May is Bike Month in Virginia, and we at RIDE Solutions encourage you to dust off your bike and get riding this month! In addition to being a fun, healthy way to get around while helping you to earn discounts by logging your trips in the RIDE Solutions app, this month you’ll have a chance to win a great prize on top of that! Read on to find out more!
As we enter the heart of spring and the weather warms up, many of us are more eager than ever to spend time outdoors, and enjoy all that this season has to offer (although pollen-fueled allergies may impel some of us to beg to differ). Some of us may have made new year’s resolutions to live healthier lifestyles, although living a more active lifestyle has likely crossed many of our minds at some point, resolutions aside.
Getting on a bike is one of the most pleasurable ways to experience all that nature, and the outdoors in general, have to offer us, whil
e following through on a resolution, or even a hope, to live a more active, healthy lifestyle. So, if you haven’t been on a bike in a while, where can you ride? Perhaps you’ll want to ride around your neighborhood or on a trail just to get re-accustomed to cycling. Then, once you get more comfortable with it, you may want to at least on occasion incorporate bicycling into your work commute or your trip to the store, doctor’s appointment, etc., if your destination is just a few miles (or less) from your home and you can identify a reasonably safe and enjoyable route on which to ride.
For the month of May, RIDE Solutions is offering a great perk for your bicycle commute. By random draw, anyone who logs bicycle commute trips into the RIDE Solutions app will be eligible to win a $100 gift card. You’ll have a very good chance to win this gift card, since
an analysis of all bicycle trips logged into the RIDE Solutions app for the entire month of April revealed that only 24 members logged trips throughout the entire RIDE Solutions service area, which consists of the Roanoke, Lynchburg, New River Valley, and West Piedmont Regions!
According to a recent article in Cycling Weekly, health benefits of getting around by bike include improved mental well-being, a stronger immune system, weight loss, a reduction of the risk of developing disease or cancer, better brain health, and better quality sleep, among other benefits. In addition to these health benefits, traveling by bike will be beneficial to your wallet. First, pedaling around is a great way to save money on gas and, second, you’ll forgo wear-and-tear on your vehicle. An additional benefit in bicycling is environmental: emissions, including greenhouse gases, will not be emitted into the atmosphere.
A great resource for you to reference, especially if you have not gone bicycling in a while, you consider yourself a beginner, or you just want to find about bike-related events going on throughout the Commonwealth, please check out Bike!VA, a bicycling resource page managed by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT). Here, you’ll find some great tips on bike safety, bringing your bike on public transit, a directory of bike share systems throughout the Commonwealth, and information about bike trails throughout the state that may be useful to you. Click on this Bike!VA hyperlink, or visit www.bikeva.org to access the site.
Before you record any of your commute trips by bike, however, make sure you register for RIDE Solutions by going to ridesolutions.org, if you haven’t already. Once there, click “Login/Create Account,” and the only thing left to do is register, which is as easy as entering your first and last name, your email address, and a password. That’s it! You can also download the RIDE Solutions app to your smartphone for a more user-friendly experience. Now, you’re ready to RIDE! Make sure to log at least one commute trip during the month of May for a chance to win a $100 gift card! Happy pedaling!
