Bike to Work Week

8 June 2011Sarah M

With the days growing longer and the weather warmer, it’s a perfect time to take the scenic route to work by swapping four wheels for two and a gas-guzzling engine for a food fuelled one. As one of the Cowichan Valley’s twenty-six registered teams for this year’s Bike to Work Week, nine Brentwood staff and several day students have taken the initiative to go green for health—both by reducing emissions and by increasing daily exercise—by cycling their way to school.
BC’s Bike to Work Week is in its sixteenth year, having originated in Victoria in 1995, and has met with much success in past years with total kilometres reaching over 250 000 on Vancouver Island alone. Inspired by a wish to reduce gas consumption and carbon emissions from vehicles, combined with the desire to increase daily exercise, the week instigates a change in the way we view our daily commute. Cars may be faster, but even better than driving with the roof down on a summer day is riding without a roof: the 360° panorama and wind powered air conditioning can’t be beaten.
Whether it is cruising on your grandmother’s banana-seat bike, popping wheelies on a mountain bike, or swerving and speeding faster than a gazelle on your ten-speed racer, there’s an exhilaration that anyone who has ever felt pedal power is well familiar with; the saying is, after all, that one never forgets how to ride a bicycle. It is for these reasons that the convenience of a car is trumped by the youthful joy of riding. This makes it easy to realize once you’ve begun that staying healthy and being green is as easy as riding a bike.
Though the week may be over, once one starts to ride it is often hard to stop and with the re-opening of the Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay Ferry, bicycle friendly destinations are more abundant and easy to reach. The convenience of two wheels is steadily gaining on the expensive option of four.
Whether your reasons are based on reducing harmful emissions, spending a little less on gas, adding some activity to your daily life, or enjoying the outside beauty on your journey to work, when you take a trip to the city lights, there’s nothing better than being able to “take the long way home”.
“Change is a journey rather than an event” Bike to Work Week 2011

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