Announcing 2013 Trophy Winners of Harrisonburg Bike to Work Day!

This post by Anne Lorimer, queen ringleader for Bike Month-Bike to Work Day.

 

Salutations Captains, Sponsors & Organizers! We interrupt your summer to announce OUR THREE TROPHY WINNERS for Bike to Work Day, 2013 … (drumroll)

…. EMU, Laughing Dog, and Tradeshowdirect! See below for color commentary, cultural analysis, and *proof* *Harrisonburg has become more bike-friendly than Portland, Oregon*!

PROOF HARRISONBURG IS MORE BIKE-FRIENDLY THAN PDX:

*PDX’s Bike to Work contest has had to put bicycle shops in a special category, because otherwise they’d win everything and that would be boring.*In past years, HburgBike2Work likewise had special trophies for bike or fitness-related businesses, who otherwise would sweep the participation and average mileage trophies. *This year we are proud to note that NONE of our three winners is in such a line of work!* True, Tradeshowdirect’s boss is Ken Bell, who also owns our Titanium Sponsor Rocktown Bicycles; however when we initially dropped by the shop in Ken’s absence, all riders present were clearly lured in by the desirability and challenge of the trophy itself. *What this means is that bike commuting is no longer disproportionately owned by athletes and bike geeks* (not that there’s anything wrong with such folk, whom we gratefully venerate for their pioneering & ongoing work). Instead, the bike commute has become public property, to be claimed by anyone who looks for pleasure in daily life, who values sustainability, or who enjoys a friendly competition.

PARTICIPATION TROPHY:

This category was a 7-way tie among Blue Sprocket Sound, Laughing Dog, Our Community Place, Rocktown Bicycles, Tradeshowdirect, Walkabout Outfitter, and Wyse Cycles, each of whom did our city proud by achieving *100% participation*. We broke the tie by looking at sheer quantity: Tradeshowdirect had more than twice the riders of any other team, as well as twice the novices, including habitual skater Aaron, who heroically rode in on an old Victory. Captain Zach Koops not only marshaled his team with verve but also revealed himself as diligent and detail-minded in compiling and communicating data – we here at Bike2Work are grateful to him for making our job so easy.

AVERAGE MILEAGE TROPHY:

Our old friends Laughing Dog rode in just in time for breakfast and rode out through a drenching to achieve their stunning 18.3 mile average! In second place were our Aluminum Sponsor Walkabout Outfitter, with an average of 15.45 thanks to Captain Paula Benson’s whopping 28.3 round-trip, as well as the 2.6 miles Aaron logs pretty much every day. In third place were Blue Sprocket Sound, whose recording studio opens in two weeks: they averaged 12 miles captained by Travis Whitmore, accompanied by Chris Jackson in his impressive debut commute.

WEIGHTED PARTICIPATION TROPHY:

*Captains at large workplaces face special challenges*, and so we award a trophy each year based on a formula that takes size into account. Reigning champion Eastern Mennonite University not only retained their title but boosted their participation rate from 12% to 14%. *We attribute this success to two factors: culture, and data-wrangling. *

Firstly, all Mennonite groups do unusually well in this trophy category, perhaps reflecting a cultural, social, and religious emphasis on *plain living, cooperative communities, and creation care*. We’ve noted that any organization with the word ‘Mennonite’ in its name will out-perform any other organization, unless that organization is smaller or also has the word ‘Mennonite’ in its name (Eastern Mennonite School, Eastern Mennonite University, MennoMedia, or Virginia Mennonite Missions). This pre-eminence recurs at the national level, where EMU won the 2012 National Bike Challenge for small universities.

Secondly, for Team Captains of large organizations, data-wrangling is an essential skill. EMU’s reign began under the leadership of Greg Sachs, a professional data-wrangler, and has continued under Jonathan Lantz-Trissel, who as Sustainability Coordinator has long specialized in quantifying such goals. Lantz-Trissel is one of three captains to submit his data as a spreadsheet, the others being tech-savvy Rosetta Stone captain Kevin Burnett, and Elena Histand Stuckey, who is both a math teacher AND the captain of a Mennonite organization (EMS).

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN 2014?

Can Walkabout Outfitter seize the mileage trophy by sending Aaron on a 7-mile *detour*? (Detours are allowed because, while the mileage trophy is intended to benefit teams who face special challenges, we don’t want to *perversely penalize* participants for living close to their workplace.) Can a non-Mennonite team with an *ace data-wrangler* find a way to *replicate and rival those cultural advantages*, or develop others of their own? To find out, please join us again next year!

We salute everyone who rode, walked, captained, sponsored, and data-wrangled! It has been a great pleasure to recruit, feed, and correspond with you all!

HUZZAH FOR HARRISONBURG BICYCLE COMMUTING!!!

Anne (for hburgbike2work.org)