Bicycle Benefits: The League’s Latest Partner

A proven strategy to get more people on bikes in your community is building coalitions of stakeholders. Central to local success is the small business community, like those who have joined the more than 1,400 Bicycle Friendly Businesses across the country. And why not? After all, businesses are always looking for ways to get more people into their doors and, as has been well-documented, bicyclists spend more at local businesses than their driving counterparts.

More customers at local businesses and more cyclists on your neighborhood streets: win-win, right? Enter Bicycle Benefits. Bicycle Benefits (BB) currently partners with roughly 2,500 businesses around the United States who use the BB program to increase bicycle ridership among prospective and existing customers. Individuals purchase and attach a BB sticker to their bicycle helmet which entitles them to a discount or reward when they arrive at a participating business via bicycle. Over the past 12 years, BB has developed a reputation with bicyclists and business owners who experience the benefits of the program in about four dozen metropolitan areas. Business owner estimates suggest that the roughly 241,000 BB stickers in circulation have translated into about 3 million bicycle trips totaling 5.8 million miles negating 2,490 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. 

The program’s growth on a local level relies on bicycle advocacy organizations, supportive businesses, cyclists and even those who are “on the fence” about using bicycles as a transportation option. BB business partners are diverse and range from high-volume grocery stores like (some) Whole Foods to mom and pop cafés and Main Street retail stores. BB has created tools and campaigns (i.e. business guides, kick-off event templates, activity manuals, etc.) that individuals, businesses and organizations can each use to increase biking and bicycle awareness in their communities. (Want your local Whole Foods to participate? Use BB’s tools to be an advocate!) As of now, the BB program has a single administrator with a number of satellite BB programs being managed independently across the country. 

Kicking off with our Fall Membership Drive, all new and renewing League members get their very own Bicycle Benefits sticker. Join us or renew your membership now at bikeleague.org/memberdrive! If your city or town already boasts a variety of partnering businesses, enjoy your new membership perk! If your town has some empty space on the map, let’s change that! You’ll find resources at bicyclebenefits.org to get the wheels spinning in your own neighborhood. Together, we’re building a Bicycle Friendly America for Everyone!