Ride in the Rain Challenge 2007

UW Pedalers Take on a Wild Seattle Winter

The idea behind Ride in the Rain is to urge people not to let a little thing like rain discourage them from riding their bikes to campus. Traditionally, Seattle enjoys the kind of mild winters that make bike commuting a year-round option.

Well, we live in interesting times. If January ‘06 was the rainiest in 50 years, surely ‘07 broke records for snow days. Throughout the month, snow and ice posed a challenge to bike (and vehicle!) commuters and had the potential to create hazardous conditions. Total miles and rides for Ride in the Rain 2007 reflect the fact that many bike riders chose the wisest path and kept their bikes at home on the worst days.

Weather may have ruled out some bicycle commutes—but it didn’t stop people from taking on the challenge. Once again, the Ride in the Rain Challenge had more riders, more teams, and more new bike commuters than ever before. This year 777 riders joined 92 teams and 82 more took to the streets pedaling alone. That makes 859 RinR bicyclists.

This year’s challenge also prompted 143 people who had never before viewed bicycling as a viable commute mode to strap on a helmet and give it try. Hooray to them for their bravery and sense of adventure!
Collectively, Ride in the Rain participants rode 82,719 miles, (You can take a deep breath because 1 pound of carbon emissions is saved for every mile pedaled). They made 6,207 trips between home and campus and rode in the rain for at least a part of 4,799 of those trips.

The highest-achieving challengers earned prizes—all of which were donated by local merchants and organizations.

These generous sponsors were:
Alchemy Goods
ASUW Bike Shop
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
BikeSport
Cascade Bicycle Club
Electric Bikes Northwest
Flexcar
Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle
Recycled Cycles
Velo Bike Shop

A new feature this year allowed participants to vote for their favorite from the long list of clever team names. Mud, Sweat, and Gears and Cyclosauros Wrecks both put in a really good showing, but the team that accrued the most votes was Giros de iTowelYa under the leadership of team captain Nigel Heinsius.

U-PASS has a special interest in promoting safety—for bicyclists, pedestrians and, yes, for people on and in various vehicles and conveyances. Our special concern is the place where these individuals meet each other and meet with other surfaces. We hope, through our efforts, to help prevent some of those meetings. For the first time this year, Ride in the Rain joined with the Bicycle Alliance of Washington’s Kent Pederson to offer his valuable class “Neither Rain Nor Gloom of Night” free to the UW bicycling community. Kent provided advice hard-won from years of commuting, on making riders and their bicycles more visible in adverse conditions and everyday. U-PASS plans to offer the class again, so if you are interested send us an email and let us know.

The U-COMMUTE News is published twice a year for staff and faculty. For additional information, visit our web site at http://www.washington.edu/commuterservices/index.php. Your suggestions and comments are welcome. Please contact the Transportation Office at upass@u.washington.edu, 206.543.0450 or Box 355212.