You’re a former private school teacher, now retired, still in good health and with much envied free time at your disposal. What will you do: travel, head for the golf greens, stay home and watch all that TV you’ve been missing? Not this Dixon Neighborhood resident, Connie Robinson gets up early and bikes to Timpanogos Elementary School where twice each school day she volunteers time. Bringing with her a stop sign paddle and a yellow safety vest, Connie parks her Townie Original 3i EQ Step-Thru across the street at the east end of the 500 W 500 N crosswalk and begins a task so appreciated by school age children and their parents… stopping traffic for all those familiar young faces at one of the busiest intersections in Provo.
Connie, as well as her children while they were growing up, has been biking around Provo for years. “If it’s snowing, I walk; otherwise I take my bike,” she affirms. Connie is an artist, has a BFA degree in painting from BYU, and uses her bike in taking photos of subjects that she would like to render later on canvas. “Used to take my bike up to Vivian Park and ride down to the lake, especially in the Autumn, it’s really beautiful.” She would have someone drive her with her bike in tow up to that Provo River hamlet and then ride 15.7 miles to Utah Lake, stopping to capture scenes along the way. Afterwards, riding the four and half miles back home.
“Bridal Veil Falls is pretty… I painted the four seasons of the falls, exhibited [forty-four paintings] at Utah County Health and Justice Building, and sold one for $700.” With over 200 paintings completed in past years, Connie tells me that she was the “first exhibitor at the then new second floor gallery” of the Provo City Library at Academy Square.
But biking hasn’t been totally without difficulty, Connie has sustained broken ribs and an arm in the past while riding her two wheeler. Once, someone hit her and spun her bike around, but fortunately she wasn’t hurt, nor was the bike damaged. “Really [have to] watch out for that, for people not paying attention.” As Connie is a 100% active transportation adherent, injuries have recently prompted her to purchase an Electric XP Trike from Lectric eBikes, which she now uses for grocery shopping, going to the library and appointments as far away as Riverwoods.
While Connie herself once owned a car, she sold it last year, she really likes “not having to pay for [auto] repairs and insurance and making payments on a car.” “It also keeps me strong, at seventy-eight I need something to keep my muscles stronger.” Her health today, she confidently shares with me, is excellent and she attributes that to active transportation. “Use it or lose it kind of thing,” Connie says. And where did Connie learn about BikeWalk Provo, I ask? It was on Bike To Work Day this year that Connie noticed a table set up at the end of the crosswalk, “handing out pens.” “And that’s where I met Aaron Skabelund!”
