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Oil up the chain, it’s Go by Bike Week

Annual cycling campaign takes place in Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows May 31 to June 6
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The goals of Go by Bike week are to encourage residents to choose cycling for transportation, workplaces to support employees who want to cycle, and our communities to better support more sustainable and active methods of transportation. ( News files)

HUB Cycling Maple Ridge/ Pitt Meadows and the Maple Ridge Climate Hub are making a tandem effort to get locals pedalling for Go by Bike Week.

The annual campaign, previously known as Bike to Work/Bike to School Week, is designed to showcase cycling as a fun and useful mode of transportation with plenty of benefits.

Taking place from May 31 to June 6, its goals are to encourage residents to choose cycling as their method of transportation for work, errands, and recreation; workplaces to support employees cycling to-and-from work, and our communities to better support more sustainable and active methods of transportation.

Local HUB spokesperson Jackie Chow said while it appears a lot more people are cycling recreationally, there are not enough residents using their bikes as a transportation method.

She pointed to information from the City of Maple Ridge’s transportation plans showing only 0.3 per cent of all trips in the city are made using a bicycle.

“It’s pretty sad, actually,” Chow said.

“But I think there are a lot of things that can be done to reverse that. But it depends on how we design our roads, because so far we design our roads for car travel.”

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To actively participate in the week, teams and individuals can sign up at btww.ca to track their kilometres, be entered to win great prizes, and see how many greenhouse gas emissions they’ve saved. Informative webinars and videos will be offered each day – the schedule is posted on the HUB Cycling website.

Bragging rights and a unique trophy will be up for grabs in a friendly competition between the City of Maple Ridge and the City of Pitt Meadows.

Staff are reviving their riding rivalry to see who can get the highest average kilometres per participant, the most new riders, and who has the most fun team – as evidenced by participants submitting photos of their routes.

The winner will receive “The Fork” which is a one-of-a-kind trophy made out of used bike parts.

It is rumoured the current holder of the coveted prize is Pitt Meadows staff.

A documentary screening/ panel discussion will also be offered.

Motherload is a film on the joys of hauling around kids – and everything else in the world – on a cargo bike.

It follows around director Liz Canning on her quest to understand the tension between modern life and our hunter-gatherer DNA – and how cargo bikes offer a solution.

The free screening runs from May 28 through May 30, with an online panel discussion the evening of May 31. Panelists include Christian Cowley, executive director of the CEED Centre Society, Jennie Wright from the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows HUB Cycling chapter, and Erin O’Melinn, executive director of HUB Cycling.

Click here to register for the screening and panel discussion.

To wrap up the week, a free webinar on Cycling in Metro Vancouver suburbs: Barriers and Opportunities will be held.

It will touch upon the need for safe cycling infrastructure in our suburban communities.

“It’s nice to have that as a wrap up event,” said Chow. “Because maybe people have been thinking of Go by Bike Week but they’re not so sure about the infrastructure, or they don’t feel safe.

“So this is a good thing to get people thinking about what sort of infrastructure they would feel safe with, and what would make them bike more.”

Click here to take part in the cycling webinar.


Have a story tip? Email: ronan.p.odoherty@blackpress.ca
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