This year marks the 13th May is Bike Month, celebrated across Eugene with daily biking activities and advocacy for biking instead of driving.
Organized by the Lane Council of Governments, the month-long programming includes daily events such as group rides, bike repair opportunities and deals at local businesses for bikers.
Bike Month was started in 1956 by the League of American Bicyclists to highlight the benefits of biking. Today, Bike Month encourages people to ride bikes not only for recreation, but as a daily mode of transportation.
Delaney Thompson is an assistant transportation planner at the Lane Council of Governments, helping to organize May is Bike Month. The council partners with University of Oregon Transportation Services, the PeaceHealth bike system, the Lane Transit District, the City of Eugene, Safe Routes to School and local bike nonprofits to host the event.
“Bike Month is really just about celebrating people who bike already and letting them find like-minded people, and then opening up opportunities for people who want to try biking for the first time,” Thompson said.
Bike Month in Lane County offers “passports” to fill out that encourage visits to local businesses. At each event, attendees can earn a stamp in the passport and rewards are given for a full passport, according to Thompson.
One benefit of Bike Month is a free month of bike share from PeaceHealth Rides. The PeaceHealth bikes are owned by the city of Eugene, operated by nonprofit Cascadia Mobility and sponsored by PeaceHealth.
Justin Sandoval, the marketing manager for the bike share program at Cascadia Mobility, said the goal of the free month of bike share is to encourage people to try biking.
PeaceHealth bikes were introduced to Lane County in 2018 and are used for over 10,000 bike trips every week by residents, according to Sandoval. He said Cascadia Mobility is projecting over 300,000 total trips by the end of 2026.
May is Bike Month is a “huge part of Eugene and Springfield culture,” Sandoval said. He said it connects people to their communities and city, and gives people who may not have biked since childhood a chance to reintroduce the practice into their lives.
“Biking is bigger than just bikes — it’s about access, it’s about health, it’s about affordability and quality of life. Active transportation makes life more fruitful,” Sandoval said.
UO holds its own bike shop and program led by Logan Devack, located in the Erb Memorial Union and is managed by Logan Devack. The program offers a DIY space for UO students to learn how to repair their bikes for free, as well as a paid repair service. The bike program also offers two bike schools every term, and a fleet of rental bikes for touring, bike packing and mountain biking.
Devack said the shop has “pretty much anything that you’re gonna need to be able to do (bike trips) successfully, safely and confidently.”
The bike shop is an “invaluable resource for the UO because Eugene’s an incredibly bikeable city,” Devack said.
According to Devack, the League of American Bicyclists has rated Eugene a gold rating for its bikeability and infrastructure. Earning the gold rating requires a city to meet the “five Es” which are; Equity and accessibility, Engineering, Education, Encouragement, and Evaluation and planning. These measurements ensure a city like Eugene is committed to building a bikeable environment for its residents.
Devack said he’s glad to see that bike infrastructure continues to improve, with more bike lanes being implemented and more people turning to cycling over driving.
May is Bike Month opens people’s eyes to the possibility of using bikes not just for recreation, but for day to day transit, Devack said. He said that bike commuting can change people’s lives for the better.
“Carbon emissions are just crazy, gas prices right now are insane. How much is it to park on campus? Everything associated with passenger vehicle transit with one person in it is just expensive and bad for the environment. It’s not sustainable,” Devack said.
Community-hosted events
Bike Month events are held by the Lane Council of Governments, but any community member can also host an event and publish it on the website.
Every Friday at 1 p.m., Eugene resident Stephen Flanagan can be found with his bike and art supplies at the Jud Turner statue, ready to host a “Sketch By Bike” event.
At these events, Flanagan leads a group on a casual bike ride to a destination, where the group spends time drawing or painting their surroundings. At the end of the event, the group does a “throwdown” where they show each other the art they made.
Flanagan has led multiple of these events for bike month, but said that prior to Bike Month, he often spent his free time going on his own “Sketch by Bikes.”
“I have a sister who’s an artist and she encouraged me, but also it slows you down, which is something I really like,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan has been biking for over 50 years, starting out in rural Northern California with older sisters who cycled. At age nine, he taught himself how to ride so he could keep up with his sisters, and at 13 years old, he discovered he could beat the bus to school if he biked. He never rode the bus again and has been cycling ever since.
Eugene’s bike-friendly culture, along with the college town community, is why Flanagan moved to the city two decades ago. He met Gary Rayor, another biking enthusiast. They both teach kindergarten, first and second grade students how to ride bikes through the Safe Rides to School program. Rayor and Flanagan teach the kids using “training bikes” without pedals, which helps children learn to balance properly on a bike.
“I feel like I’m helping start a new generation of bike riding,” Rayor said.
Rayor was previously a mountain bike racer and a “serious mountaineer.” As he’s gotten older, he’s moved to bike packing with Flanagan and other friends, with some of his trips spanning up to 1,200 miles.
“Embrace (biking) sooner than later and try to move away from a gas powered mode of getting around,” Rayor said. “Try to make everywhere there’s people more livable because there’ll be less cars and more people riding and having fun.”
Another community-led event was hosted by Alexander “Al” Hongo, who is moving houses to a location three blocks away from his current residence. He invited the community to come with bikes and help him move all of his belongings — including two indoor exercise bikes — via bike.
Around a dozen friends, family members and co-workers showed up to help Hongo move. They loaded up his mattress, piano and other furniture into trailer bikes and rode down a hill around to his new house.
“This is actually not too out of the ordinary in Eugene,” Hongo said. “I mean, Eugene’s a very bike-friendly town and people have been organizing human-powered moves for as long as I can remember being in the bicycle scene here since the early 2000s.”
Hongo has worked in various bike-related jobs, including a bicycle courier and mechanic, and is now the operations director at Cascadia Mobility. According to Hongo, he would’ve done the “human-powered move” any month of the year, but it was just “dumb luck” that it happened to occur during May is Bike Month.
“I feel pretty honored and humbled that this many folks wanted to help me realize this rather absurd vision,” Hongo said.
Richard Armida, a volunteer at the move and a friend of Hongo, eagerly jumped in to participate.
“I’m from LA where everybody uses cars,” Armida said. “As a matter of fact, the joke is that if you’re going to the bathroom, three people will throw you car keys.”
Armida has now been in Oregon for 11 years. When he moved to Oregon, he bought his first bike at age 65. Now at 76, he’s riding an average of 40 to 50 miles a week on his bike.
“A bike event like this to move is pretty unusual… I think it’s sweet and it’s not that hard, apparently,” Armida said.
Bike Month will end at the end of May, but many organizations will continue advocating for bike transportation and bike rentals and shares will remain available.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story mistakenly referred to the Lane Council of Governments as the Lane Transportation Government. The Emerald regrets this error.
