Rising gasoline prices don't much worry Rob Gusky. Gusky, a 48-year-old process engineer at a Kimberly-Clark facility in Neenah, Wisconsin, travels to work year-round by bicycle, making the 17-mile round trip even in winter. (Friday's low in Neenah was 20 degrees.) When it snows, he switches to a bike with studded tires.

Why? Because biking to work is good for his health, good for his pocketbook and good for the planet. What's not to like?

Gusky, pictured at left, who has been a committed bicycle commuter since 2008, when gas prices first topped $4 a gallon, has led efforts to spread the practice through Kimberly-Clark. Spurred on by bicyclists inside the company, Kimberly-Clark now sponsors a competition among its employees to promote bike riding, a statewide program called "Get Up and Ride," a fall biking event to raise money for the United Way, and free bike tune-ups during Bike to Work week. The company provides ample bike parking and showers at its offices worldwide.

Business support for bike community is one reason why more Americans than ever -- about 765,000, according to a 2009 survey by the census Bureau -- bike to work. That number is up by 44 percent since 2000 but it could and should be higher. It represents just 0.55 percent of all Americans. By comparison, 76.1 percent of commuters drive to work alone. Here's a spreadsheet on commuting choices from The League of American Bicyclists, with interesting historical and geographic data, including a list of cities that shows which one have the most bike commuters. Portland and, to my surprise, Minneapolis, lead the way; it turns out that Minneapolis has 46 miles of streets with dedicated bicycle lanes and 84 miles of off-street bicycle paths.

With gas prices rising, I called Tim Blumenthal to see what could be done to encourage biking as a means of transportation. Tim is the executive director of the Bikes Belong Coalition, an industry association dedicated to putting more people on bicycles more often. A former magazine journalist and avid mountain biker, Tim, who is 55, has been a TV commentator for more than 35 ESPN and OLN/Versus mountain bike programs.

He began by sharing some data with me. Roughly half the trips that Americans take in their cares are three miles or less; about 39 percent are two miles or less. Many of those trips could easily be made by bike.

But they're not.