The 2015 ride season was the first year for Trailnet’s Century Club. Riders that completed five centuries on Trailnet BFC and/or partner rides earned a Century Club patch and recognition on our website. Last year, ten riders pedaled through this daunting feat, one of whom completed nine out of the ten eligible centuries!
For 2016 we challenge our riders to more than double the size of the Century Club – be one of the riders who helps us reach our goal of 25 members! Eligible events include the Ride the Rivers Century, other BFC rides that include century options, or any of our partner fundraising events that include a century ride.
It’s easy to “join” the club. For each ride, the online registration page includes a check box to participate in the century. If you are riding for one of our partner fundraising rides, let them know you are participating in Trailnet’s Century Club.
As the season goes on, we will keep you updated on the list of riders pedaling their way to their 500 mile goal!
Host a Bike to Work Day Station
Celebrate the 60th anniversary of Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 20 by hosting a Refueling Station at your workplace. Join Trailnet in counting 500 cyclists throughout the STL area. We will help promote your station and your business!
How it works:
Recruit co-workers to run the station with you.
Decide what “fuel” you will provide. Beverage and food items may be purchased or donated by partner businesses.
Fill out the online Refueling Station form. Trailnet will arrange for delivery of educational materials to be displayed at your station.
Promote Bike to Work Day at your workplace through flyers, employee newsletters, email, and social media.
If your workplace doesn’t have one already, create a team on ShiftYourCommute.com. Celebrate the benefits of biking throughout National Bike Month by logging your car-free miles (biking, walking and using public transit).
Provide support and encouragement for your co-workers leading up to Bike to Work Day. Some ideas include:
Route mapping – provide links or maps in your company newsletter featuring bike-friendly routes; if you are a regular bike commuter, list your favorite streets, shortcuts, and parks to ride through.
Bike mentors – pair novice cyclists with experienced bike commuters who can accompany them on their first ride to work.
Bike trains – identify meeting locations to “pick up” fellow bike commuters; designate an experienced commuter to lead the group from each spot, ending at your workplace’s refueling station.
On Bike to Work Day, track the number of people who visit your station (don’t forget to count yourself and any colleagues who help run the station), and send your final tally to Taylor March at taylor@trailnet.org by Monday, May 23.
Thank your volunteers, pat yourselves on the back, and start thinking of ideas for next year. Share your success through your company’s social media, employee newsletter, and partners. Share the experience with Trailnet and send any photos or quotes to taylor@trailnet.org.
Keep those wheels rolling through the cold! Bike, walk, or take transit to work and log your miles on shiftyourcommute.com. The program will keep track of your car-free trips, calories burned, and carbon emissions saved. Commuters who log the most car-free miles during the month of February will be entered to win some rad Trailnet gear.
This year also brings the Winter Limbo competition. Those who log biking commutes on the coldest day(s) of the winter will be entered to win a long sleeve jersey from Retro Image Apparel.
Tell your friends and colleagues and help us build a community around active lifestyles!
February’s Shift Your Commute Challenge is sponsored by BMO Harris Bank.
Father and son Richard and James Fox spent a blustery Sunday afternoon in January giving away bike lights to riders on the Forest Park bike path. The pair, along with James’ girlfriend Skye Clogson, flagged down cyclists pedaling up the popular trail along Skinker Boulevard.
Richard’s interest in cycling safety has a long history. While attending college in Tuscon, Arizona, he founded Share the Road, a company that manufactured high visibility cycling clothing. After hearing of a cyclist who was left paralyzed after being struck by a car, Richard came up with the light project to impress on his son the importance of riding safely and to help keep other cyclists safe.
The Fox’s chose Forest Park because they knew that it was a popular route for urban riders. Standing to the side of the bike path, they waved down any riders who lacked this important safety asset.
“People were super skeptical at first,” says James. “They had never seen anyone do this. Many wouldn’t stop and my dad had to run alongside them.”
“Everyone was suspicious about ulterior motives,” says Richard. To get riders’ attention, he often called out “Your mother would be happy that we gave this to you.”
James began bicycling while a student at Lafayette High School, starting by dusting off his father’s 30-year-old bike. He began riding with a group at Big Shark Bicycle’s Tuesday evening crits, and by the age of 17 he was placing and winning races. He went on to ride in the Tilles Park Criterion, Pedal the Cause, and a Gran Fondo on the Katy Trail. This past year he worked as a salesman at Big Shark Bicycle Company, where he used the shop to tune up his own bike and learned about the history of the sport.
“Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride,” James quotes cycling champion Eddie Merckx. Cycling is independence for James. “Even the most social person… needs time to themselves and cycling does that for me.”
The father and son share their passion for cycling and spent two weeks together during the summer of 2014, riding from St. Louis to Breckenridge, Colorado.
James is now studying Public Health at New York University. He is a member of the NYU Cycling Team and races in the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference. This takes him to competitions all along the eastern seaboard. He is also navigating the streets of New York City on a bicycle, far different from the rural roads near the family home in Wildwood. While he plans to work as a doctor or a health care analyst, he dreams of owning his own bike shop one day.
Of their recent light project, Richard remarked, “There was such a great reaction. I think we’ll do it every year.” As the sun started to fade that Sunday in Forest Park and the Fox family packed their gear into their truck, they saw a cyclist approaching in the twilight. Richard was impressed with the intensity of the lights on the oncoming bike. They waited, idling as the rider neared. The cyclist looked familiar. As he passed, James, Richard and Skye saw that the lights on the bike were theirs. They flashed their headlights at the grateful cyclist, and I waved back.
Like many local professionals, Adrian Stillman makes frequent trips to other cities in the Midwest. Unlike most business travelers, Adrian makes these visits without getting into a car or walking through an airport. His modes of transportation include his bicycle, Metro bus, MetroLink and Amtrak.
In order to get in better shape and to save money, Adrian sold his car five years ago, bought a used bicycle, and began commuting to his office by bike—a twelve-mile round trip. Never a bicyclist before this, he soon decided to extend his car-free travels beyond St. Louis.
Adrian’s most recent trip took him to Milwaukee in early November. Loaded with a change of clothes and his laptop, he left his house at 4:30 a.m., biked a few blocks to catch an express bus to the Brentwood MetroLink station, rolled his bike onto the Metro and arrived at the Amtrak station in plenty of time for his train’s 6:40 a.m. departure. Adrian estimated door-to-door travel time for his trip to Milwaukee at ten hours. A nonstop flight to Milwaukee from St. Louis takes just over an hour. This begs the obvious question: why does he do it?
“I love being able to explore and appreciate the world as I travel,” Adrian said. “Using my bike and transit, I can relax and enjoy the scenery, look at the interesting architecture and hear the music – I can explore the new city in a way that you just can’t in a car.”
Most importantly, Adrian values the way that his travels allow him to “connect with other people by sharing physical and social space with them.”
Trailnet staff member Ginny McDonald accompanied Stillman on the St. Louis leg of his journey and observed Adrian connecting and conversing with everyone from the bus driver, to other early-morning commuters, to the person who sold him his first cup of coffee at the Amtrak station. Other transit commuters shared the value of time spent together rather than being isolated in a car. Two co-workers who knitted during their bus ride described their commute as “much more relaxing than driving and a lot cheaper than therapy.”
Would Stillman recommend this mode of travel to others?
“It’s very empowering to travel like this, especially to new places,” he said. “We are all good at throwing obstacles in front of ourselves that prevent us from doing new things. It is up to us to overcome those obstacles.”
One of the barriers that Adrian encountered on this trip was having to dismantle and box his bike for the train from Chicago to Milwaukee. Amtrak baggage staff helped him with the transfer.
“Those guys were great,” Adrian said. “Any connection is so valuable, even when you have to ask for help and show that you are a little vulnerable. That’s life.”
Adrian also appreciates the importance of Trailnet’s efforts in helping to break down barriers to biking and using transit in our region.
“They are doing some awesome things for our community,” He said. “Don’t keep it a secret – tell a friend!”
Century Club Members 2015
For information about the Century Club, click here.
Click here to see the lists of riders who participated in each of the eligible rides.
The data from our 2015 walk and bike counts is in. Thanks to the 76 volunteers who donated 152 hours of their time to count cyclists and pedestrians throughout the St. Louis Metro region in September. Collecting such extensive data can be a real challenge, and it would not have been possible without them. You’ve helped make Trailnet a resource for advising the city and other organizations on transportation-related decisions. We have summited the data to the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, which compiles data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals. We also submit the data to local planning agencies and nonprofits to inform plans for better biking and walking.
League Cycling Instructors Certified at Trailnet
Among the many ways that the League of American Bicyclists advocates for bike safety is their training of League Cycling Instructors. These instructors are certified to teach Smart Cycling classes to both children and adults, with the goal of helping people feel more secure on their bikes, and to ensure that bicyclists know how to ride safely and legally.
In mid-October, Trailnet hosted League Cycling coach Preston Tyree and twelve candidates at a League Cycling Instructor Seminar. The seminar provided three days of intensive training that included both classroom instruction and on-bike skills development. All of the candidates were experienced bicyclists. The seminar provided them with techniques that they will use to share their knowledge with less-seasoned bicyclists. Most of the seminar participants were St. Louis residents, and it is Trailnet’s hope that these instructors will provide grassroots instruction in their communities to help bicyclists improve their skills and confidence levels.
All of the seminar participants were evaluated by Coach Tyree and local League Cycling Instructors. Each participant made several classroom presentations, and was also evaluated for their competence at performing on-bike handling skills and safely negotiating traffic.
Candidates plan on using their certification in a variety of ways. Some wanted to become certified in order to help their communities or workplaces to attain Bicycle Friendly status. Some were already working with youth or adults and hope to broaden their capacity to help other bicyclists. All of the candidates shared a passion for bicycling and a desire to spread their enthusiasm.
Trailnet thanks Kaemmerlen Electric for providing us with a parking lot on which to practice bike handling skills, Papa John’s for donation of pizza, and The Fountain on Locust for welcoming twenty hungry cyclists with indoor bike parking and a fantastic lunch. Special thanks to Great Rivers Greenway for funding the seminar and to Ariell Heacox and Preston Tyree of The Bike League for their support and excellent coaching. Finally, congratulations to all twelve of the candidates who successfully completed their certification. We appreciate your hard work and dedication and know that you will be valuable resources for other bicyclists in your communities.
Volunteer at the Ride the Rivers Century
Be a part of one of the greatest rides in the midwest. Volunteers are still needed for this Sunday, September 20.
The September Challenge is here! Ride your bike to work, walk, or take public transit and log your car-free miles on Shift Your Commute. This free, web-based program automatically calculates calories burned and carbon emissions saved. Every trip makes a difference – for your health, for the environment, and for regional planning. Trailnet uses data generated from Shift Your Commute to plan projects that improve opportunities for active transportation throughout the region. Prizes will be awarded for individuals and teams who log the most car-free miles during the month of September.
Father and son Richard and James Fox spent a blustery Sunday afternoon in January giving away bike lights to riders on the Forest Park bike path. The pair, along with James’ girlfriend Skye Clogson, flagged down cyclists pedaling up the popular trail along Skinker Boulevard.
