Bike Santa Cruz County Presents 2024 Wheelie Awards
Bike Santa Cruz County presented the 2024 Wheelie Awards to a programs and individuals making a positive impact on cycling in Santa Cruz County. The awards acknowledge excellent work toward expanding and improving safety and awareness of cycling. The awards were presented at BSCC’s Wheels in Motion event on November 17 at Woodhouse Blending & Brewing in Santa Cruz.
Photo Courtesy of Bill Bishoff, pictured left to right, Greg McPheeters (Moved by Bikes), Matt Starkey (City of Santa Cruz), Supervisor Felipe Hernandez (Watsonville Community Bike Ride), and Juan Castillo (Ecology Action/Bay View Elementary)
“In order to acknowledge the growing interest in cycling as a healthy and environmentally-friendly way to move through communities, we expanded the award categories we are recognizing this year,” says Amelia Conlen, Board Chair of BSCC.
The following projects and individuals received awards:
Advocacy: Matt Miller
Community Building: Watsonville Community Bike Ride
Education: Bay View Elementary School Bike Bus Program
Infrastructure: Ocean Street/Plymouth Street Repaving Project
Business: Moved by Bikes
Advocacy Award winner Matt Miller is a Senior Program Specialist with Ecology Action’s Modo team, where he works on transportation behavior change. He collaborates with local government, businesses, and NGOs, to create physical and social infrastructure to transition away from car centric planning and behavior. From large scale community programs to helping launch a municipal e-bike rebate program, Matt has designed innovative approaches to get more people on bikes more often. He built participation in the annual Biketober program from a few early adopters in 2017 to hundreds of employers and thousands of riders in 2024.
Watsonville Community Bike Ride was held August 24, 2024. Hosted by Fourth District County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez and Watsonville Mayor Vanessa Quiroz-Carter, the ride helped demonstrate the ease of using bicycles to move around town. The ride included a bike check and a helmet giveaway. It was cosponsored by the City of Watsonville, Santa Cruz County Public Health, and the County of Santa Cruz. Over fifty community members participated.
Bay View Elementary School Bike Bus Program was developed with the assistance of Ecology Action’s Modo program. A local version of a global movement that transports 30,000 children worldwide, introducing them to bicycles as a viable means of transportation for short trips. Bay View initiated its Bike Bus program in 2023, and has held regular parent-led rides since then, attracting between 30 to 50 students per ride.
Ocean Street/Plymouth Street Repaving Project is a City of Santa Cruz project that includes a retrofit of striping and sidewalk design to better accommodate cyclists and pedestrians at a critical linchpin location at the terminus of the Highway 17 freeway where it becomes Ocean Street. The retriping includes clearly-marked bike boxes, green Class 1 striping for bike lanes, and ADA ramp repaving for the sidewalks leading to the crosswalks at Ocean Street. These facilities, while modest, are important pieces of street design that make cycling safer and consequently more attractive to users.
Moved by Bikes was founded by Greg McPheeters in 2012 in Santa Cruz with the mission of creating simple, effective products that make it easier to “do more” with your bicycle. MBB is passionate about outdoor recreation, sustainability, and developing high quality products that merge the two. Their products include surfboard racks, trailers, valet racks, and dog runners. Moved by Bikes has expanded the functionality of cycling to include recreational trips, and have become a world-wide success in the surfing world.