August 1 2009, a special edition of The State We're In: the right to bike.

We compare bike life in two cities: San Francisco and Amsterdam. We talk to a man from Uganda whose bike made the difference between life and death and we hear from a committed cyclist in Manhattan who lost twenty bikes to thieves and reached a point where he became one himself.
 

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Life in the bike lane
San Francisco is the birthplace of a major movement for bicyclers’ rights in North America. Guest host Greg Kelly speaks with bike messenger Jason Romero about what it’s like to ride a bike for a living there now.
 

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A tale of two cities
Producer Hermione Gee compares being a regular cyclist in San Francisco, where she used to live, and Amsterdam, where she lives now. She takes a bike tour of the city with cycling advocate, Pascal van den Noort, who explains why Amsterdam has embraced the bike.

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A matter of life and death
Afeku Ronald lives in a small village in northeast Uganda. When his father took ill one evening, Afeku rode nearly ten kilometres with his father on his bike to the nearest health centre and saved his father’s life. He’s now the bicycle ambulance driver for his village.

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Biking in Beijing
Correspondent Karen Meirik lived in Beijing for five years, and during that time has seen the car muscle the bike out of its once-dominant position. She records her observations riding through the streets of the city, while trying to avoid being hit by cars now edging into the bike lanes.

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Accidental bike thief
Peter Hellman is a writer based in New York, where he’s been riding a bike since the late 1960s. After having thirty bikes stolen, he decided to ‘resuscitate’ a damaged bicycle from his apartment building. The bike actually belonged to one of his editors. Their paths would cross again at a Grand Jury hearing.

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Resistance on wheels
Jonathan Groubert talks to Loek Caspers, who used a bicycle while she was in the Dutch Resistance during Nazi occupation. She tells him about helping fallen airmen and getting stopped at German checkpoints – and what it was like having her bike taken from her by the SS after the war was actually over.

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