2022 Highlight Reel
2022 has been a banner year for us! We’ve grown a lot over the past year and we’d like to share our successes with you.
New Services/Programs
The Locker – Event Bike Parking
With financial support from VanCity Credit Union, we were able to launch The Locker – the event bike parking service.
We offered safe, secure, and free bike parking at 32 events, helping more that 4,500 people enjoy events by bike! We went as far as Nanaimo! And, offered employment to 20 casual staff!
Capital Bike App
With the financial support of Vancity Credit Union, Capital Bike launched its first Mobile app in May 2022. The app was designed to put information at the fingertips of our program participants. This includes an event calendar, event information and extra tools, and a directory of all we have to offer! To date, the app has been used over 20,000 times by our event participants. We look forward to continuing the development and utility of the app in the coming year.
Do you have feedback for us? Take this short 10 question survey below and let us know what you think!
Downtown Bike Valet
We were proud to partner with BEST (Better Environmentally Sound Transportation) to deliver the City of Victoria’s Downtown Bike Valet service.
This incredibly-successful pilot project ran from June to November. Not only was public reception overwhelmingly positive, service usage was fantastic. We parked 11,422 bikes, averaging 84 bikes per day. 1/3 of the bikes were e-bikes or cargo bikes. And, we registered 758 bikes with Project 529.
We’re looking forward to more in 2023!
Education
Bike Skills
Our Bike Skills program is the only one of its kind in the Capital Regional – a program that offers cycling skills training to people of all ages and abilities, specifically focusing on building urban riding skills to improve safety and prevent injuries.
We’ve been running courses for kids, youth, and adults since 1999. Recently, we’ve added a host of e-bike programs, continued to run free guided tours, and much more!
This year, 766 people participated in one of our many Bike Skills courses, workshops, or webinars. Particular highlights were our kids courses, with 76 total participants, and our e-bike workshops, where 257 people took a course, participated in a staff training, or joined us for a test ride.
Everyone Rides Grades 4 & 5
The Everyone Rides Grade 4-5 (ERG45) program is a cycling skills training program that is offered for free to elementary schools in the Capital Region. ERG45 provides British Columbia elementary students with skills, confidence, and the opportunity to learn to ride their bikes to and from school in a safe and informed manner.
We wrapped up our biggest year of school bike education yet, teaching at 27 schools, we instructed over 3,100 students in safe bike riding.
We were pleased to continue offering this program to schools across the South Island, with programs in Sooke, the Westshore, Shawnigan Lake, and Cobble Hill, in addition to Victoria. Students at participating schools learned how to check to make sure their bikes are in good working order, proper helmet fit, rules of the road, bike handling skills, and tips for safe riding on both multi-use trails and roads.
We look forward to another season of ERG-45 in Spring 2023!
All-Aboard Family Cycling
Our second year of the All-Aboard Family Cycling program, funded by Island Health, involved five free workshops which covered all sorts of aspects of Family Cycling. These were:
- A Cycling While Pregnant workshop
- Two Cycling With Kids workshops
- A Bike Petting Zoo, where attendees could learn about and different family bike setups and equipment
- Free skills courses for parents and their kids
- Two Guided Group Rides for families to put what they learned into practice
We had 49 participants in the program this year! You can view the resources, such as videos and tip sheets, on our website below.
City of Victoria Community Rides
Building on our series of four Guided Rides in Fall 2021, we ran 10 Guided Community Rides in partnership with the City of Victoria this year! Between June and September, 85 people joined us for rides, such as “Explore Fairfield/Gonzales”, “Explore Haultain/Fernwood”, and “Explore Victoria”. These rides, part of Victoria’s Way to Go campaign, educated participants about route planning, safe use of the growing All Ages and Abilities bike network in Victoria, and tips for safe biking!
Celebration
Go By Bike Weeks
This year, we saw the return of in-person Spring Celebration Stations after COVID put them on hold for two years, along with our usual Fall Celebration Stations. We raised the largest sponsorship prize donations and had the most Celebration Station visits ever! We held 22 Celebration Stations, featured exciting new locations, held a free closing BBQ sponsored by Save-on-Foods, and had 18 local elementary schools participate with Bike To School Week. We ran educational webinars and launched the Capital Bike app to support riders in their Go By Bike Weeks.
Go By Bike Week continues to be the largest free event in the region and continues to grow each year.
Truth and Reconciliation Day Ride
We were honoured to again work with Xe xe Xmun eem-Victoria Orange Shirt Day to organize the second Truth and Reconciliation Day Ride. We are incredibly grateful for financial support from Woodward & Co. We couldn’t do this without them.
On September 30, over 500 people gathered at Songhees Park to support and honour the survivors of Canada’s residential school system. Diane Sam, guest speaker from Songhees First Nation, spoke powerfully about her experiences.
Sticker Challenge
We have been running this program since 2020, however 2022 was the first year that The Sticker Challenge graduated into a stand-alone event! For two weeks in the summer, participants were encouraged to cycle to a variety of 61 different recreation centers, non-profit societies, and businesses around the region to collect stickers. We featured over 60 locations in 11 of the regional municipalities. Participants came from North Saanich, Sidney, Central Saanich, Highlands, View Royal, Saanich, Langford, Colwood, Esquimalt, Victoria, and Oak Bay. We had over $2,000 worth of prizes from local businesses!
Commuter Challenge
On May 19th, 2022, Mayors, Councillors, Ministers, and local celebrities raced for glory in the first Commuter Challenge since 2019. Teams consisting of one driver and one biker raced to the finish line at the historic Empress Fairmont front lawn.
Once again, bike teams CRUSHED car teams! Bikes won 73% of the races!
Cycle Therapy
We published 2 issues of Cycle Therapy this year! With our new Editor-in-Chief, Sarah Faria and Graphic Designer, Jenn Longstaff, plus dozens of local contributors, we were able to really make the publication shine!
Our amazing team of volunteers delivered the magazine to all local bike shops – so pick up your copy today!
Group Rides
We held 5 fun, free, themed group rides this year: Pride Ride, 2 Rolling Dance Parties, The Tweed Ride, and the December Lights Ride! We had a total blast and can’t wait to run more of these amazing group rides next year!
We Couldn’t do it without you!
A HUGE ‘Thank you!’ to all of our Board members, Volunteers, Society Members, event participants, and supporters. We really couldn’t do any of this work without your support – by helping us out, by joining the Society, by coming out to events, by using our services. When you show interest and demand, you make all of our work possible. Thank you!
Looking forward to BIGGER and BETTER in 2023!