Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition gets in gear
Cyclist Chris Jones with his son, Trevor. Photo courtesy of SCBC
After the February announcement of departure of Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition’s long term executive director Christine Culver, many Sonoma County cyclists were concerned about the future of the organization. Staff members say they needn’t worry. The group continues to sponsor many of the community events that came to fruition during Culver’s seven years as its head.
“Our staff and board have done well transitioning,” says Development and Outreach Director Sandra Lupien. “We’re in such a strong place right now.”
Known best for bicycle valet parking at the downtown Santa Rosa farmers market, the annual Bike Expo at Santa Rosa’s Juilliard Park and other public events, the group brings a variety of projects to the community.
Street Skills clinics, for example, are workshops that teach basic bike commuter safety. Other programs include bicycle repair clinics, Safe Routes to School and outreach about general safety and traffic issues.
With talk of a new executive director joining them later this spring when Culver, who remains on staff part-time takes her leave, the three full-time and six part-time staff members are working full speed on one of their busiest seasons.
The sunny bike riding season kicks off April 30, with “We Love Bikes Day” and a “Haul Stuff by Bike” clinic at the Santa Rosa Farmer’s Market.
Throughout the month of May, the Coalition will offer bike repair clinics and run more than 30 Energizer stations throughout Sonoma County on Bike to Work Day, May 12.
“We really want to promote a multimodal transportation community,” says Lupien. In other other words, they want to see more people on bikes this spring.
For more information about Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, visit www.bikesonoma.org. To register for the Team Bike Challenge, and to qualify for prizes, visit www.youcanbikethere.com.
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Thanks for highlighting SCBC’s programs! FYI – the SCBC Safe Routes to School Program provides resources, technical support, and services to Sonoma County schools in order to reduce traffic congestion & greenhouse gas emissions and to improve safety, security, air-quality & children’s health by making it safer and more convenient for families to walk or bicycle to school. This occurs through five E’s – education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement, and evaluation. For more information and/or to find out about available resources, visit our website and/or sign up for our monthly E-News (click on the E-News tab) or contact saferoutes@bikesonoma.org.
I look forward to this event. There is much work to do to get the safety messege out to the unsafe and dangerous riders that are ruining it for the people who truely “share the road” and not ride like they “own the road”. We all know the type, they are what I call “activist riders”. Sonoma County bends over backwards for cyclists, let’s keep it going!
As a fundraising auction item for the Sebastopol Independent Charter School, I am sponsoring a full-moon bike ride from Sebastopol to the Russian River Brewery in downtown Santa Rosa. There will be up to 15 cyclists. We welcome more cyclists if anyone else wants to coordinate a ride ‘coincidently’ on that same night. We haven’t picked which full moon date yet but if someone wants to be notified when we decide, let me know. I’m picturing lots and lots of bikes out front. Fun stuff. Greg