I am a commuter contest champion.  How about that?

    On May 1st, I wrote about the Thurston County Commuter Contest.  On May 31st, the contest ended and we sent in our milage logs.  Today, the results arrived in the mail and they are pretty exciting.

    This was the 20th anniversary of the Commuter Contest and the first time I participated.  It was the first year for many contestants.  The Commuter Contest began in 1988 and there were 30 contestants.  This year, there were 1006 registered riders and, collectively, we rode more than 87,500 commute miles by making over 10,130 trips.  Recreational riding miles don’t count for the commuter contest , but trips to work, school, and the store do count.  The contestants averaged 123 commute miles over the course of the month.  And Bob Lang, who rode in the 60 years old plus category, topped everyone by riding 1218 commute miles.  That’s a lot of bebopping around town on a bicycle for one month.

    It was a great month for the contest.  We had an unusually warm and dry May and it sure looked to me like there were more bicycle commuters out in the mornings and evenings than we usually see around here.  The contest also encouraged a lot of school aged kids to ride to school in May.  This is especially encouraging to me because it seems that most kids eschew the school busses and either drive themselves to school or get a ride from Mom.  On the way to the doctor one morning, I saw a riding friend of mine, Rebbeca, following her daughter as both rode their bikes to the elementary school.

    The whole contest was an encouragement to me, but probably not to the oil companies because we saved about $14,000 on gasoline!  I know our family saved gas money in May.  I am not the big driver in our household -- not by a long shot, but since our car was in the Honda dealer’s garage for all of May and two weeks in June, the family was carless, and the checkbook showed it.

    So how am I a champion?  Well, with 827 commute miles, I rode the most miles in the 18-59 year old first time adult class.  In the veteran adult class, it looks like four riders, led by Debbie Monaghan-Guerreo with 1203 miles, rode more than I did.  And, of course, Bob Lang rode more than any of us.

    What did I win?  Besides the intangible benefits that accrue to bicycle riders, I won a handful of gift certificates for treats around town and a $125 gift card to Performance Bicycle.  I also won a gift certificate for a free rolfing session.  Since I don’t know what rolfing is, I looked it up on the Internet.  I still don’t know.  There may even be a dispute among rolfers about what rolfing is and what it does, but it’s probably a pretty good deal.  I know that bicycle commuting is a good deal.