What is it? A week that celebrates, encourages, and supports new and seasoned cyclists who are on our roads. This is an event that happens all over the place: not just in Victoria, but across the country. Victoria has an amazing system of collaboration and support with all sorts of prizes and events during the week.
This year is extra special because it's the 20th year anniversary for the Victoria Bike to Work Week group.
So aside from feeling awesome and encouraged about riding a bike—or tricycle, or a reclining bike—there are tons of opportunities to grab goodies and enter draw prizes and get a free tune-up at the Celebration Stations all throughout the week. They are held twice a day, in the morning and the evening, catching cyclists on their way to and from work. Or, you can do as I did last year, and minimally lengthen commute routes to hit a couple that aren't normally on your way to campus.
This year there's also a new Celebration MEGA-Station on May 31st (Saturday), from 1-4 PM at Centennial Square, to celebrate and recognize all the people and organizations that help to make (and have helped over the past 20 years) BTWW a success.
There are a number of courses on offer before the event, if you are interested in boosting your skills or confidence level, for kids and adults both.
It's been a cause of joy for me to see the weather warming and improving rapidly in Victoria, and I've already been cycling around more. Goodness knows I'll need to boost my bike-fitness a little bit more to brave riding up the steep Foul Bay Road hill to get to campus.
Otherwise, I've been laying out my thesis, and trying to account for the important pieces that I'll need to write, and that work has actually been fun. It's amazing what a load it is off my mind (and chest) to start putting things on paper. There's a lovely creative process there: once I put down the things I've been carrying in my head on paper, then I'm free to massage more out of what's there, as well as have new ideas or elaborations work out from what I've already got. I suppose this feels like more familiar territory that the terror of 'doing research' in the abstract, and questioning what that means all the time.
I'm trying to sign up for the Thesis Completion Group that's run through Counselling Services on campus here, over the summer. I'd tried to in the fall, but it was already full then; we'll see if a few spots have opened up for the coming months.
Cheers to writing and planning and data analysis with the sun providing an abundance of softer, natural light in my office!
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Quick update post-event:
BTWW was fantastic! We had a great turnout, with 5 first-time participants, and we certainly outdid ourselves by having a much bigger team than last year. I also had a lot of help organizing and keeping track of everyone's statistics with 2 of my colleagues, and they did a great job, too!
We saved about 321 kg of C02 from everyone biking over the week, and we biked a cumulative 1566 kms over the week, with 138 unique trips. Way to go! Fantastic BTWW 2014. :)
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