciclo Urbano. In July I organized Cargo Bike Roll Call at West Town. It was a chilly afternoon and I told her I was cold. She offered to run home and get one of her son's sweatshirts for me, and came back with a double XL bright orange hoodie that fit me perfectly.

For the second year running, the Women's Bicycling Forum kicked off the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC. About 300 people attended, and Streetfilms got to take their pulse on the state of bicycling for women and collect some suggestions about how to grow the number of women who ride.