Monroe News: She puts her mettle to the bicycle pedal in any weather

When winter strikes with a vengeance, Melissa Phelps doesn’t worry about gas-line freeze-up, dead batteries or scraping windshields. She doesn’t have a car. Instead, she uses alternative fuel: Muscle power. She gets around on her 10-speed Free Spirit bicycle, even on inclement days. “I use it to go wherever I need to,” she says. “But, sometimes, I get a ride.” The weather doesn’t seem to break her bicycling habit. Last week, with the temperature at 11, the wind chill in single digits, and mounds of snow still burying curbs, she was bundled up in a brown, hooded winter parka and gingerly walking her bike along the shoulder of busy Cole Rd. as cars whizzed by.

“I’m on my way to Kmart to get some stuff,” she said, rose-cheeked and taking a breather near the Professional Village Pharmacy behind the discount store. Mrs. Phelps, 37, has lived in the Monroe area for about 15 years. She hasn’t had a car because she never got her driver’s license. “I tried to take the driver’s license test once, but I didn’t pass it,” she said. “I don’t know why. I only missed a few questions.” Mrs. Phelps says she pretty much travels in all kinds of weather, combining trips as necessary.

During her walk/ride from her apartment at Greenwycke to Kmart, she stopped at the nearby Danny’s market to drop off returnable bottles. But she hopped off her bike and walked it along Cole Rd. “It was a little bit icy,” she said. Mrs. Phelps says she does more riding during warmer weather, of course, and her husband, Dennis, also likes to ride, but the control cables on his bicycle broke, leaving them to share the family’s sole pedal-powered transportation.

Mrs. Phelps bicycling ways might have her on a path that many Americans will follow in the years ahead. In the past few years, federal funding has increased for the creation of bikeways and bike lanes in urban areas due to concerns about traffic congestion, pollution and global warming.

But the United States is lagging behind most other countries in terms of using bicycling as a key form of transportation. The Netherlands leads the globe with its citizens making 30 percent of all their trips by bike and 45 percent by car, according to the International Bike Fund. In the U.S., just 1 percent of trips are made by bike and 84 percent by car. Mrs. Phelps said there’s another benefit to bicycling.

Besides not burning gas, it does burn calories. “It helps me lose this,” she said, patting her stomach. Each Monday, Your Neighbor provides a glimpse into the life of a Monroe County area resident. Reporters choose their subjects at random.