Commuter Check

May 21, 2010 holds as the official Bike to Work (BTW) Day in Washington DC illustrating the city’s strong support to make DC a bike friendly community. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is promoting and creating the framework required for bicycle friendly communities and they are taking full advantage of Bike Month. WABA in coordination with Commuter Connections has organized a large scale BTW event for DC Cyclists. Going beyond just creating special events they have also provided a way for bicyclist to coordinate group rides into the DC Bike to Work Event through “Commuter Convoys”.

The commuter convoys has an organizer, start location and time. If you want to bike into Downtown DC with a convoy of people all you have to do is show up. These convoys only occur on BTW day but what a great way to meet your community bicycling friends. These convoys can turn into actual BTW groups on a daily or weekly basis. Whether you represent a bicycle shop, advocacy group or organization this convoy idea is a great opportunity to get people on their bike and promote your group year round.

If you are a bike shop or store, think about organizing such convoys to help increase business traffic. If you are a shop that is located just outside a major city location you can establish your shop as a meeting place for people to meet up and ride into the city for work together. By having your shop location as the meeting and ending point of the daily bike commute for people you are bound to increase the business within your shop with the frequency of the riders coming to and from.

On the other end, if your shop location is located in the middle of a commuting location you may have the ability to be the ending point for riders commuting into work. You can establish a bike convoy meeting group for a reverse commute and thereby driving constant traffic to your location. We all know space is valuable in stores, but do you have some room to spare inside or outside? Think about storing bikes at your location for those who bike to work near your location. This could be done on a fee base or free of charge as space permits. You are guaranteeing a returning customer.