Congrats to Skip Slomski, the winner of the Bike Month Challenge. His grand prize was a bike-themed cake from Charm City Cakes. Isn’t it cool? Thanks to the Charm City Cakes crew for creating the absolute coolest culinary representation of B’more’s bike culture.
Thanks for participating in the Bike Month Challenge. This was a great experience for us. Bike Month Challengers enjoyed a green commute totaling 8,200 miles during May, the majority of which was biked.
Skip Slomski won the Grand Prize (5,966 points) and the prize for Most Bike Commuting Miles. Skip’s grueling multimodal commute for May included 700 miles on his bike, not including miles spent on the MARC.
Fran Horan won the prize for Best Bike to Work Day Coordinator (28 coworkers coordinated) and also the 2nd Place Prize for the challenge for racking in 3905 points. Fran commuted 286 miles on his bike.
Third place prize for the Challenge went to Bill Cunningham, bringing in 3600 points. Bill was an avid poster to our Posterous Group and also racked in 481 bike commuting miles and coordinated 11 coworkers to bike on Bike to Work Day.
Honorable mentions go to Melissa Chatham (3465 points) and Billy Dewar (2793 points), who both lead the 4th and 5th place positions in the Challenge. Billy also recorded more individual days of bike commuting in the city than any other participant. Way to go! Another honorable mention goes to Nina Charity who lead posting to our Posterous Group and helped out at the busy Harbor East pit stop on B2WD.
We would also like to thank some of our gracious sponsors, who contributed prizes and publicity to the Bike Month Challenge.
Charm City Cakes
Joe’s Bike Shop (Mt. Washington and Fells Point)
Twenty20 Cycling (Hampden)
Baltimore Bicycle Works
Race Pace Bicycles Federal Hill
Waterfront Partnership (A Smarter Way to Get There Initiative)
Zipcar
Baltimore Metropolitan Council
JHU Applied Physics Lab leads Bike to Work Day
Today marks the close of Bike Month and after 12pm today, we’ll start tallying the winners for the Bike Month Challenge. So please post your remaining photos and commuting miles by noon today!
We had outstanding participation this year in the Bike Month Challenge and a lot of interesting ideas on how to make it better. We’ll talk about that in a later post.
I will try to have the winners determined by the end of the day, but if not we’ll try for tomorrow. Some things won’t be counted until later (B2WD pit stop participation) and if it makes a difference in the winners, we’ll hold off.
Last Friday was Bike to Work Day and this year we had a 50% increase in the number of registrations, most likely a result of decentralizing the effort to different pit stop locations around the city. Thanks to all who stopped by one of our pit stop locations on Friday!
We do have a winner for our “Best Bike to Work Day Coordinator” prize. We are awarding the Bike Month Challenger who coordinated the most coworkers to bike on Bike to Work Day a Chrome Messenger Bag (courtesy of Joe’s Bike Shop) and a $100 gift card to Race Pace Bicycles Federal Hill (courtesy of Race Pace).
Congrats to Fran Horan of JHU’s Applied Physics Lab. He coordinated 28 coworkers to participate on Bike to Work Day.
Thanks to all of our volunteers and bike shop partners that made this year’s B2WD possible: Molla Sarros, Deirdre Elvis-Peterson, Katie Gore, Heather Strassberger (Baltimore Metropolitan Council), David Love, Eric Smith, Sharon Busching, Beth Laverick (Waterfront Partnership), Meredith Mitchell, Matt Greenwood, Nina Charity, Joe’s Bike Shop (Mt. Washington and Fells Point), Race Pace Bicycles Federal Hill, Light Street Cycles, Twenty20 Cycles, Velocipede, and Baltimore Bicycle Works.
Thanks to all who made the effort of coordinating coworkers to participate on B2WD. It is so important that cyclists act as ambassadors to the cause of getting more people out of their cars and commuting by bike.
We’re half done with Bike Month and we’ve got some great news to share. We have added a new prize to the Bike Month Challenge competition. The person who is 3rd place for total # of points will win a $100 REI gift card. I hope that’s extra incentive for those in the crowded 2nd place field.
I’ve been busy tallying up points so far. Here’s how it stands for total score:
1st Place – Skip Slomski (3009 pts)
2nd Place – Bernie Shiao (1192 pts)
3rd Place – Billy Dewar (1107 pts)
4th Place- Kevin Lavey (999 pts)
5th Place – Adam Driscoll (822 pts)
6th Place – George Wittenberg (810 pts)
7th Place – Nina Charity (800 pts)
8th Place – Melissa Chatham (780 pts)
9th Place – Vi Nguyen (742 pts)
10th Place – Lauren Carpenter (723 pts)
Guess what? We’ve got another surprise bonus opportunity to earn points (and change the field of who is winning). We’re really stoked about Bike to Work Day this Friday (May 20th), and you should be too! We were going to give you 10 points per coworker biked. How about we make that 100 points per coworker biked? For those of you in smaller offices, we will allow you to count folks you’ve “corralled” from different employers biking to the same location (say, staff from offices next door) in the count. But in order to count anything, we need a group shot posted to Posterous with the name of the employer(s) involved.
Bike parking is at many Zip Car locations
Special thanks to Zipcar for contributing to our Second Place prize!
Zipcar loves cyclists. You’re the unsung enviro-heroes, finding ways to get from point A to point B that’s good for you and the planet.
The happy members of Zipcar and car-sharing programs report a 10% increase in bicycling trips, lessening their impact on the environment. Zipcar isn’t just convenient for you; it’s an eco-conscious transportation alternative for everyday life.
And while bikes are great, there are some things that just don’t fit on a ten-speed. (Futons come to mind.) For low hourly and daily rates, you can choose from trucks, coupes, hybrids, SUVs and more. Best of all? Gas and insurance is included.
Nate and I would like to thank Twenty20 Cycling for their support of the Bike Month Challenge. Here’s a special opportunity for Bike Month Challenge participants from the team at Twenty20:
Twenty 20 Cycling is proud to be a supporter of the Bike Month Challenge. Drop by the shop and with proof of participation, receive 10% off any accessory, including our custom Twenty20 Blend of Zeke’s Coffee, to keep you going on your rides. Twenty20 is a full service bike shop offering sales, repair, and bike fitting services. Shop hours are Monday – Friday from 11-7pm, Saturday from 10-6pm, and Sunday from 11-4pm. Find us on the web and Facebook!
Note: use the confirmation e-mail I sent when you registered with as proof of registration.
For those of you planning to commute to the Carroll Park Pit Stop on Bike To Work Day, there have been a number of convoys formed around the region for those of you who want to commute as part of a group. View the list of convoys and their contact information below:
This week marks the start of Bike Month and there are only a few days left for you to sign-up for the Bike Month Challenge. We decided early on to keep registration open through the first week of May.
For those of you already signed-up, you should start recording your bike commuting miles and posting event photos to Posterous.
One great opportunity to earn points is the Kinetic Sculpture Race, coming this Saturday. Don’t forget to attend and post your photos!
On Thursday, May 5th, Bike Maryland is hosting a Bike Commuter Workshop. If you’re thinking about trying bicycle commuting, attend this workshop to meet other commuters and learn tips for successful bike commuting. The course will cover traffic safety, essential gear and other helpful tips. To participate, meet at Race Pace Bicycles on 1410 Key Highway at 6:30pm. Take photos and earn points.
Even if you don’t participate in the Challenge, don’t forget to attend all the great Bike Month events during the month of May!
Bike Month begins this week. For all you Bike Month Challengers, I wanted to clarify our contest rules on the Bike Commuting Contest portion of the Challenge. We will count bike commuting miles to and from work/college. The recording form should not be used to record non-work/school bike trips (like running errands or riding trails for leisure). Those trips will not count toward your score. After all, one of the main purposes of this contest is to promote using bikes for transportation (rather than just for sport or fun).
I’d like to thank the Waterfront Partnership’s A Smarter Way to Get There initiative for their hard work in spreading the word about Bike Month and helping organize Bike Month events. Stay “in the know” about all Waterfront Partnership news and events by becoming a fan of the Waterfront Partnership Facebook page www.facebook.com/Waterfront Partnership. In celebration of May’s National Bike Month, Waterfront Partnership will be giving away a free Trek bike to one of their Facebook fans. Post a smarter way to get there on their wall to be automatically entered to win. Get “rolling” and become a fan today!
