Friday, June 06, 2008

Commuter-Geek

Since I've been biking to work for the past several years, I thought it might be a good time to promote this healthy practice to my coworkers. I approached the HR department where I work, and they have been surprisingly supportive. I expected support, but not really the active support that they have provided. They are letting me teach a one-hour bicycle commuting overview class, and providing money for give-aways related to cycle commuting. One of the give-aways includes two brand new Trek 7100 "bike path" bikes! Our local bike shop has given us a good deal on the bikes, and is also being very supportive.
So now, I need to come up with what I want to present for this class! There are already 20 people signed up, and we don't even start promoting it in earnest until next week. That's about how many people I thought might be interested in total! I'm guessing that the high gas prices, along with health concerns are contributing to the perfect storm of interest.
Anyway, here are the places that I'm going to be drawing my material from. . .
First, the authoritative League of Michigan Bicyclists has a nice guide: What Every Michigan Bicyclist Must Know.
Second, I plan to glean a lot of practical commuting tips from the Commute By Bike blog.
Finally, I will try to share the fact that bicycling on the road is a safe activity by presenting some of the detailed information from Ken Kifer's web site.
I'm really excited about other people experience the freedom, health, cost savings, and environmental impact that comes from using their bicycles for transportation.

Following the class, we will have a "bike to work day", and then I'll be able to see for sure if people are really willing to give it a try. Once they do, I am convinced that they will see that most of the perceived obstacles are imaginary. We'll see.

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