Clint Culpepper, Bike Hub supervisor, took a few minutes out his busy day to tell me about the upcoming Bike to PSU Challenge.
What is the Bike to PSU Challenge all about?
Clint: The Bike to PSU Challenge is our annual push to get more students and staff of the university to try bike commuting. This is our sixth year, but last year was definitely our best with over 800 participants logging miles and over 25% of them were new commuters.
What’s in it for me?
Clint: This year we have some fantastic prizes that will be given out throughout the Challenge. We have panniers and racks from Ortlieb, one-of-a-kind backpacks from Chrome, lights, caps and shirts from Knog and two trips on the Outdoor Program’s bike touring trip. Team captains will also get a T-shirt from the Challenge. We are most excited about two big prizes; Portland Design Works has given us enough of their Radbot 1000 taillights to give one away every day of the challenge and we have five Linus bikes to give away.
What advice do you have for those who have been thinking about commuting by bike, but haven’t taken the plunge?
Clint: For new riders, we recommend checking out the variety of free maps that the city of Portland has published. The city has done a fantastic job of creating safe routes around town to make it easier to get to and from campus. The Bike Hub has all of these maps available and our staff is more than happy to help people discover a route that works for them. It can be very intimidating for new riders, and one thing that we’ve found helps quite a bit is riding the route on the weekend or another day that they don’t have to be at school. This will give them the time to relax and sort out any worries that they may have.
I’m in! How do I sign up?
Clint: You can sign up at biketopsu.com. The registration is pretty easy, and from there you can sign up as a solo rider or as a team captain. If you would like to join a team that has already formed, the captain of the team can send you an invitation e-mail.
Anything else you’d like to say?
Clint: Biker Breakfast! Every Wednesday we’ll be rewarding riders with free donuts and coffee from Coco Donuts at the Urban Plaza, Smith Center, and Cramer Hall.
Look for me biking up Broadway every day in May on my bright yellow Jamis, aka “The Taxi”.