Love to Ride in Florida? Let’s Show It.

By Kelly Morphy, Executive Director, Florida Bicycle Association

It’s the time of year to show our love for bicycling by not only getting out to ride, but also by logging those rides to help demonstrate our collective interest in safe, accessible bicycling conditions in Florida.

Each year, we ask everyone who rides a bike for any reason and for any amount of time to enroll in the Love to Ride Florida Challenge.

Love to Ride is a bicycling encouragement and reward program that aims to increase bicycling. The program engages veteran riders to capture their miles, encourages new riders to try out bicycling, and provides employers with a wellness tool to help employees stay active, healthy and connected.

Most of us can name even more benefits of bicycling, such land conservation, social connectivity, transportation equity, and strong local economies. And while Florida offers many ideal conditions for bicycling to achieve all those outcomes, we also must acknowledge that our state can be one of the toughest places to get around by bicycle. Further, with the devastation in Southwest Florida, we know bicycling will be even more challenging—and downright impossible—for too many people.

The Love to Ride Challenge helps us make the case for investing in “bikeability,” and encourages more people to get out there on two wheels when and where they can.

My son has pledged to try to ride as many miles as me during the Love to Ride Florida Challenge.

The program is free to users and launches today (Oct. 21) with a statewide “challenge” funded by the Florida Dept. of Transportation to celebrate Mobility Week. A goal of the challenge, which runs through Nov. 30, is to get as many cyclists, bike clubs, advocates, organizations and businesses signed up as possible, to demonstrate that yes, we do ride bicycles in Florida and yes, we do support making places bikeable.

Whether an experienced cyclist or new to riding, you’ll be asked to log your rides through the online portal; you can sync your Love to Ride account to your tracking app such as Strava or MapMyRide for automatic logging. You also will be asked to encourage new riders to try out bicycling. Riding even a small amount and encouraging new riders to give it a shot will make you eligible to win prizes and incentives. But most importantly, you will be contributing to a more bikeable Florida.

Please take five minutes to register online at www.LoveToRide.net/Florida. Also, add your company to the list of organizations participating, and invite your colleagues and friends to take part. Then, log your rides, get others cycling and have fun with it.

And throughout the challenge, follow both the Florida Bicycle Association (on Facebook and Instagram,) and Love to Ride, where you will find more ways to support bicycling, profiles of people making a difference and updates on the successes of the program.