Salt Spring GoByBike Week Report

Island Pathways Bike Committee invited Gulf Islanders to grab their bikes and log a ride during the semi-annual GoByBike week, formerly Bike-to-Work Week.  This Fall’s event kicked off on 28 September.  Organizers Robin Jenkinson and Carolyn Hopp were pleased with this years’ visibility.

Each morning during GobyBike week, we hosted an info table in front of the Fire Hall.  Passers-by were encouraged to sign up and log a ride.  We also shared information about the Salish Sea trail, biking on Salt Spring, and gave out vouchers for free coffee at Salt Spring Coffee to people on bikes. We even made the front page the DriftWood!

Bob Mackie brought Island Pathways membership forms which we sold with the new Salt Spring bike map.  Everyone was very impressed with the quality of the map.  The sunny weather had many people out and lots of friendly faces visited our table.  

A beautiful banner was handcrafted for this event and will be re-used for many more.  The canvas was donated by Gary Gagne, the banner was sewn by Chris Ortlepp, and a family effort completed the handpainting.  It was officially raised by Shaw and the Chamber of Commerce during GoByBike week and remained up the following week for Walk & Wheel to School Week, too. 

If you rode during the week, you can still log your ride.  Participate by signing up at https://gobybikebc.ca/salt-spring-island/ and logging a ride.  There are great prizes to be won including gift cards and a grand prize cycling holiday in Portugal.

GoByBike is a provincial non-profit society founded in Victoria in 1995 to encourage riding bikes in communities across BC to work and to school and more recently as active transportation.  Last year in BC, there were 50 374 participants during GoByBike.  These semi-annual events are organized to encourage people across B.C. to “use bicycles for everyday transportation”.  Statistics from the events are shared with the province.  Our event raised awareness for Island Pathways, the Salish Sea trail and cycling on Salt Spring.  We signed up new members to Island Pathways, introduced the new bike map and encouraged riders to log rides to support statistics.  We will keep you posted for Spring 2021 GoByBike week, usually held in late May.