Get swag with a pedal pledge

Tomorrow is Bike to Work Day, the kick-off of BikePGH’s season of Car Free Fridays. If gas prices and parking fees and sitting in traffic weren’t incentive enough for you to get on a bike, there are a few motivational goodies thrown in.

Everyone who rides will receive a canvas Car Free Fridays bag filled with swag at a hydration station (see details below) from 7.30 to 9.30a. The bags contain, among other things, a Bike To Work Day Discount Passport good for use at a number of local businesses until May 24th.

At 8.30a, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl  will hold a press conference on the City-County Building’s portico. BikePGH’s Executive Director Scott Bricker will also talk.

The location of hydration stations are:

Golden Triangle Bike Rental and Eliza Furnace Trail, City-County Building portico, Downtown;

The Priory Hotel, 614 Pressley Street; at Federal & General Robinson Streets (near PNC Park), and Penn Brewery, Vinial St. and Troy Hill Road, North Side;

BikePGH, Doughboy Square, Lawrenceville;

Chatham U. Eastside, Fifth and Penn Avenues;

Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library, Forbes and Murray;

Baum Blvd Automotive, near Baum and Millvale, Shadyside;

Whole Foods Market, Centre Avenue, East Liberty;

Duquesne University, at Forbes across from the Barnes and Noble, Uptown;

Carnegie Mellon University, near the University Center tennis courts, Oakland;

REI in South Side Works; and

Friendship Park.

After work, Penn Brewery will hold a Bike from Work happy hour from 5 to 7p.  The Over the Bar Bicycle Café will initiate its Car Free Fridays happy hour and donate 10% of sales from now through October to BikePGH.

It's a little scary for some of us to brave that traffic, but the consciousness of drivers is being influenced little by little, with every painted bicycle symbol on roadways. Every new cyclist on the road is another reminder to car drivers that the road is not theirs first and others' second but a public route for all to share. 

Maybe one day we will have bike-exclusive lanes on our major corridors. I hope I can still move my legs up and down by then.