Earn Points to Send a Message: Bikes Belong

By Eric Draper, Board President of the Florida Bicycle Association and a volunteer with Capital City Cyclists in Tallahassee

For the first time, I am recording my rides as part of the Love to Ride Florida Challenge. If this isn’t fun, then I don’t know what is. But more importantly, it sends a message.

Long and short, for errands or fun, I remind myself to add my bicycling miles to the webpage.

While there, I look at members of my team’s rides, give them high fives, and feel a sense of camaraderie and competition. I also have reached out to friends, my local bike club and people on club rides to encourage them to participate.  

The people who put together the Challenge created a fun contest. But I don’t ride for prizes or even recognition. I want to send a message to transportation and law enforcement agencies and decision-makers that people are using Florida’s roads and shared-use paths for bicycling. 

Why does it matter? Florida leads the nation in bicycle and pedestrian deaths and serious injuries. Too many crashes are the result of outdated road designs that focused only on traffic, when people on foot or bicycles seemed to be just an afterthought. Speeding and distracted driving compound the problem now.  

State and local planners and engineers have started adopting designs that are safer for everyone. Law enforcement agencies are holding drivers more accountable for their actions. These changes are supported by the evidence we provide, by the points we put on the board—literally through the Love to Ride Challenge and figuratively through our advocacy work.

Join me in sending the message through the Challenge that bicycles belong, and please do so before Nov. 30 to ensure your rides get counted before the official Challenge concludes.

Oh, and I thought of something more fun than participating in Love to Ride: sling-shotting around the group to win!

May you ride far, fast and safe.