By Shruti Kumar
The University of Maryland held its annual Bike Week from March 30 to April 6. This event has existed since 2011 and promotes healthy, environmentally-friendly modes of transportation. Bike Week is sponsored by the university’s Department of Transportation Services in partnership with RecWell and is composed of cycling-related activities and giveaways each day of the week.
Andrew S. Muir, the communications manager at the university’s Office of Sustainability, said the event encourages a strong biking community on campus.
“It’s important for students, faculty, and staff to know that biking is encouraged and supported on our campus and is beneficial for both human health and environmental health,” Muir said over email.
This year, the university started the week’s festivities on March 30 with a 45-mile bike ride from Carderock Recreation Area to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The first half of Bike Week brought numerous kick-off activities such as bike helmet giveaways, cotton candy, free commuter breakfast, farmers market bike smoothies and free safety inspections by the RecWell Bike Shop. The second half of the week featured a sunset mountain ride in Fairland Recreational Park as well as a bike maintenance class. The 2019 addition to the Bike Week tradition was a “Bikes of the Round Table” event, during which cyclists had the chance to share stories over a complimentary lunch on April 4.
Bike Week culminates in a parade and a contest that gives students the opportunity to earn a cash prize for their student organizations. The individual with the best-decorated bike wins a pair of Bose wireless headphones and the student group with the most people wins the cash prize. The parade, which was scheduled to take place on April 5, was moved to April 24 due to rain.
The Department of Transportation encourages environmentally friendly travel alternatives such as bike rentals. Vishal Patel, a sophomore computer science major, said using a bike is feasible for most UMD students.
“I started using [a UMD Bike Shop bike] this semester… primarily for getting to work on south campus [and for] classes that are across campus,” Patel said. “It was a pretty easy and quick process [to rent it].”
Cara Fleck Plewinski, the assistant director for marketing and communications at the university’s Department of Transportation Services, said the program is looking to introduce further practical incentives to make the campus more cyclist-friendly.
“We hope we can lower the barrier to entry by offering more learn-to-ride classes in the future or a Bike Buddy program,” Plewinski said in an email. “Many of the attendees expressed [an interest in] defensive cycling and defensive driving education, so I think that’s something that we’ll definitely take a look at incorporating.”