BFC had an eventful night at RioSwap last night. By appearance, it was the best attended RioSwap by a solid margin.
In addition to the usual margs and bike parts, this year added trainer races (Courtesy of Gold Bike Friendly Business Source Endurance Center of the Rockies) and a live broadcast of The Bikes and Beer Radio Show.
IT was also BFC’s opportunity to talk about our new look and new vision publicly for the first time. I’ve been using the language for a while, because I think its an easy way to explain Bike fort Collins. Its an elevator pitch if you will.
The gist is this:
- While infrastructure is critical, its wasted if it goes unused, and also probably counter productive.
- Reciprocally, encouraging “interested but concerned” cyclists to take the leap is much harder without safe streets and progressive community attitudes about sustainable transportation to support them.
- While a thriving, possibly even sprawling, bike community is an enviable situation for most communities, with scale comes the challenge of uniting and engaging and educating ALL cyclists about our shared challenges. and presenting a unified voice to governments and businesses who influence the way our community grows.
So I’ve come to think of advocacy and community development as something of a feedback loop. If we work to get more people on bikes, we have a bigger community to engage and activate to do the work, and together we can effect change to the way we think about and plan our shared public roads and spaces. And this, in turn, helps us get more people on bikes.
Neat, huh?
The best part is, it distills to 6 simple words
More Bikes, Safe Streets, One Voice.
And thats our vision.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out a number of announcement about programs and events. Some new, some expanded, some old favorites we’re bringing back.
The first major news is that starting today, bikefortcollins.org will host an ambitious new blog dedicated to sharing news about everything that’s going on in NoCo cycling, with the goal of creating a more engaged, informed bike community. Topics will range from infrastructure to events to advocacy to project updates and closures and more. And we’ll be updating it twice a week. I am tremendously proud of the lineup, which includes contributions from the Bicycle Advisory Committee, the FC Bike Co-op, Overland Mountain Bike Club, FC Bikes/City of Fort Collins, Your Group Ride, Pedal Fort Collins, FC Bike Share and more. We have a stable of regular contributors and plans for special guests from time to time a well. This blog will covering everything from racing to advocacy to city policy to trail conditions to current events affecting NoCo Cyclists. The blog will be updated twice a week.
So here’s where you come in. BFC has committees and programs that are doing great work, and the programs we’re announcing over the coming weeks that will balance our advocacy and shape our city. We need everyone who rides a bike, or even cares about someone who rides a bike, or even just cares about sustainable transportation and a healthy future for Fort Collins to join us.
Theres a tab up top that says “Support”, There’s so many ways to support us.
- Become a member
- Become a volunteer
- Become a donor
- Join our Bike Friendly Business network
- Join a committee
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Follow us on social media.
Being recognized as a Platinum Bike Friendly Community is an acknowledgement that Fort Collins takes cycling seriously.
Now, our responsibility, as a bike community and as a city, is to make sure that as we continue to grow and change, everyone in Northern Colorado has access and resources to choose bikes and other sustainable transportation, can make informed transportation decisions, and enjoy safe streets. We must use our platform to develop new programs, that lead lead the way for other cities to make the shift to putting people first in their communities.
Join us today.
We Bike Fort Collins
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