48 Bicycle Friendly Businesses Recognized for Efforts to Make Biking for Travel and Transportation Possible for Everyone 

League of American Bicyclists honors businesses across the country for demonstrating commitment to bettering bicycling  

WASHINGTON, DC — Ahead of Bike to Work Week, the League of American Bicyclists is pleased to honor 48 new and renewing recipients of our Bicycle Friendly Business (BFB) award. BFB awards recognize exemplary organizations for their efforts to welcome and encourage employees and customers to experience the joy of biking. These 48 new and renewing awardees join a movement of 1,582 total Bicycle Friendly Businesses across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. building a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone year-round.

“Every May, we celebrate National Bike Month and the many ways people across the country are finding joy in bicycling and enabling others to discover the joy of bicycling,” said Bill Nesper, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists. “Bicycle Friendly Businesses are such a critical component in making it possible for more people to bike to work, to the coffee shop, and even on their next vacation. We’re thrilled to have these 48 businesses earning their BFB awards this Bike Month and showing leadership to build places where people can safely bike for recreation or transportation.”   

The Spring 2023 round of Bicycle Friendly Business awards includes 36 first-time award recipients, four BFBs earning upgraded awards, and eight renewing at their previous award level. Of the first-time awardees, Pedal It Forward Rogers, a bicycling organization in Rogers, Arkansas, earned a Platinum-level award – the BFB program’s current top honor. 

This round features six Gold-level awards, including Sonoma Clean Power, an electric utility company in Santa Rosa, California, and The Partnership TMA of Montgomery County, a nonprofit in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, both of which earned Gold status as first-time applicants. The Village at Winona in Winona Lake, Indiana, and the Town of Breckenridge Recreation Department in Breckenridge, Colorado, moved up to Gold from their previous Silver-level awards. Demonstrating the diverse types of businesses in the BFB program are two businesses renewing their Gold status: Mitchell Auto Group – Mitchell VW, an auto dealership in Simsbury, Connecticut, and Soundpony, a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

There is always fierce competition among cities to be among the top places with the most BFBs as both a point of pride and to encourage more bicycling tourism. This round, Fayetteville, Arkansas, stood out with 13 organizations earning awards, accounting for 27% of the Spring 2023 BFB cohort thanks to an annual “Bicycle Friendly Business Bootcamp” workshop hosted by Bronze BFB Experience Fayetteville, the city’s convention and visitors bureau. The workshop is held in partnership with the City of Fayetteville, which is both a Gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community and a Silver-level BFB, and the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, which is also a Silver-level BFB. To date, Fayetteville now has a total of 50 Bicycle Friendly Businesses across all industries.

Increasingly, the hospitality industry is embracing the benefits of welcoming people who bike. In Fayetteville, a place working to draw more people who bike as visitors, the 13 BFB awardees in this round includes five hotels and an Airbnb, Barn on the Hill, bringing the city’s total number of BFBs in the “hotels and inns” category to nine. 

“Once I realized that bicycling was such a big part of Northwest Arkansas, I wanted to do whatever I can to make bicyclists feel welcome,” said Missy Jackson, owner of Barn on the Hill, which earned Silver-level status as a first-time BFB applicant. “I welcomed a friend who owns a bike shop to come visit and tell me what I needed. She guided me to install a wash station and a trailhead with a variety of bike tools needed for repairs as well as purchasing a rubber mat for guests who have no interest in parking their very expensive bikes outside.”

One of Fayetteville’s five BFB hotels in the Spring 2023 round is renewing Bronze Staybridge Suites, which first became a Bicycle Friendly Business in 2020. “We have had several international bicycling teams stay at our hotel thanks to our willingness to let bikes in rooms and the storage lockers,” said Hydisia Bird, front office manager at Staybridge Suites. “In addition, the extra notoriety of having a Bicycle Friendly Business certification goes a long way in cyclists wanting to be supportive of our facility.”

If your business would like to be recognized for its efforts or receive guidance for being an attraction for people who bike, submissions for the Summer 2023 round of the Bicycle Friendly Business program are due on June 15, 2023, at 11:59 PM PT. 

Apply for BFB Status

About the Bicycle Friendly Business Program

Bicycle Friendly Business awards reflect local leaders’ ongoing work to build better places to bike and evaluate those efforts as part of a national movement. Each of the five levels of the Bicycle Friendly Business award – diamond, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze, plus an honorable mention category – provide a clear path for businesses to continuously improve. Visit bikeleague.org/business to learn more about the BFB program.

About the League Of American Bicyclists

Since 1880, the League of American Bicyclists has been people-powered, with a goal to make bicycling safer and easier as a means of transportation and recreation. Today, the League continues to improve lives and strengthen communities through bicycling. We are more than 200,0000 members and supporters strong with more than 1,000 state and local advocacy groups and bike clubs, as well as thousands of businesses, universities, and communities together leading the movement to create a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone.