Ready to pedal? Leave car at home for Bike-To-Work Week

Frank Cerabino

This is Bike-To-Work Week in West Palm Beach.

I know. It’s easy to miss. It looks like another Drive-YourCar-To-Work Week, but trust me. It’s all about bicycles this week.

“We are trying to promote alternative transportation,” said Ellen Ostrowski, who runs the city’s Transportation Management Initiative.

West Palm Beach has done quite a bit already to promote bicycling.

It has installed bike lockers in city garages, partnered with businesses on the installation of bicycle racks, and dotted the downtown with bike rental kiosks. There’s even a free Emergency Ride Home program for those who cycle to work on a regular basis.

But getting large numbers of people to leave their car in Read Frank Cerabino’s recent columns online at the driveway and hop on their bicycle to work, well, that’s a special challenge.

I’ve done the bicycle-to-work routine before. The biking part is good for the soul. It’s once you get to work when the challenge really begins.

Nobody wants to work next to somebody who’s ripe from a South Florida bike ride. And using the bathroom sink for a hobo shower is a good way to generate an HR complaint. You’ll have to be creative. West Palm Beach used to have a library director who was an avid runner. On lunch hours he would change into his running gear, and jog across the bridge to Palm Beach and run on the Lake Trail.

Then he’d run back to downtown West Palm Beach, take off his running shoes and take a shower among the frolicking children in the Centennial Square fountain at the foot of Clematis Street. Then he’d drip dry, walk back to work, and change into his work clothes again.

Not all of us work so near to a convenient public fountain that we can use as a shower.

And that’s what we really need. Showers at work. Without showers at work, getting there by bicycle is far less appealing.

There is a showering component to this week’s Bike-ToWork Week. The LA Fitness in CityPlace is offering free showers all week to the commuters who bike to work. Which, I