C-U Bike to Work Day

REGISTER NOW FOR THIRD ANNUAL C-U BIKE TO WORK DAY!

www.CUBikeToWork.com

C-U Bike to Work Day is our community’s celebration of the League of American Bicyclists’ Bike to Work Day, a national day to encourage and educate new bicycle commuters. After bicycling to work that first time, some are often willing to try it again, and many make it a regular habit. Bicycling to work provides many benefits to an individual and to a community, from improved health and fitness to an improved environment and less traffic congestion. Supporting and encouraging someone to make that first commute by bicycle is an important first step to realizing those benefits.

The City of Urbana, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, and the Champaign-Urbana MTD all recognize the importance of these benefits. By partnering with Champaign County Bikes and many other local organizations, we all worked together to organize an event to provide the encouragement a new bicycle commuter may need, and the recognition experienced bicycle commuters deserve.

We will have ten Bike Stations across the community where bicyclists will gather to celebrate their commute with other bicyclists, join together for breakfast snacks and camaraderie, and to receive a free C-U Bike to Work Day t-shirt (designed by a fantastic local graphic designer!) and re-useable water bottles. Some of the Bike Stations will offer basic bicycle checks conducted by bike mechanics.

So far, over 300 people have registered for C-U Bike to Work Day 2012. Register now and help us get to 400!

Here are some interesting facts about last year's participants:

• Over 50% of last year's participants were affiliated with the University. Other organizations with high numbers of employees/students participating were the Urbana Middle and High Schools with nearly 30 students, faculty, and staff registered, employees of the cities of Urbana and Champaign ran neck-in-neck with 26 employees each, Parkland College had 23 people participate, Wolfram Research had 22, and Carle had 15.
• Over 15% of last year's bicyclists either never bicycled to work before or only bicycled to work to prepare for the event.
• There was about a 50/50 split of 2011's participants who also biked to work (or school) in C-U Bike to Work Day 2010 and those who participated for the first time in 2011.
• And, last but not least, the event took at least 229 cars off our streets last year on the second annual C-U Bike to Work Day! Let's see if we can take more cars off our streets this year.

 For more information and to register, go to CUBikeToWork.com.