Happy Ten New Years!

When Cleverhood started in 2012, NYC was edging into phase 1 of its bold new bike share plan. The City of Lights had declared “Paris Respire!” (that’s ‘breathes’). And scientists, concurrently, discovered a new Higgs boson particle that helps us understand the deep inner workings of nature, and a giant prehistoric penguin.

It was a time of wonder. It was a good time for capes.

Ten years ago, people didn’t always get it. It took a special cat to cycle the streets of Manhattan (see crazy bike messengers).” Now 500,000 bike trips are taken every day, rain or shine, in NYC. Paris has 850,000 and Providence just got a new bike lane. We’ve been a witness to progress. 

We find that people like walking in the rain. Well, sometimes. And those other times, when it’s not quite so “romantic,” we try to make that more pleasant, if we can. But we don’t take all the credit. We owe a big chunk of our success to nature and that feeling people get when they’re in it.

Today we’re pleased to say that there’s at least one person using a Cleverhood, on a bike or maybe just walking, in every single city in the world, with 75cm+ of annual rainfall. At least, it feels like that. We get first-hand weather reports and neighborhood insights from Adelaide to Zurich, Asheville to Nashville, Milan to Minsk, but never from a car dealership. 

The point is, we’ve drawn a lot of enthusiasm from a dazzling array of personalities this past decade. It’s a very long list of individuals and they come from all over the world. It’s customers, local activists, partners, artists, bike advocates, other vendors and designers, and critics who bring a lot of positive energy to the streets and neighborhoods from all over the place.

Let’s keep it up. Safe streets, open spaces and active transportation make people happy. It’s remarkably simple. We’re continuing to build up the Cleverhood Fund in support of our outstanding advocates for equitable mobility. Every sale adds another 5% into the fund. It's a small token of appreciation.