We started a bike commuter group at work this June. We track our progress in an Excel spreadsheet and have an award for the most days ridden into work for the month and a monthly drawing for $25 gift certificate to LBS. We were wondering if anyone else does anything like this? We currently have 20 members.

Sure.

I'm the only member. On the up side... I "win" the drawing every month and get to keep all the bike schwag for myself.

Having other riders at your work is a definate motivation having 20 is something I can't imagine but odds are almost any given day someone must be riding which would be great. For the first time since I started someone picked up riding to work a few months ago. When I drove seeing their bike locked up there was a great motivation to try and ride the next day.
Of course I think their ulock has been locked there alone for at least 5 weeks without a bike so it is kind of depressing now.

That sounds like a good idea. I wish I had more than just one more GI that commuted.

It started small - one guy and I were talking. He suggested we start keeping a tally on his whiteboard. Another guy say that and wanted in. Then we started to talk with people we saw at the bike rack. Then they knew others and before you know it we have 20 people. It is definitely fun and nice that management is putting in a little cash each month for the $25 drawing. They also paid for the Commuter of the Month trophy.

No. I'm the only one who commutes to work and I'm "that crazy bicycling dude".
Ernest

Screen shot a chart in the Excel sheet is shown below.. It adds an extra element of challenge to your commuting... Wondering if anyone else out there does anything remotely like this??

No, but it's way cool. Heh...on the other hand. Lamerz is commuting. Heh.

Wow! That's amazing. I would be happy to have any accomodation from my employer. That yours is this supportive is almost surreal. Well done!

How did Neal only commute .55 times?

Being still in college I see a lot of people that bike to class, but I must say that the racks in front of the school of architecture building(my major) is always full along with bikes scattered throughout inside of the building. We're starting to get the crazy biker reputation to add to our crazy non-sleeping reputation.

I really like the YTD stats too that you have on the Excel sheet.

Seems like the incentive ought to be anyone reaching silver or better rotates in getting the bonus. The more in silver or better, the bigger the bonus. This way everyone has incentive to encourage and support the others. $5 a head for each silver or better. No bucks, no bonus for bronze.

Thats a nice spreadsheet. Could you post it on Google Docs? Take out any revealing info to be safe, but I'm looking for something like chill out my family members that worry about biking.

Thanks.

I HAD a few friends that commuted to school..but they have since quit!

Neal put 0.55 times because he was driving his car almost 1/2 way, parking, then riding the rest of the way...

the "Bike Commuter Group" at my old job consisted of... me. and that's when I was actually able to bike to work.

We have 900 people at my work, and one regular commuter (me). Two others ride sometimes/maybe if it's nice.

lol +1

Mehhem - good idea about Google docs. Tried a test, I will have to work with it - I am not able to see the graphs at this point... More to come

I like how the chart has two entries for "Lamers"

When I worked at an office-type setting for a few years, I was the only bicycle commuter out of 80-100 employees. We had some cyclists among the employees, they just weren't into commuting by bike. Now I work at an LBS again and it's the norm. I have one co-worker who has a 75-mile round-trip commute, and sometimes does the whole thing, or else parks halfway.

Lamers is actually a husband-wife team, pretty nice deal to have your spouse sooo supportive of your commuting...

From what I have seen so far, it looks like our situation is pretty unique. I was hoping there might be a few more workplaces (not directly related to biking ie LBS) that support/encourage "mass commuting". I spoke with the HR rep this week and we are working to have the Commuter Bicycle Act benefits in place in time for Bike to Work week in May 2009. We'll see what happens...

Yeah I'm a BUG man Bicycle Users Group coordinator for my work place and organisation. Here is a New Zealand link for some tips:

https://www.sparc.org.nz/partners-pro...endly-employer

At my work place, I'm the only one that bikes. Most people think I'm kind of crazy. The green leaning folks think I'm a god. Either way, I don't have the opportunity to bike with a co-worker. It would be cool to do so. Sounds like it would be fun..

Last I knew my Aunt had a group of people that would commute to work along with her, but then again they're all "crazy biologists that study flies" according to her(herself included).

My office has at least a dozen people who live within five miles. They have more excuses not to ride than you can imagine. The real kicker is that many of them ride bikes on the weekends.

We have a group, and a wiki website for our us. I like the mileage logging idea. Maybe I could throw something up on a sharepoint.