Category: bios

Mike joined the Coalition board in 2022:

Mr. Michael Kuzel has lived in the Phoenix metropolitan area for over 34 years, having moved to Tempe to attend Arizona State University. One of the most important items he brought with him was his road bicycle. As a teenager, he began riding for transportation and Mike has continued his lifelong love of bicycles and bicycling, riding for exercise, transportation, to spend time with his family, as well as participating in sanctioned races and citizens rides.

Mike has obtained degrees in bioengineering, industrial engineering and applied psychology. He has obtained the professional designations of Professional Engineer, Certified Human Factors Professional, and Road Safety Professional. Mike is a League of America Bicyclists Certified Instructor (LCI) and an American Bicycling Education Association Cycling Savvy Instructor.

Mike has found ways to incorporate aspects of bicycling into his education and his professional career. The research he conducted for his master’s degree in Applied Psychology involved using a driving simulator in studying driver overtaking maneuvers of cyclists with different types of facilities and road conditions. Mike has also been a member of the City of Scottsdale Transportation Commission (3 years) and Paths and Trails Subcommittee (six years).

Currently, Mike manages his own safety engineering consultancy, is a faculty associate at Arizona State University in the Ira A Fulton School of Engineering and is a Safety Program Associate for the Maricopa Association of Governments. Since 2011, Mike has participated as the human factors expert on teams conducting safety assessments of intersections and roadways throughout the State of Arizona. His role on these teams often involves providing insight relating to the needs and experiences of bicycle riders. Mike’s current work with MAG involves providing his expertise to the See Me AZ program that promotes bicycle and pedestrian safety, involvement in conducting safe routes to schools studies, and conducting road safety assessments.

Mike believes that cycling safety is best increased through education of riders and drivers alike. Infrastructure changes, such as bike lanes, are slow and costly, while modifications to behavior, based on principles founded in safety education programs can have an immediate and lasting effect to reduce risk of crashes for cyclists of all types and ages.

Billy Boyles joined the Coalition board in 2022:

First and foremost, I’ve been a biker since I was ten years old. I was the first kid in my school to own a ‘road’ bike, with ten speeds and the drop-down handlebars. Later, I would work as a bicycle courier in Washington D.C. Now I’m 65 and I don’t own a vehicle, most of the time I convey myself on a ten-year-old Specialized Rock Hopper.

I’m retired after 30 years from the Information Technology field and I spend my time writing crazy fiction novels and serials. I’ve got experience with many of the urban bicycle paths in Phoenix and I appreciate what was done on 3rd Avenue, where the lanes are wide and there are pylons every thirty feet. Now that’s a bicycle lane. I think it’s possible to get more people to commute via bicycle if there were more roadway designated for cyclists. I’m willing to represent cyclists everywhere in Arizona who want to improve biking conditions for everyone.

— Billy Ovid Boyles

A lifelong bicycle rider, Earl Ratledge can be found riding around the east valley for recreation and to run errands. He rides a road bike, mountain bike, folding single speed, and an upright bike with baskets in the back. For 13 years Earl commuted between Mesa and Phoenix using a mix of bike-bus-bike, bike-bus-walk and bike-bus-light rail; and for 3 years took his kids to school in a bike trailer. Over the years he has taken part in bicycle races, multi-day rides, bike camping, and charity rides.

Earl is the editor of the Coalition’s newsletter and has published articles on the Coalition’s website. He has volunteered with CycloMesa, Recycle Your Bicycle and Tour de Fat. Earl also developed a public dashboard which maps crashes in Arizona that involve people on bicycles and identifies the most dangerous intersections and corridors.

Earl can be reached at newsletter@cazbike.org

 

The Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists is pleased to announce that Spencer Scharff of Phoenix has joined the Coalition’s Board of Directors. Spencer has been a cyclist since he was very young and is looking forward to contributing to the Coalition’s important mission.

Spencer received his bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law in 2010. After law school, he clerked for the Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He then practiced commercial and appellate litigation in the Los Angeles office of Paul Hastings LLP. This past year, he returned to Phoenix and the Ninth Circuit for an additional one-year clerkship with Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz. Following the end of his clerkship with Judge Hurwitz, he joined Thorpe Shwer P.C.

Mark Aasmundstad At AZ Time  Trial Championships, 2013

Introducing Mark Aasmundstad, Flagstaff Representative. 

Bicycling is a good way of spending time outside every day and it makes me feel so alive.  I like the rhythm, motion, intimacy and freedom of moving through landscapes on a bike.   Bicycling is an excellent way to meet great people, and helps me stay in touch with what is happening in my community.  Commuting by bike keeps me mindful of my health and it feels right to practice a cost effective, renewable, and sustainable way to get around.  Sometimes I ride on lunch breaks too to get the blood flowing, have a rolling chat with a friend, and to invigorate my senses and mind.  On the weekends I like to go for social rides and tour places that interest me.  Occasionally I’ll train for specific events to give myself a challenge and see how far discipline, practice and love can take me.   It’s amazing the places you can go on a bike, the people you can meet, and how a small commitment through a daily practice can provide a good base for overall health and for doing longer rides. Continue reading Meet Mark Aasmundstad

Scott Walters

Scott is providing liaison between the Coalition and the Tempe Bicycle Action Group. 

Scott Walters is a transplant from bicycle friendly Minneapolis.  As a kid, he delivered the daily paper by bicycle but now he writes software.  In 2011, he completed his first and hopefully last Paris Brest Paris.
Scott also serves on the Tempe Bicycle Action Group
board as the Advocacy Director.  He found traveling by bike to be a great way to make friends in a city where that’s often hard and he hopes to see more people on bikes for more of their trips.

Lloyd Thomas

Lloyd is the Coalition’s newest member of the Board of Directors. 

I’m Lloyd Thomas. I’ve always had medical issues. But riding a single speed bike as a child gave me a sense of freedom and a great way to exercise the family dog. A bike was my main source of transportation while home-ported at Pearl Harbor, and later at NAU and ASU.
As a former Deputy County Attorney I’ve seen numerous ‘collisions’ and ‘accidents.’ As a driver I’ve lost consciousness and crashed. At times MVD and MDs have said ‘you can’t drive.’ Finally a decade later, thanks to a knee replacement, I’m riding a bike again. Thanks to a bike I can transport myself. I don’t have to rely on others. Bikes give mobility, freedom, options, to many. While cyclists are sometimes viewed the public and by drivers as obstacles, riding for recreation, that’s an incomplete picture. People ride for a variety of reasons. People ride a variety of ‘bikes.’ Cyclists are a diverse group. We should represent all of them. We should protect all of them. We should encourage all of them.

Bob Beane

Bob is the Coalition’s President. 
My first memories of riding were on a green tricycle when I was two or three years old. Next, I was riding a 20” J C Penny bike when the training wheels came off at about age 5. Before long, my mother was giving me a quarter to ride to a local grocery in our Indiana small town to pick up a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread (I had a basket on the front, so this was as easy as it was fun).
In my later grade school years, my brother and I went everywhere by bike. We also did the equivalent of mountain biking over construction-related dirt piles on our fatter-tire 26” Sears bikes. I broke an axle doing that, so I think that qualifies as serious MTB-ing (for kids).

My first “bicycle advocacy” decision was made when summer-working for the owner of a picture frame shop in Richmond, IN. I bartered for his red Columbia 10-speed (which he had lost interest in after graduating from college and entering the working world) in exchange for two week’s wages (about $235). I wanted to ride to work rather than relying on getting access to the family car, and this was the perfect solution. That bike went with me to prep school in Massachusetts, and it was my source of escape and exploration for two years in the foothills of the Berkshires.

For most of my early adult life, bicycling was forgotten. Then, I moved to Arizona. In the process of recovery from a five-year illness and life-saving surgery, I rediscovered the bike. A neighbor, Winston Benson, was a quite serious and accomplished cyclist. And, a friend at work, Kerr Spencer, sold me a Trek mountain bike to help fund his purchase of a road Kestrel. It all came together and the bike bug bit…big time.

I began to ride a new Trek 1200 on the road for distance and time, very slow and short at first. But, the challenge of metric centuries and the newly discovered El Tour de Tucson were magnetic. Somehow, in the space of two years, I lowered my El Tour 75 mile time from 6:30 to 4:59.

Then, Winston died in a cycling accident in Scottsdale. My friend, cycling hero (Senior Olympics National Silver Medalist) and mentor was gone. I didn’t sleep for a week. That is when my bicycling advocacy passion began.

In subsequent years I helped put on the “Memorial Ride for Safety” for the CAzB. Rich Rumer and Bill Lazenby were mentors and friends. It was a given that we would work together on this ride each year. One year, we also had a “summit meeting” between Rich, myself (a PMBC officer at the time) and the president of ABC, and agreed that clubs would put on rides and help fund the CAzB out of our proceeds. The CAzB would be the advocacy organization and the clubs would focus on rides and channeling some money their way.

I eventually joined the board of the CAzB and was later encouraged to run for president. I have simply taken on this role out of a sense of duty to Winston and other cyclists who have been injured or killed. Also, I do it because of a desire to make Arizona a safer place for all bicyclists. Jean Gorman, Richard DeBernardis, Rich Rumer, Bill Lazenby, Reed Kempton, Matt Zoll, Mike Sanders, Sterling Baer, Daniel Paduchowski, Randy Victory and many others have been my inspiration. I am far from being the complete bicycling expert, but I have read, studied and ridden since the late 1980’s (with only one PBAA platinum medal and no USCF wins, so I never really excelled on the bike), and I serve the cycling community with no agenda other than to make Arizona a better, safer and more fun place to ride. If things go as planned, I will turn over CAzB leadership to an inspired and more capable leader by early 2013. We have some significant programs to accomplish in 2012, and then the torch should be passed. That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it…