Clif’s 2 Mile Challenge is really important to me and my cycling style. I appreciate a good recreational ride as much as the next cyclist, but for me, it’s not about excessive mileage or speed. I don’t race (often), I don’t torture myself with hill repeats or sprints. And I firmly believe that the best way to use a bike is as a form of transportation. Using bikes as transportation has serious implications for the state of our environment and our health. My feelings on this are why I really support Clif’s 2 Mile Challenge, and why I’m the leader of Team Gold, which represents the non-profit The Alliance for Biking and Walking.

Clif Bar gave three nonprofit organizations each a grant of $25,000. But Clif has committed to giving away $100,000. You can see how that math doesn’t quite add up…So Clif is using the 2 Mile Challenge to decide which nonprofit gets the extra $25,000. Want to help the Alliance for Biking and Walking win that extra grant? All you have to do is ride your bike…

Here’s how you can help the Alliance For Biking and Walking win $25,000 from Clif Bar:

Go to www.2MileChallenge.com.

Sign up (be sure it’s for Team Gold).

Ride your bike as a form of transit.

Log your miles.

That’s it! You can log up to four trips per day, and each trip is worth 2 points (we’re counting trips, not miles, here people!).  You can also challenge other members (or your friends, invite them to join!) to earn extra points. And if that isn’t reason enough, I also do trivia contests, give-aways, and challenges.

Speaking of Challenges:

I have one for new and current members alike. If you’re on Team Gold, you have the chance to win an awesome 2 Mile Challenge package. I (via Clif Bar) will send you team colored socks (by Sock Guy), arm warmers (also by Sock Guy), a bandanna, stickers, a keychain, some 2MC buttons, and some 2MC postcards to put out at your local bike shop or mail to friends.  Sounds good, right? Here’s the challenge:

Ride your bike as a form of transportation three times in one week.

On each trip, be sure you ride to (or past) a sign that displays the date (ideas: banks, schools, some fast food restaurants, you get the idea).

Take a photo of yourself with the sign in the background showing the date (this might take some coordinating if the date flashes for a only a brief amount of time–I realize this, but it’s part of the challenge!).

Send the photos (all in one email, please) to kaitlin (then the at sign) bicycleboulevards.com. (the weird email format is to avoid spam emails). At the end of the challenge, I’ll pick at random 3 of the folks who completed the challenge and send them the prize package. I may also pick several runner-ups for smaller prizes.

The challenge starts NOW, and runs through the end of August (that’s midnight PST, August 31, 2010).

Get out there and RIDE!

As part of my commitment to my Earth Day resolutions, I decided to try biking part of my epic commute. I drive 50 miles each way on any given workday, and I feel pretty bad about my carbon footprint, and my general lack of exercise that are the result of so much drive time. We’ve had a fair number of storms recently in the Bay Area, so I haven’t had a chance to try my new plan yet. I figure Bike to Work Day gives me the perfect opportunity!

So on May 13th, I will be taking BART from MacArthur station to Fremont, the end of the line. From there, I’ll be following the route mapped out below, using Google Maps’ relatively new bicycle directions. For some reason, Google doesn’t let you embed maps that show only the green bike routes that you normally see when using the “by bicycle” option. But this should give you a general idea of where I’m headed–it’s about 20 miles each way:

View Larger Map

Anyway, I encourage you to join in the Bike to Work festivities. Click here for the list of East Bay Bicycle Coalition “energizer stations” and here for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition list of “energizer stations”. If you check out the energizer stations, you can grab some coffee, snacks, and other goodies–definitely good motivation! I know I’ll be stopping at the energizer station at the Fremont BART station before I get on my bike to make the trek to San Jose. If you have a great story about biking to work, please leave a comment…the more we talk about loving being on bikes, the more people will give it a try, and find out they love it too!

The paths will link parts of town that cyclists could previously only get to by riding on bumpy roads in need of repair that are also heavily used by motor vehicle traffic.

I’m hoping Emeryville will catch on, and make more of an effort to link itself to the Berkeley paths so I can use these new routes!

You can read more about the details of the expansion in the article from today’s Contra Costa Times.

photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nafmo/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

San Francisco got a new bike lane! It’s the first new bike lane in the city in three years, and it’s green! SF Streetsblog has a great video of the press conference about it. In it, Mayor Newsom informs us that we currently have 45 miles of bike lanes in the city, and over the next six months want to stripe six more miles. The city will also be installing five bike racks per day.  And they’re painting the pavement different colors so everyone can see it’s a bike only zone. Some of those painted areas will be in front of the cars at stop lights, so that cyclists can be easily seen by cars at lights, and will get to go first when the light changes green. On top of that, they’re changing the timing of traffic lights so that bikes have enough time to get through.

Maybe it’s more like twelve steps forward, two steps back? Wow. Good job, San Francisco!

By why the sudden increase? As it turns out there was an injunction in place that prevented the city from making cycling improvements. Since that injunction, there has been a 53% increase in cycling. Mayor Newsom asks us to imagine what the increase could look like if we had bike lanes everywhere. He states that our goal is to increase the percentage of bike commutes in the city from the current 6% to 10% of commutes.

The lifting of the injunction is for sure yet, and the Mayor warns us that we may have to undo our improvements if the injunction isn’t permanently lifted. But there’s an air of optimism around the event–I think we’ll be seeing a total lifting of the injunction, and a lot more bicycle advocacy in San Francisco.

You can also read more about the new bike improvements at the San Francisco Citizen blog.

The Bicycle Boulevard system is great because it’s really just a series of road that are specially designated as bike paths.  They’re typically roads that see a low volume of traffic but are wide enough to leave plenty of room for cylcists to coexist with any cars that do happen to drive there.  The Bicycle Boulevards in the East Bay have few stop signs, and often have bridges or cut-through paths where appropriate. These modifications allow a cyclist to keep cruising at a decent speed, without having to take back roads that have a stop sign every block, or a bike path that can be slow and congested with joggers, walkers, roller bladers, and the like.

The City of Berkeley’s website has great details about where the Bicycle Boulevards are located, and how to understand the signage along the routes.  If you’re commuting in the East Bay, I encourage you to try and find your way via the Bicycle Boulevard system. It’s well marked, and can get you pretty much anywhere you need to go around Emeryville and Berkeley.