Third in a short series recapping last year…

This is the last installment on advocacy (probably). Most of this stuff goes in the “we tried it, not sure how it worked, but we will try it again” bucket.

The bike shop joined the Wisconsin Bike Fed. It gets us in their annual ride guide and it gets us access to their resources for bike riders. We will always have copies of the ride guide in the shop. We also have some brochures and handouts we distributed at last year’s Evansville Night Out. There’s a pocket guide to bicycle law in WI, a coloring book with safety and riding tips for kids, and a few other odds and ends. Stop in if you want to check any of them out.

The Bike Fed also sponsors Wisconsin Bike Week in June. They have lots of activities in Madison and Milwaukee, but not much else. Our Bike Rodeo is part of our WI Bike Week festivities. We may try to add something else this year.

May is National Bike Month. The League of American Bicyclists sponsors events throughout the month, including Bike to Work Week, Bike to School Day, and Ride a Bike Day. Last year we partnered with our neighbor Lovegood’s on Friday, May 17th to promote Bike to Work Day. I hope to be back there this year again.

We didn’t do much for Bike to School Day last year. We had just opened and I didn’t want to try something last minute with the schools. This year I’ll try to get something organized. I would love to support a Bike Bus program at our schools too.

The League of American Bicyclists also sponsors their Bicycle Friendly America program, which includes Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFC) and Bicycle Friendly Business (BFB) designations. It’s not easy to earn the BFC award but the application and guidelines are a very good blueprint for making improvements in the city. It’s something we will check on a few times a year to make sure we are heading in the right direction.

We were also fortunate to participate in Ride the Parks last June, sponsored by the Growing Our Parks campaign team. We are looking forward to doing it again this year!

That’s it on the advocacy front. We hope to build on last years successes and learn from the things that didn’t go so well.

Have any other ideas for this year? Drop a note in the suggestion box and let me know.