It's Bike to Work Day!

I started the morning with some safety basics: give each other space, call out when stopping, and don't take chances with traffic signals. If some of us don't make it across an intersection, I will stop and wait. I promised not to lose anyone, but handed out route sheets just in case. One rider was wearing her helmet backward. [No wonder it felt weird!]

At the halfway point, there was no shortage of enthusiasm. [Or was it a coffeecake high?]

When you can bike to work on any ordinary day, what could be extraordinary about some official Bike to Work Day?

Let me count the ways.

Fourteen smiling co-workers ready for me to lead them to the office at 7:00 a.m. (20 miles).

Ten riders who had never biked to the office before today. (A few rented bikes for the occasion!)

Thirteen-plus riders added en route.

Twenty-seven (or more) smiling co-workers delivered safely to the office.

One piece of Hobee's coffee cake (thank you, Cupertino Energizer Station).

One chocolate-dipped doughnut (courtesy of my co-leader's bike-mounted Energizer Station).

One flat tire (on the rear wheel of my very capable co-leader's bike). [We left him, and the doughnuts, behind. He caught up.]

One huge festival of cycling at our workplace. Massages, foam rollers, and mats for stretching. Bicycle-powered blenders (smoothies). Food. Schwag. Bike mechanics for minor repairs. Booths to recruit riders for local charity rides (including, of course, Best Buddies).

Two bicycle-powered carnival rides.



Three smiling co-workers ready at 5:00 p.m. for me to lead them back home.

Forty-two miles, 855 feet of climbing, and more than 1100 kcal burned.

My energized riders make Bike to Work Day extraordinary for me.