By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – May is National Bike Month, and there are loads of events planned throughout the region encouraging cyclists of all ages to celebrate spring and improve fitness with a bike ride. Many of them are listed on the City of Sequim website.
If you’re interested in a friendly competition, you can put together a team for the “Bike Everywhere Challenge”. It’s a great way to motivate yourself, family, and even co-workers to ride. Team members earn points by riding multiple miles or days, and logging your miles on the Bike Everywhere Challenge website.
With that in mind, former Sequim City Manager Charlie Bush, who is now the City Manager of beautiful Sedro-Wooley in Skagit County, challenged the cities of Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Sequim to assemble their own teams and see which city could earn bragging rights with the most points for the month of May.
Bush says, when he was with the City of Sequim, the employees always had a team, so he thought it would be an easy sell. He also told us why he doesn’t have to miss Sequim’s famous elk herd.
“For me, I was interested in doing it in Sedro-Woolley and having a little bit of friendly competition. And so I reached out to Nathan West in Port Angeles, and John Mouro in Port Townsend and, of course, to Sequim. Everybody wanted to form a team and ride and have a friendly competition. So that’s what we’ve done. And it’s been a really fun week so far. Loads of fun, and there’s an elk herd out here, too. So that adds to it. I’ve seen him twice now and probably will see them more.”
His old bike riding buddies and fellow City Managers Nathan West of Port Angeles and John Mauro of Port Townsend were all too happy to take him up on the idea. West says he rides to work on a regular basis, and has been seeing some wildlife of his own.
“No, absolutely, Pepper. And when Charlie and I would meet when he was here, we would typically do bike rides together. Personally that is my commute, coming in on the Discovery Trail. I got to see four river otters this morning coming in. And, you know, it’s a great opportunity to promote wellness within the City organization and get employees out there on their bikes.”
John Mauro is a lifelong rider and has covered a lot of miles on the Olympic Peninsula. But he says some of the best riding in his own back yard.
“One of the first things I did, when I moved to the Northwest about 20 years ago was, I got on my bike and I rode around the Olympic Peninsula. And I have a team now, and it’s a great camaraderie builder for us to, as a team, to focus on something and to have some friendly competition with some of those city managers and their teams. You know, there are dozens and dozens of miles of trails in this little town that we can now all enjoy. So whether it’s the Olympic Discovery Trail, or just neighborhood trails through here, or Fort Worden and the trail system there, it’s kind of a trail Paradise.”
Sequim City Manager Matt Huish is new in town, but he’s a Tacoma native and a lifelong cyclist. He’s says ridden many cross country-style trips over the years, often hundreds of miles. Huish says, unlike the others, he was perhaps the last to join the riding team in Sequim.
“I was invited to join a team. It was some of the City staff that had done this before, so they said, “You want to be on our team?” I said, “What’s that mean?” And before long I said, “Sure.” So, yeah, I think it was really…there’s some standing teams, or folks that ride together here at the City. So, I just said I’d be happy to add my mileage to theirs.”
To learn more about Bike Month and the Challenge, visit lovetoride.net/washington.