Solano

Photo by reneealiciajohnson@gmail.com

May is National Bike Month- So join a team and win some prizes.

Bike to Work’s Team Bike Challenge officially kicks off on May 1st, 2011, and registration is now open. Gather your friends, neighbors, and coworkers and pedal to win. It’s a fun and easy way to see just how much biking does for your health, budget, and the environment.

Here is how it works: form a team of 2-5 people and sign up at www.teambikechallenge.org. Earn points for each bike ride you take and your total daily mileage. Record your information via the website. Compete with your friends through the personalized Facebook Friends Leader board. You can also earn bonus points for completing various medal challenges, such as biking enough miles to burn a total pizza’s worth of calories. At the end of the month, the team with the most amounts of points wins.

Every member of a top scoring team from each county will receive a bike prize valued over $50. The top scoring team in the Bay Area receives a bike prize valued over $1,000.

The biking doesn’t have to stop when the Team Bike Challenge ends on May 31st arrives. You can still compete as an individual all year round by logging in your miles on the website. Track your total bike commuting benefits, including miles biked, calories burned, gas money saved, and pollution prevented. Bike your way to the top of the leader boards! Every month we will have a new leader board, so you can compete to be the top commuter each month.

If your business is too big to fit onto one team, then join the Company Bike Challenge. Compete for top honors against similar sized companies.

So log on to www.teambikechallenge.org, register, and join the fun. Happy biking!

A special thanks to this year’s regional sponsors for Bike to Work Day: 511.org, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Kaiser Permanente, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Beyond Pix Studios, Clif Bar, REI, Adobe, and Bay Area Bicycle Coalition.
For more information on Bike to Work Day, please visit www.511.org or www.youcanbikethere.com.

Bike to Work Day Photo Shoot Cast & Crew (Photo by Som Sharma)

Anyone Can Participate in Bike to Work Day on May 12, 2011

San Francisco Bay Area’s 17th Annual Bike to Work Day, which will be held on May 12, 2011, aims to motivate non-bike riders and those already cycling to get involved. With bike riding’s many advantages like healthier living, reducing one’s footprint, and an affordable transportation alternative, Bike to Work Day is headed for a significant increase in participation in 2011. Biking to work is a great way to fulfill the requirement of 30+ minutes of physical activity per day needed to stay healthy.

Bike to Work events, presented by 511.org and Kaiser Permanente, will take place throughout the month including a Team Bike Challenge and Bike Commuter of the Year Awards. Additionally, local employers are urged to help encourage bike riding as more physically active employees are more alert, healthy and more productive.

“Bike riding benefits not only Bay Area residents’ health but the environment as well,” says Diana Rohini LaVigne, regional producer for Bike to Work Day. “Unfortunately, bike riding comes with misperceptions from what you must wear to being fit before even starting. But biking is for everyone. You don’t need special clothing, you don’t need special equipment, and you don’t need to already be in shape to take up biking. All you need to do is find your motivation and jump on.”

This year’s message is to find your inner motivation and reason to ride a bike and to go for it. It could be anything from reducing stress, losing weight, helping diminish global warming, or having bragging rights at the water cooler on the most distance traveled on a bike. Bike riders come in all different shapes and sizes, and no one should feel limited by their size, attire, equipment or speed. Bike riding is an equalizer and all are accepted. There are activities in all nine counties; Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.

Bike to Work Day is Thursday, May 13th! There will be "energizer" stations throughout the county.