During the month of June, citizens of Boulder County take part in a unique local event focused on one thing: getting to work by some means other than driving a car. Walk & Bike Month has existed in some form or another since 1977 and keeps growing every year. It’s expanded from one day to one week to an entire month and includes an ever-increasing number of participants and volunteers.

But in a city where bike paths are abundant and public transportation is award-winning, there is absolutely no reason to limit these efforts to one month of the year.

Alternative transportation — walking, biking, riding the bus, skateboarding, unicycling, you name it — is playing an increasingly vital role in promoting our community and planet’s sustainability. Luckily for Boulder residents, it’s easy to give up the car and commute via bicycle.

“Bicycling is really woven into the fabric of our community on many levels,” says GO Boulder Program Manager Martha Roskowski. “We saw some of the benefits of that last year when we saw an increase in biking as the price of gasoline went up, probably in the order of 20 percent more trips being made when gas was at $4 a gallon. So, in Boulder people actually had options. They could get on their bike and ride, whereas in a lot of communities you don’t really have those options yet.”

And there is no better way to maintain that option than by participating in it. Health and pleasure are two aspects of walking and riding as a means of transportation, but there is also another factor not to be ignored: maintaining our environment.

Roskowski points out that riding and walking, as opposed to driving, is a way of achieving a higher level of sustainability. As the prices and availability of gas and fossil fuels becomes more volatile, alternative methods of transportation are absolutely necessary.

Boulder, a town that takes very seriously the effort to abide by the Kyoto Protocols, needs its residents to be thinking about the environment and their quality of life in the city before automatically reaching for the car keys.

But where to start? Though Boulder is known for serious trainers who could give even Lance Armstrong a run for his money, in reality the city accommodates every level of cycler, from the beginner to the moderate to the professional. But regardless of your starting block, no one in town can quite match Community Cycles for its efforts to make bicycling possible for everyone and promote what they see as a powerful technology that will change the quality of life: the bicycle.

The first and only nonprofit bike shop in town, Community Cycles operates with a mostly volunteer staff to provide bicycles and hands-on knowledge to anyone, regardless of their age or socioeconomic status — but you have to work for it.

The programs and classes at CC are designed to teach you all the skill sets you need for maintaining a functioning, quality bicycle (yes, you need to know how to change a flat), and this is done by the best means possible — greasing up and cranking away.

Josh Brown, co-director of Community Cycles, uses the center’s Youth Earn-A-Bike program as an example of a CC course. In it, he says, 10- to 15-year-olds pick out a recycled bicycle and begin meeting once a week to work on it — learning the major parts, including tires, tubes, brakes and shifting systems. At the end of it all, students get to leave with a bicycle they’ve learned how to repair, but have also learned to love — they themselves were the ones to tune it.

In general, if you donate 15 hours of your time to Community Cycles, you can walk away with not only a bicycle, but the necessary knowledge to keep it in shape.

Though the professional rider may opt for the newest, most supreme model, taking into consideration a bicycle’s origins should be making an impact on your decisions, as well. Many newly purchased bikes created by the top-name bicycle manufactures are made in foreign countries, with some estimates claiming that as many as 95 percent of the bicycles sold in the United States are manufactured in either Taiwan or China.

It’s something Community Cycles definitely takes into consideration. All of the bicycles and bike parts they work with are recycled — models that are either too tattered or too outdated for their original owners to keep up with. Donated to the cause, they enrich the community, rather than landing in a landfill.

“Buying bicycles new — or even buying them used — is not always financially viable,” notes Brown. “It’s also an easy thing we can do to keep bikes out of the waste stream and keep them from being chipped up as scrap metal. Bikes are very durable and last many, many years if maintained properly. By using all recycled bicycles, we’re able to reach out to and affect populations that may not have the resources to obtain a decent bicycle.”

Switching over to a bicycle as your main method of transportation might also correlate with an increased support of local business,
since bicycles have a shorter range than cars.

“Cyclists stay closer to home,” notes Brown. “Staying local to shop, entertain and spend time means people are more invested and involved in what’s happening in their neighborhood.”

And once you experience that kind of community vibe enhanced through the means of a new-to-you two-wheeled friend, Roskowski
says it’s easy to continue down that path.

“Once you’re out there and actually do it, you may find that it’s easier to continue to do it,” she says. “For a lot of people, they remember how much fun it actually is to ride a bike.”

For more information on Community Cycles and its programs, go to www.communitycycles.org.