It seems amusingly ironic that certain AAA (American Automobile Association) clubs are now offering emergency bike services for bicycle commuters considering the organization tried to strip any and all non-motorized funding (a mere 1.0% of the transportation bill) from the federal budget and apply it solely to highways a few years back. If you are a member of a AAA club in Washington (state), Minneapolis, Southern New England, Oregon, Colorado, and parts of Idaho, twice yearly emergency bike services are now available to you. I suppose we shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth, so I will take this as a positive trend.

For bicycle services, a ten mile limitation is applied for how far you may be taken to a repair shop or home. I could have used this emergency service yesterday as for the first time in a decade of bike commuting, I blew my front tire while riding home. Stupid potholes!

Certain bicycle-related services are excluded by these AAA clubs:

Tandems (guess double-dipping isn’t allowed – J )

Trips from home to a bike shop

Your AAA club does not offer this service

You are off-road somewhere not accessible by road.

Hopefully, other AAA clubs will see the light and begin offering such services to cyclists. I might actually consider re-establishing my membership with AAA that I cancelled when they began lobbying against non-motorized funding. They lost a 30+ year customer by being so arrogant. Perhaps, some national bicycling organization(s) might want to consider such a program for its members?