Bike to Work & School Week & Bike to Shop Days Results

Bike to School Week ridealong with Deputy Mayor of Vancouver Lisa Dominato & School Board Trustee Janet Fraser

Bike to Work Week 2019 celebration

Did you bike to school &/or work last week? This year's Bike to Work & School Week (BTWW) was one of the most successful yet, with record breaking numbers of new riders. 3,292 new riders signed up to participate, which was an 87% increase over last year! 11,400 people registered for BTWW this year, logging 61,059 trips & riding 578,188 km across Metro Vancouver in a single week. More details here on the Bike to Work Week page.

"The continued growth in participation shows that the ongoing investment in cycling infrastructure & education across the region is having a direct impact on the number of people commuting by bike. It’s really great to see such a measurable increase (+87%) in the number of participants who are brand new to biking to work this year" explains Rowena Farr,  Bike to Work Week Manager. “Many Celebration Stations were located near recently improved cycling facilities,” she adds.

The bike racks were stuffed full for Bike to School Week

124 Metro Vancouver area elementary & middle schools registered in Bike to School Week this year. Schools organized morning celebrations, breakfasts (we continued the tradition of the waffle breakfast this year), cycling skills events, bike parades, family biking workshops & more to celebrate cycling & active travel.

“We really see school communities come together this week & it's because they recognize the benefits of active travel, like school zones being less congested & students arriving energized & ready to learn” says Jel Kocmaruk, HUB Cycling’s Bike to School Week Coordinator. "& the beauty of Bike to School Week is that every school celebrates in a way that keeps with their school culture & needs”. Our school typically has a dozen or so bikes in the racks, with another dozen or so parents dropping kids off by cargo bike, trailabike, etc. In May & June these numbers swell to fill up the large bike corrall & racks at the other side of the school.

Tracking bike trips to school for BTSW

As part of wanting to connect directly with students riding to school to hear about their experiences, HUB Cycling hosted the inaugural Bike Reels: Student Video Contest as part of Bike to School Week this year. Prizes for top student videos in all age categories to be announced next week on the Bike to School Week page.

School results are still coming in, but HUB Cycling anticipates that students took over 33,000 trips last week, with winning schools likely reporting participation rates of up to 71% of their school population & up to 55% cycling mode share throughout the week! Our school had the Bicycle Valet for the day on the Biker's Breakfast day & checked 72 bikes, with more kids & parents locking up in the racks.

Bike to Shop Days participation increased 34% since last year. For the first time, Bike to Shop Days was made a part of Bike to Work Week, encouraging people to continue making trips by bike throughout the weekend. The event hosted four guided rides, discounts at local shops & farmers markets. Celebration stations were set up across Metro Vancouver where participants could get their bike tuned up & get tips on carrying items by bike. “The event shows people that cycling to their local market, to get groceries or do their daily errands can be easy, fun, & comes with free parking!” said organizer Tracy Wilkins. Get further details about Bike To Shop Days here.

Bike to Shop Days station

Bike to Work & School Week & Bike to Shop Days successfully encourage people to try active modes of transportation & the hope is that participants continue to use their bikes to get around beyond these events. “Our surveys show that more than 70% of people who hadn’t biked to work before Bike to Work Week are still biking to work two months later,” adds Farr. “We encourage people to continue using their bike for all sorts of trips - not just the commute to work, but trips to the store, to visit friends. Getting around by bike saves money, supports an active lifestyle, & helps us connect with our communities.”

A little more info about HUB Cycling:
HUB Cycling is a charitable non-profit that has spent two decades removing barriers to cycling in Metro Vancouver, while cultivating the health, environmental, & economic benefits that active transportation can bring. HUB Cycling has educated thousands of people, motivated thousands more, & championed improvements that benefit current & future cyclists. HUB Cycling’s mission is to get more people cycling more often. For more information, visit bikehub.ca.

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#SpokesmamaProTip: 4 Family Biking Route Planning Tools

Not every arterial intersection has a beg button--knowing
where these are will take your ride from frustrating to fun

Do you remember the last time you navigated a foreign city, maybe in another country? You probably had a map, or someone gave you detailed directions to your destination. You may have looked at the transit or rail website, possibly even booked a vehicle or bought tickets ahead of time. Planning is pretty important when you're travelling, I find, especially with children. The same can be said for biking.

Particularly if you're just getting started with riding for transportation, planning your route can make the difference between a great experience & a lackluster one. If you're used to driving, or taking transit, following the same routes with your bike isn't generally a great idea if you want a relaxing ride. I know there are many cyclists out there who will brave the traffic on high speed arterials & highway shoulders, but I'm going to assume if you're visiting a family cycling site like mine you're not one of them.

Even if you have been riding this city regularly for a couple of decades, like me, you'll still benefit from a little planning when you ride with your kids. When I plan my routes, I don't just rely on my mental map of the city. Partly because of all the road work that's happening during the good weather right now, but also because the city has added so many cycling route improvements since I last rode through a given area.

Google is pretty good, but no substitute for the wealth of
mental maps you'll find among the family bikers of this city

1. My first stop is usually Google Maps. When you open the app or website, find where you can show different layers & choose the Biking one. This will overlay a network of green & brown lines that show you where the bike routes are. The green are paved & the brown are unpaved. Be forewarned, however, that Google just lays down a green line whether it's a neighbourhood bikeway (i.e. a traffic calmed road with no protected lane like Ontario Street), painted lanes, & sometimes protected bike lanes (like Dunsmuir, Hornby, the Seawall, etc). Another caveat--Google can be behind on the new infrastructure in your city, so it will occasionally tell you that you can't ride through places like parks or vehicle diverters, which is why step four below is important. The next step is to input the start & end points of your trip for directions & click on the Bicycle icon to give you cycling route info. 
2. Map it. Another option if you're concerned about riding with traffic is to check the PDF or printed bike map for your city. Tranlink has the entire Metro Vancouver area covered, but most municipalities also produce a city bike map (often a paper version that folds into a little pocket sized bundle) with details like where the steep hills are, insets with more information about routing around bridges, etc. These maps will generally also show the different levels of cycling infrastructure, from the all ages & abilities protected bike lanes to the painted lanes, to the sharrows on neighbourhood bikeways. This can help you choose which routes you'll be most comfortable riding.
3. Crowdsourcing information is sometimes the best way to figure out a route. Talk to other parents at your kids' school or daycare, your coworkers or friends who bike for feedback on your route. In terms of online sources for advice on biking with children in Vancouver, your best bet is the Vancouver Family Biking Facebook Group. It's a great place to find out where people like riding on with their kids, & why they choose particular routes. A great example of this is "The Watson Wiggle" which is a route we take all the time, zigzagging from 10th Avenue to 11th, across 12th where there's a beg button, to 15th Ave, then home on the St. George bike route. It avoids crossing Kingsway, which can be a bit dodgy at the best of times, & takes you past quite a few murals to boot! It's not a route that Google would tell you about, but it's a nicer ride & avoids going down & then up some hills.



Unforeseen road work can make a bike commute awkward

4. Test ride your route! If you're planning the ride to school &/or work, try a test ride on the weekend to see how the distance & hills feel. For a better sense of what the traffic is like, try your ride around the same time of day as you'll be commuting, if you can. Riding with a friend, coworker or spouse for your dry run might make you feel more confident in future as well.

Finding resources you like & doing a little work ahead of time is worth the effort, I promise. One last thing to think about is how fast vs. how fun. If you're like me, & you typically just want to get there as efficiently as possible, you're probably thinking about the most direct route. Until we build A LOT MORE protected bike infrastructure on high streets in this city, the most direct route usualy isn't going to be the most pleasant. Look for a route that minimizes hills & avoids high traffic areas. Google will give you a hill profile for your route if you click on the details after getting bike directions--this is super handy for riding with younger children on little single speeds or when you're hauling everyone by heavy cargo bike. Avoiding those hills can mean your route is longer, but much more enjoyable.

Have a great ride & see you on the bike routes! & if you have any other route planning tips & tricks to share, whether for Vancouver, or other cities--leave them in the comments below!

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Let's #UnGapTheMap to Make Metro Vancouver Better

Have you ever been riding somewhere, along a lovely separated bike route, then gotten dumped onto a busy highway or narrow footpath? Or had a bike lane just disappear into thin air as you reach a big intersection? Unfortunately, despite the fact that over 40% of Metro Vancouver residents want to cycle more often, they don't because of gaps in cycling infrastructure like this. While the number of people cycling in Metro Vancouver has increased rapidly in recent years, the bike network remains fragmented with tons of gaps across the region preventing people from cycling more often, particularly for transportation, not just recreation.

HUB Cycling--the non profit that I work for teaching cycling education to kids & adults--is working hard to solve this problem. Their UnGapTheMap campaign is focused on identifying, prioritizing & fixing the gaps that--if solved--would increase safety, creating a more connected bike network across Metro Vancouver, getting people to places they need to go.

HUB Cycling’s local committees (click here to learn more & join yours!) have already identified over 300 gaps across Metro Vancouver which are stopping more people cycling. The gaps range from minor ‘spot improvements’, such as adding signage or bike crossings, to building new bike lanes in areas of high ridership like along Powell Street in Vancouver.

In addition to identifying the routes in need of improvement, HUB Cycling is working with municipalities, the Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure, plus TransLink to highlight the priority gaps & encourage government to implement solutions that will help more people bike, more safely.

One of the solutions that HUB Cycling is championing is cycle highways: continuous paved, lit paths, separated from pedestrians & motor vehicles, suitable for people of all ages & abilities. Cycle highways have proved extremely successful in Europe & could work well on routes such as Vancouver to Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal (getting there by bike is a ridiculously epic journey--read my posts on our Galiano bike camping trip for more on that) & HUB Cycling is asking MLAs to support the introduction of them in Metro Vancouver.

People make over 131,000 trips by bike in Metro Vancouver each day but creating safe, connected routes would help many more people to get on their bikes. Just imagine how increasing that could change our cities: less air pollution, fewer cars stuck in traffic, healthier people getting exercise every day, less vehicle noise through our neighbourhoods...

So what can you do to help ungap the map? Adopt one of HUB Cycling’s identified gaps and explain how that gap is stopping you from cycling.

To find out more visit www.bikehub.ca/ungapthemap.

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New Bike Day: Kid Edition

It wasn't that long ago that Linnaeus learned to ride his green 16" Norco bike without training wheels, but he's already too big for it. He's had it over two years, so that's not bad in terms of longevity. It's also a single speed with coaster brakes, which is okay for learning to ride, but inadequate for commuting 4km uphill to school. So I started looking for a decent 20" commuter bike for him.

My wish list included:

• front & rear hand brakes
• fenders
• rear rack
• short reach brake levers
• internal gear hub with at least three speeds
• easy to shift grip shifters
• light frame
• dynamo lights

There are a few companies in Europe that make great kids bikes with all of the above--the German company Puky, for example--but getting one to Canada is difficult & expensive. Woom & Islabikes--both American--make some fantastic models for kids that tick most of the boxes on my wish list, but they're also quite expensive given the exchange rate & shipping.

The next best option seemed to be to get a decent light frame bike & modify it to add as many of the above features as possible. I settled on a Trek Precalibur single speed. It's fairly light, comes with front & rear hand brakes. The brake levers on it have an adjustable reach & Linnaeus can use them easily. The cranks actually have two positions for the pedals to allow for more adjustment as his legs grow. I like the full chain case too so we don't have to worry about his pant legs getting grease stains or getting caught in the chain.

Trek makes several versions of the Precalibur, but the horizontal dropouts on the single speed model we bought mean we can easily adjust chain tension by moving the rear wheel back or forward, so we can add an internal gear hub. Fenders shouldn't be too bad to find in this size & hopefully we can work out a way to attach a rear rack without having any eyelets on the rear of the frame.

It looks as if Trek is phasing out this particular version of the Precalibur, so we had to hunt a bit to find a dealer with one in stock. We picked up the bike from Cap's Westwood in Burnaby on our way home from a trip to Maplewood Farm recently (with a Modo minivan). Linny tried it out in the parking lot & I have to say, I'm glad we didn't bike train bike home with it, like I was originally planning. He rode straight into a curb & nearly crashed because he has no experience with hand brakes & tried to backpedal to stop. Happy to have the option of booking a Modo minivan whenever we need to transport things like this.

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Cargo Bikes & Supporting Kids Learning to Ride

Ready to ride home from school

Picking up L after getting his first flat tire

I've discovered another reason that cargo bikes are awesome. I'll call it the sag wagon effect. Let me explain. Linnaeus only started riding his bike without training wheels in March, then riding home from school in April. Three months later, he's riding all over the place, sometimes almost 20km in a day.

Because we have cargo bikes--the Bakfiets can carry both kids & his bike in the box, the Yuba can tow his bike while he rides on the deck--Linnaeus has the opportunity to ride whenever he wants to, but doesn't have to ride the whole way if he gets tired. There's no pressure like there might be if we had no way to carry him & his bike home. If we didn't have a way to tote him & his bike, we probably wouldn't let him bring his bike on the longer rides that we do, so he'd get fewer chances to ride.

A good example of the sag wagon effect is last Thursday's Vancouver Family Biking Pyjama Ride. Linny set out with us on his bike to meet up with the crew at Science World, then rode to Stanley Park. On the way home, he rode from Stanley Park past Science World before getting too tired. That's about 18km total. So we popped his bike into the bakfiets & he rode on the deck of the Yuba for the remaining few kilometres home.

Riding home from the Children's Festival

The cargo bikes have also made it easy to bring his bike to school so he can ride home in the afternoons--riding to school is mostly uphill, but from school is a great way for him to practise road skills & get stronger. He started asking to ride to school in the last couple of weeks, & he was able to ride nearly all the way, with a half-block walk up the steepest bit.

Riding home from school every day means he's been regularly riding 20km or more a week, not including some of our evening & weekend rides. Pretty good for a little boy who's not even six years old yet!

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Concussion Update

I'm ba-aaack! Thought I'd need a little more time off blogging, but screen time isn't really bothering me anymore if it's farther from my face (TV or laptop).

Quick playground stop before biking home

I'm back biking again as well, still taking it easy, but I rarely get the nausea/headache motion sickness feeling unless I'm going quite fast. It's been amazing to finally start biking home from school with Linny his own little bike. He loves to ride & has become really confident in such a short time.

I do still get tired & overwhelmed more easily than normal. That feeling of being a bit stressed & busy to the point I can barely focus & think straight is something I only used to feel when I was, say, sleep deprived from decorating a birthday cake til 1am, in the middle of my kid's birthday party with 35 guests. So I'm trying to limit the meetings, appointments, & social events that I go to. I also try to have at least a couple of hours doing something relaxing like colouring, listening to podcasts each day.

A lot of the concussion issues seem to have cleared up, but I'm not 100% yet. Happy to be back blogging again though. I have a lot of things to catch up on, including several reviews: Clug bike racks, Leaf health tracker, two new Blue Orange games--Dr. Eureka & Flip It, plus the pile of interviews with biking families that I've collected. Watch this space for some exciting stuff!

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