League Announces Fall 2009 Bicycle Friendly Businesses

The League of American Bicyclists announced 45 new Bicycle Friendly Business award winners last Thursday, September 24, including two platinum winners Bicycle Sport Shop of Austin, Texas and Quality Bicycle Products of Bloomington, Minn., at the Industry Leadership Breakfast during Interbike in Las Vegas, Nev. This was the third time BFB winners have been announced since the program’s inception in 2008 when the League announced the first 13 designees. “We are delighted so many businesses are using the BFB road map to encourage and enable their employees to ride – everyone from two-person neighborhood businesses to major corporations are getting on board,” stated League President Andy Clarke.

BFB businesses make bicycle friendliness a core element in the workplace and use innovative tools to promote bicycling as an easy and fun option for transportation and recreation. “There are a lot of very simple, effective and creative ways that companies are finding to get people back on their bikes, and we recognize those efforts with our BFB awards,” said Clarke. The League encourages businesses to inspire their employees to bike to work by incorporating the fundamentals of the BFB program. “Companies across the country are recognizing that getting their employees moving – either to or from work, in course of work, or even in their own time – is good for business.”

The BFB program recognizes socially responsible businesses that promote healthy, happy, and green workplaces and provides a road map to become even more bicycle-friendly in the years to come. Platinum-level Bicycle Sport Shop has noticed several benefits from supporting a bicycle friendly workplace, including improved employee health and fewer hours missed due to illness; reduced parking costs; improved lifestyle for employees; and improved morale for all staff. “We are providing life lessons for our employees, which help them improve their health and teach them how important it is to stay healthy,” said Leslie Luciano, Bicycle Sports Shop Advocacy Coordinator. Platinum-level Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) has also noticed several benefits of joining the BFB program – including increased bike commuting. QBP counts bicycle commuting towards the exercise criteria of the company’s health care plan, and in 2008, 346 different employees combined to register 27,906 one-way trips for more than 327,000 total miles.

BFB winners provide amenities such as secure bike parking and shower facilities and motivations such as incentives to commute by bike, company bike rides and clubs, and bike to Work Week promotions. When bicycling is infused in a company’s culture, great things happen: reduced health care costs; more productive employees; improved worker and customer satisfaction; smaller carbon footprint; and increased corporate social responsibility. “Bicycling is a readily accessible and practical form of physical activity that has the added benefits of reducing congestion and the need for parking, reducing the carbon footprint of a business, increasing productivity, and raising morale,” said Clarke. “It’s also great fun.”

Applying as a BFB is easy and free. Applicants receive technical assistance from the League staff as well as tools to evaluate and assess their bicycle friendliness through the application process. The BFB application is available online at www.bicyclefriendlybusiness.org. Click here to see our fall 2009 winners. Click here to see a complete list of 2008 and 2009 winners.

The Bicycle Friendly Community and Bicycle Friendly Business programs are generously supported by program partners Bikes Belong and Trek Bicycle’s One World, Two Wheels Campaign.

~Meghan Cahill, Director of Communications