Great National Campus Bike Summit to William Varney, Shane Tedder, Lance Broeking, Sandra Broadwill & everyone else involved. Thanks so much for putting it all together and making the experience so positive.
The home of Wildcat WheelsWill Varney showing us around their shop.Detail of the Wildcat Wheels’ shop.Very cool mural inside their secure bike parking facility.Panoramic of the Wildcat Wheels’ 20th anniversary party.Our hosts Shane Tedder & William VarneyCruising on the evening bike tour with Sandra BroadwillCruising around campusValet bike parking during the conference – awesome!Tim Potter grip n’ grin with Lance Broeking & Shane TedderSorry, didn’t note her nameArtist rendering of the new home of the Wildcat Wheels coming in early 2025!Conference session re: campus bike shopsTim Potter in front of the Wildcat Wheels shopParting shot of some of the attendees outside the WW shop.Hamming it up with Shane Tedder and John ShraderAround the dinner table with John Shrader and Steve SandersShane Tedder and Justin Mog (sorry, didn’t note the name of the middle guy)Will Varney w/ his WW crew who were helping with the bike valet bike parking service.John and Steve chatting outside the WW shop during the party.Will Varney explaining the new WW shop to his tour group.John Shrader of OSU on his way home
Courtesy Amelia Neptune, LAB, October 17, 2019
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I’m very excited to share that the League of American Bicyclists has announced our 2019 Bicycle Friendly University (BFU) awards this morning, with 48 New and Renewing BFUs, and 4 Honorable Mentions.
A few highlights from the 2019 Round:
There are 3 new Platinum-level BFUs (for a new total of 8) with the addition of UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UW-Madison. Stanford, Portland State University, and Colorado State University all renewed their existing Platinum statuses this round as well.
We also added our first BFU in the state of West Virginia, so there are now 208 Bicycle Friendly Universities awarded in 47 states + DC. (We’re just missing Hawaii, North Dakota, and Delaware!)
The largest campus to be awarded this round was The Ohio State University, with over 61,000 students, which moved up from Bronze to Silver, and the smallest campus in this round was M State Fergus Falls, with 700 students, which is a new Bronze-level BFU.
The 2020 BFU Application is already open for submissions, and the deadline to apply next year is August 25, 2020. (But it’s never too early to get started!) Find the online application and Word document preview here.
The Tour de MSU group poses in front of MSU’s mascot Sparty statue.
As members of the MSU’s Bike Advisory Committee analyzed what made the country’s five platinum-level Bike Friendly Universities so successful it became apparent that MSU needed to get their neighboring communities on board with the same vision to pursue becoming a platinum-level Bike Friendly Community. This led to reaching out to the League of American Bicyclists and deciding to bring one of their staff to the university to meet with the committee and facilitate meetings with neighboring community leaders.
Steve Sanders, Alternative Transportation Manager of U of MN, presented the UMN story.
As the cost estimates climbed the idea of turning the visit into a day conference started to come together. Eventually a new concept for a conference, a Bike Friendly America Conference, was hatched and after months of planning and seeking out sponsors, presenters and attendees the 1st ever conference of its type is now history.
The MSU team is now beginning to think about next year and whether to continue the conference on its campus or to encourage other universities to host it. Please contact Tim Potter if you’re interested in possibly hosting the event in 2017.
