For National Bike Month, the week of May 11th marked the start of bike week in which organizations across the United States promote bicycle riding, advocacy, and coming together to enjoy the joy of bicycling.
In Cache Valley, Utah, organizations including Aggie Blue Bikes (Utah State University), Trials Cache, Bike/Ped Advisory Committee of Cache County, and local bike shops joined together to present the Bad Asphalt 4 – Cache Valley’s Solo Alleycat from May 11-15, 2020 that involved searching out and photographing items found from the manifest provided (or better yet, let’s call it a treasure map).
This model for bicycle advocacy excels in many ways –
Following guidelines from the Bear River Health Department, the event was promoted to be completed alone or with ones’ household. The treasure hunt took place during bike week allowing participants to photograph their hunt and submit on their schedule (no group ride, social distancing applied). For an added element, bonus challenges were posted each day and could count as points if participants did and documented it the same day. The treasure map (details below), was well designed to be a fun, bicycle filled adventure for all riders and families.
The ‘manifest’ or TREASURE MAP was emailed out to participants on May 8th.
In Cache Valley, Utah, organizations including Aggie Blue Bikes (Utah State University), Trials Cache, Bike/Ped Advisory Committee of Cache County, and local bike shops joined together to present the Bad Asphalt 4 – Cache Valley’s Solo Alleycat from May 11-15, 2020 that involved searching out and photographing items found from the manifest provided (or better yet, let’s call it a treasure map).
This model for bicycle advocacy excels in many ways –
Following guidelines from the Bear River Health Department, the event was promoted to be completed alone or with ones’ household. The treasure hunt took place during bike week allowing participants to photograph their hunt and submit on their schedule (no group ride, social distancing applied). For an added element, bonus challenges were posted each day and could count as points if participants did and documented it the same day. The treasure map (details below), was well designed to be a fun, bicycle filled adventure for all riders and families.
The ‘manifest’ or TREASURE MAP was emailed out to participants on May 8th.
 |  This view is one of my favorites from Cache Valley. Close to home, I can ride to Green Canyon and ride the Bonneville Shoreline Trail towards Logan Canyon. This is the view looking west towards Wellsville, UT. |
 |  | Bike week also involved documenting animals which is always high on my list. This little donkey here stood out. And there’s always opportunities for a first like being shit on by a bird or dropping in at the skate park on my cervelo road bike. The scooters kids were jealous. |
 I came across this nice message on the Logan River Trail. | The daily challenge on May 13th was to write a bicycle haiku. I wrote mine based on my ride earlier that day. Bike is ready, roads damp Route is set, don’t cramp Cool mist feels refreshing Life is good, no stressing Railroad tracks up ahead Send it! The tracks said Road rash and my pride hurt Wish I measured that vert 🤣 No bicycles were hurt by the railroad tracks. |
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The daily challenge the following day was to drop off food to the Cache County Food Pantry. Thinking about how I would carry items to drop off, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to take my best friend, Molly, for a ride too. We loaded up, went to the food pantry and then to the park!
The challenge from the final day was to recreate a bicycle movie scene. Redolently, Molly participated in recreating both E.T. & Breaking Away.
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Cache Valley Bike Week was a ton of fun and required little oversight or infrastructure to facilitate this kind of event, just simply providing a fun game for people to play while enjoying this bicycles. I highly recommend that bicycle advocacy groups use this events’ approach for future models.
Sara Harper
Sara Harper
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