Vol. 43, No. 4
Get in Gear for Bike to School Month Bike to School Day is Wednesday, May 8 by Hanna McFall, AmeriCorps Community Programs Assistant and Lindsey Parker, AmeriCorps Youth Programs Assistant
S
pring is here, and what better way to embrace the longer daylight and warmer weather than by seeing kids throughout the region biking to school during May’s Bike Month? You and your kids can roll with thousands of other students across the country on Bike to School Day, May 8.
CALLING ALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS! Students sign up at their participating elementary schools and track their miles to and from school on a calendar during May. Volunteer parent and teacher coordinators will help with sign-ups, publicize the event at your school with posters and distribute prizes. That’s right, great prizes! From stickers and bike charms to red rear lights, you can also win a cool rubber bracelet on Bike to School Day. Don’t just log your trips to school, you can also count your round-trip errands by bike to the store, the library, music lessons, sports practice and more. By participating, you and your family can make a difference for your health and for the environment. Find more information on how to prepare for Bike Month on our website, www.cbcef. org, including ways to ride safely. Parents, you know your child and his or her route to school best, but in general young children are not prepared to ride on the street alone. Most elementary school children ride with their parents or another adult. We envision participation in Bike to School Month as a family project, one that may also introduce parents to the fun of cycling with their kids. Interested in organizing a Bike Train at your school? Don’t miss our Bike Training Workshop for parents. See article on page 3.
CALLING ALL MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLERS! High school students are invited to take the Bike to School Challenge! Students can register on the challenge website at http://biketoschool.cascade.org/. In order to register, students must be in 6th to 12th grade and have a valid email address. After
registering, they can start logging trips online. After five trips, riders qualify for the competition. Each time they ride to school in May and log it online, they are entered into a drawing for tons of awesome prizes. Kids can compare rankings to other competitors, and see how their school measures up against others. They can even keep track of how much their teachers are riding on the Commute Challenge website. Some other prizes kids AND their middle or high school can earn include: Get in Gear T-shirt: Help organize Bike to School month at your school OR make five trips in the first two weeks of May, completing the trips between May 1 and 11. Golden Pedal award: If your school logs more trips than any other, a spectacular Golden Pedal Trophy will be awarded as congratulations for the achievement! There is an award for both middle and high schools, so make sure to ride plenty and get your friends on bikes too. Bike Blender party: The school with the largest number of riders on Bike to School Day, Wednesday, May 8, will win its very own Bike to School celebration party, complete with a bike-powered blender! Remember, someone from your school must send the total number of Bike to School Day riders to cmpa@cascadebicycleclub. org by the end of the Bike to School day in order to qualify. For the first four interested middle and high schools, Cascade Bicycle Club can host a bike blender party during the month of May. The school will be responsible for transportation of the bike blender, but Cascade will provide the materials and two Ambassadors to run the event. Email cmpa@ cascadebicycleclub.org if interested. More information can be found on the Cascade Education Foundation website, under Bike to School www.cbcef.org/bts.If you’re interested in helping to organize a Bike to School month at your school, please email Hanna at cmpa@cascadebicycleclub.org or Lindsey at ypa@cascadebicycleclub.org.
More businesses move through BizCycle certification by Ryann Child, AmeriCorps Commute Programs Assistant Novo Nordisk achieves bike-friendly gold Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company specializing in diabetes care, is BizCycle’s first gold level bicycle-friendly business. With 20 percent of employees bicycling to its South Lake Union facility, Novo Nordisk fully integrated bicycling into the workplace’s transportation demand management program. Commuters receive $100 to spend at REI for every month they bicycle, whereas parking costs $80. To further encourage employees to jump on a bicycle the office holds a bike clinic every spring, bringing together mechanics and spare parts for employees to fix up their bikes in time for warmer weather. For those year-round, all-weather commuters, the locker facility is equipped with a boot dryer—sometimes the devil’s in the details when it comes to the decision to bike to work or not. Novo Nordisk received an innovation credit for both the Spring Bike Clinic and the boot dryer, contributing to the workplace’s final total of 37 out of 50 possible credits. University of Washington is BizCycle’s first certified university One of the top employers in the state, the University of Washington’s Seattle campus has the challenge of promoting and supporting bicycling for faculty, staff and students— more than 68,000 people. The university’s bicycle program and its services are so wide-
spread that it’s getting its own brand: UW bikespace. Every rack, bicycle cage and locker on campus will receive a decal with the bikespace logo and contact information so that students and staff can easily contact transportation services. The decals also serve to identify each bicycle parking area by number, facilitating administration and maintenance while also sending a message to bicycle commuters that they are part of a larger network and bicycle community on campus. The bikespace branding initiative earned the university a programming and messaging innovation credit toward their overall silver level award. Anchor QEA, LLC is silver An environmental science and engineering firm with both a strong bicycle and sustainability culture, Anchor made a commitment to make bike commuting easy. When the firm moved into its downtown Seattle office, they requested the installation of a secure bicycle room as a term of the lease. Hats (and helmets) off to the impressive work these organizations have demonstrated to support and encourage bicycle commuting! Who will be the business to beat? Cascade will recognize BizCycle’s first round of certified workplaces at the Ninth Annual Bike to Work Breakfast on May 2.
Family Biking is here!
W
ould you like to ride with your kids? Learn what kids need to know or teach your child to ride a bike? Do you simply want to ride with other families? Cascade’s new Family Biking Program focuses on encouraging more families and kids to ride bikes. Wrangle the kids and roll on over to our four-part Family Biking Education Events at Magnuson Park. All events will be held from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Sundays in April, June and September.
April 7: Learn 2 Ride for All Ages
$10 per learner Parents, assist your child in learning the basics of how to ride a bike using our tried and true method. Or, if you never learned as a child, come learn yourself.
April 14 : Bike Feats-of-Skill for Kids and Grown-ups
$20 per family Our big bike rodeo is fun for all ages and has practical skills too! In addition to negotiating the “driveway ride out,” looking back while riding in a straight line, signaling and passing, we’ll have the “chicken dodge,” teeter-totter and flower slalom. Everybody plays – come out and show ‘em your excellent biking skills.
April 21: Family Biking Skills $20 per family Teach your kids to ride on safe streets. Children and parents learn key aspects of riding bikes to school or around town. Learn how children “see” traffic and what parents need to know according to a child’s age and development level.
April 28: Family Ride Free! Ride with other families, get to know one another, and have a blast!
JUNE SESSIONS:
June 2 Learn 2 Ride 4 All Ages $10 per learner June 9 Bike Feats-of-Skill for Kids and Grown-ups $20 per family June 16 Family Biking Skills $20 per family June 23 Family Ride Free!
SEPTEMBER SESSIONS:
Sept. 8 Learn 2 Ride 4 All Ages $10 per learner Sept. 15 Bike Feats-of-Skill for Kids and Grown-ups $20 per family Sept. 22 Family Biking Skills $20 per family Sept. 29 Family Ride Free!
Cascade’s Helmet Program Find us online Facebook: www.facebook.com/cascadebicycleclub Twitter: www.twitter.com/cascadebicycle Issuu: www.issuu.com/cascadebicycleclub Blog: blog.cascade.org YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/cascadebicycle Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/bikehappy “Creating a Better Community Through Bicycling”
N
eed a new helmet? Cascade sells helmets for $15 and also provides them for free* throughout the Puget Sound region to those in need. You can be fitted for a helmet at the Cascade office Monday throughFriday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by making an appointment with the Community Programs Assistant at (206) 957-6623 or emailing cmpa@cascadebicycleclub.org. This month, the following organizations received helmet donations: • Leschi Elementary • The Little School • Harborview Pediatrics • Phinney Cooperativa Preescolar en Español *Funding for our free helmet program is generously provided by the Steve Sitcov Law Group.
5