What’s new and exciting for this season’s Bike Commute Challenge? Our new 2012 Bike Commute Challenge t-shirts!
T-shirts are available through registration on our Bike Commute Challenge website or through the BTA store. We’ll have a prize patrol on the streets throughout the Metro area in September with great prizes for Challenge participants spotted wearing their BCC t-shirts. Prizes range from lights by Portland Design Works, Columbia backpacks, bells, and certificates for Keen Shoes. Details below.
Prize Point Locations and dates:
September 5, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Tigard: Fanno Creek Brew Pub 12562 Southeast Main St.
September 5, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Portland: Hawthorne Bridge (Eastside)
September 12, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Milwaukie: Springwater Corridor 8550 Southeast McLoughlin Blvd.
September 12, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Portland: Hawthorne Bridge: Westside
September 19, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Hillsboro: Orenco Station Max Stop NW 231st Ave.
September 19, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Portland: Peace Park, Steel Bridge (Eastside)
September 26, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Gresham: Linneman Station Springwater Corridor Trail
September 26, 2012, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm: Portland: Broadway Bridge (Eastside)
Want to create some excitement for this season’s Bike Commute Challenge for your team? Purchase 5 or more t-shirts at once and get a discount of $2/shirt! Contact stephanie@btaoregon.org for more information.
Watch out for our prize patrol near you!
More Portland Metro-centric prize offerings. Why am I not surprised? Why? Because it’s been this way for years. Maybe BTA should call itself Metro BTA and be more truthful in advertising. It’s hard to know why people outside of the Portland Metro area should join BTA, even though many of us have. Yes, this is a grumpy note, but I’ve raised the Metro-centric issue before, and I’ll keep doing it until there’s better progress at dealing equitably with the whole area that BTA purports to cover.
Sure wish your prize points were throughout the city and not just in the center. Some of us don’t have to go over a bridge to get to work.
Maybe next year….
Dave – thanks for sharing your concerns. Your support as a member from outside Portland-Metro is critical to our statewide policy and advocacy work. Right now we’re fighting to protect millions of dollars in funding that goes toward biking and walking projects around Oregon: http://btaoregon.org/2012/07/oregon-is-rewriting-the-rules-for-funding-transportation/
Statewide funding and policy are central components of our 2013 legislative agenda. We will be counting on support from people who care about safe streets and better biking in every Oregon community.
Where do you live? You’re right that most of our on-street outreach is focused in the Metro area and that’s simply a result of having a small staff and headquarters based in Portland. Maybe this is something we can coordinate with the help of volunteers in your area.
Yolanda – thanks for the feedback. Where do you ride?
Seems rather downtown-centric although you will never be able to have enough prize points to cover all the bike commuters out there. Just wish there were more scattered around the burbs to acknowledge the many riders who have some of the longest commutes. I would recommend a moving schedule of prize points during the challenge in the future. That way there could be a few days in places like Lake Oswego, Tualatin, etc.
Just echoing some of the other comments. I was getting excited about the challenge until the prizepoints were announced. I ride the 205 trail from Vancouver to Clackamas; I thought for sure that the Springwater/205 trail intersection would be a no-brainer. Will still participate, but will pass on the shirt and membership.
This is our first year offering prize points, and if it’s a success, we’d love to expand it from our initial offerings. If you and your teammates would be interested in hosting a prize point along a bike routes not covered yet, drop me an email (stephanie@btaoregon.org). Some of the locations listed above were chosen because we had volunteers already identified to staff to them. We’d be happy to add to the current list.
And don’t forget, every rider in Oregon and SW Washington who logs trips in the challenge qualifies for weekly prize drawings covering all regions.
I agree with Dave, this organization should be called the Metro BTA. My yearly begging for money (membership renewal) is sitting in from of me and I don’t think I will fill it out and send my money it in. The leader of the BTA is running this just like he learned how to do it in Chicago. This is a Portland organization and the hell with the rest of the state. I guess we in Salem should be like Eugene and Medford and just ignore Portland like they are ignoring us. But then it’s kind of hard to ignore Salem since we do have the legislature here. (One of these days I just may stop the sugar coating of my feelings.)
So there’s an entry fee for prize eligibility (the shirt)? Are the shirts cotton? ‘Cause I love cotton, but not to ride very far in.
I would like to thank the BTA for the hard work and many accomplishments that have been made possible due to continous perseverence. I would also like to thank the endless number of BTA members who volunteer their time to make cycling more enjoyable for everyone. Your hard work has not gone unoticed.
Margaux – I ride in the NE 28th & Burnside area through neighborhoods to the NE Halsey St/Providence area as a work commute. Outside of that, everywhere! Love my bike/biking.
Perhaps a helmet sticker would be a better “ID” for the prize patrol. I know that the t-shirts are money makers, but just not what I would EVER wear when riding in the heat or the rain. It would also emphasize the importance of wearing a helmet. Besides, it’s easier to mail than the t-shirt and one might get more “buy-in.”
Too bad all you naysayers have nothing positive to add. I too hope that you suburb folks get more bike friendliness & awareness created, I really do. And way-to-go for all of you that commute in those areas that are under-served in the case of bike awareness. But, as stated previously, if you want all of the cake, you’re going to have to work at it. Volunteer your time. Don’t just expect that since you ride a bike in Salem, Eugene, or Lake Oswego, that you deserve a free prize. I do ride on most of these prize routes, but, I too am not really into wearing one of these tshirts on my commute. That means I’m out of the prize points. But that’s okay, because I’m still out there having a blast riding my bike every day.
This is a first time trial run of additional fun & prizes. It sure is sweet that they’re continually trying to add more fun to the bike commute. The helmet sticker idea is a great one.
And MASSIVE props to the BTA for organizing as much as they do. There’s always going to be complainers, hopefully they don’t detour what you’re working & volunteering your rear-ends off for.
Since you added surprise day at Orenco on Sept 12, does that mean you are not doing the one on Sept 19?
I rode over the Steel Bridge yesterday at 5:15 wearing my shirt on my bike commute home. I didn’t see Bike Commute Challenge representative(s). Was I at the wrong spot?
Heather, our station was at the top of the ramp at Peace Park. Sorry we missed you!
Sorry, Jose, but the title of the post is, “Win Great Prizes When You’re Seen Wearing your BTA’s Bike Commute Challenge T-Shirt this September”, not “Win Great Prizes When You’re Seen Wearing your BTA’s Bike Commute Challenge T-Shirt this September in the Portland Metro Area”.
I’m simply asking for truth-in-advertising, which is an ongoing issue I have had with BTA (and I am a dues-paying member). I saw the title and was interested in seeing how I might win, but quickly realized that I have no chance of winning a prize, great or otherwise, since I live in Corvallis (which has a higher bike commute percentage than Portland, thanks very much). And no, I don’t think I “deserve a free prize”, but do people in Portland? Apparently more so than those outside.
BTA does a great job of promoting bicycling and bike safety, and fills an important role. I enjoy the Bike Commute Challenge and have participated for nine years, the last six as captain of a team. I recognize BTA has practical challenges and limitations based on its staff size and budget. I would just like them to decide whether they are primarily a Metro organization or a statewide organization. If the latter, they need to make membership (and events like the Bike Commute Challenge) equitable everywhere in Oregon.
One tangible idea is for BTA to proactively offer “volunteer packets”, including prizes and funding, to replicate things in other places that BTA is running in Portland (such as these prize points, the end-of-year parties in Portland that we can never attend, etc.). I appreciate Margaux’s offer to help coordinate something elsewhere, but that offer should happen in parallel with rolling out these Portland efforts, not as an afterthought after someone gets grumpy enough to complain. For example, add at the bottom of this post, “Outside the Portland Metro area? Contact person@btaoregon.org for assistance in setting up your own prize point.” Then the ball is back in my court, and I can decide whether I have time to work with local folks to set up a prize point.
Many thanks to BTA for organizing a fun bike commute challenge once again.