Here's a great story from our And I Ride campaign! We are seeking to put a face on cycling in support of a legislative campaign that we are working on this year. You can read the rest of these great bicyclist bios here.

We are still accepting entries, so be sure to read below to find out how to send in your story.

Our next story comes from Tim.

Where I Ride: Western Mass: Northampton, Easthampton, Amherst area
How Often I Ride: When there is no snow- almost every day


My Story:
I ride mostly to work and back. It is 15 miles each way. I try to ride at least 3 days a week. This is my first season commuting, as I used to be a purely recreational rider. It took a bit of training to be able to achieve that- I started with shorter rides and jogging. My main motivation for commuting by bicycle is to avoid the traffic hassles. The Rte 9 bridge between Northampton and Hadley can be a bottleneck on Thursdays and Fridays, and I just love pedaling past the traffic. Of course a great benefit is the exercise- I have lost weight and feel great. Additionally I feel I am helping the environment by reducing the emissions from car.

The Norwattuck trail between Northampton and Amherst provides me with a beautiful, quiet commute, combined with the flexibility of my professional and personal life, I plan to commute for as long as the weather allows. The only thing that will stop me will be the snow. I have been through rain and thunderstorms, and that has not deterred me. My ultimate goal is to commute on the bike every day of the week, and even do some more errands on the bike (I already go through the bank drive-through on the bike!).

My hope is that I can encourage more folks to get out and commute to work. I think that I am a great example for distance- I may be 15 miles away, but that does not mean one can't commute on the bike. I'd like to get groups together so I am not riding alone. And hopefully by this fall the Manhan trail will be completed to link up to Northampton.

The more people we can get on a bike the better, and the more funding we can get for trails, evenbetter!

We can't agree more Tim, Thanks!

We still want to hear your story. Tell us about yourself and how bicycling is a part of your life. Just copy and paste the form below into an email, fill it in, and send it to [email protected].

• • Name:

• • Email:

• • Where You Ride:

• • How Often You Ride:

• • Your Profession/Relation/Title (lawyer, nurse, Grandma, son, etc):

• • A picture of you on your bicycle, or you in your daily life (be sure we can see your face):

• • A paragraph or two about your life and your bicycle: