The Number Game

As I sit here writing this blog, I can't tell you how happy I am that Bike to Work and School Day was relatively rain free. All last week I tried to push thoughts of rain soaked commuters out of my head as the forecast called for a 60% chance of rain on the morning of May 21. As I biked to work at 5:45am to set up for the days festivities I had tears, not rain in my eyes.

I was overcome with emotion on that ride as I thought about how over 300 volunteers donated their time and over 100 businesses donated prizes and food. Whatcom County had 28 public celebration stations and 31 schools hosted celebration stations. 100% of the public schools and most of the private schools in Bellingham participated.

Vince, owner of the Mt. Bakery, and a local artist, stops by the Public Market on

his way to work. Notice the organic eggs in his basket.

We counted over 8,300 bicyclists, pedestrians, unicyclists, skaters and scooters from 6:30-10am. At 10:02 it started to sprinkle.

A group of cyclists stop at the Public Market for a snack and a prize.

It was an amazing day, even if it did rain a bit in Ferndale and the temperature was about 10 degrees cooler than last year. People had fun biking and walking to work and school. I heard reports that families biked to school and said "that was easier than we thought it would be". Teachers sent me photos of hundreds of bikes piled outside the school.

Oftentimes people think that biking to work or school will take a very long time and will be much harder than driving. This is not always the case, in fact, many times it only takes about 5 - 10 minutes longer than driving (depending on where you live of course). My hope is that these families will continue to bike to school some of the time. I'm not asking people to give up their cars completely and bike everywhere, do what you can, try to bike or walk once a week, every little bit helps.

Jim loads up his bike trailer the night before Bike to Work and School Day.