Bike Week at Homestead High School a Success

Bike Doctor fixed students' bikes for free during Bike Week.

The Homestead High School Bike Week in October was a success!  We had weeklong activities to encourage students to bike to school, including Bike Doctor to fix students' bikes, Bike Trains, and Bike for Donuts (yum!).  Our strategy was to create buzz around biking at Homestead with the goal of attracting new cyclists such as freshmen to bike to school. Bike counts taken before and after Bike Week provided solid evidence that the bike rate increased. We were gratified to find that we made a change at Homestead High School (HHS) toward sustainable  transportation.

HHS Bike Rate Has Been Decreasing

Since 2021, the HHS bike rate has been decreasing. Raw data courtesy of Walk Bike Cupertino.

Since 2021 when monthly bike counts started being collected, HHS's bike rate has actually been declining, from 14.8% to 12.4% to 11.2%.  The reasons for the decline are not completely clear, but it probably has to do with lack of encouragement, traffic safety problems as evidenced by continuing collisions between cars and student cyclists, and the lack of a strong Safe Routes to School program in the K-8 schools feeding into HHS.  Out of the 5 high schools in Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD), HHS has the worst change in bike ridership, with a relative decrease of -16.3% two years ago and -10% last year.  In contrast, during this same time period, the other 4 FUHSD high schools stayed relatively stable or even improved. Monta Vista HS improved the most, with a relative increase in bike ridership of +27.2% two years ago and +19.1% last year.  

This Year, HHS Bike Rate Increased in October!

In the past 3 years, bike rate normally dips in October. However, this year, it increased, likely due to Bike Week. Raw data courtesy of Walk Bike Cupertino.

In the previous 3 years, there was a dip in ridership in October, as the weather turned colder. But this year there was actually an increase of 17 cyclists.  We hypothesize that the positive change is partly due to Bike Week. Hopefully the effect of Bike Week is long lasting and we finally turn around Homestead’s downward trajectory. Bike Week seems to have made students more willing to bike to school and is evidence that encouragement activities are vital to the effort. 

From an environmental perspective, biking to school avoids a huge amount of carbon emissions that driving to school would cause. If all student cyclists in FUHSD drove to school instead, 97,139 trees would need to be planted to offset those carbon emissions [Ref: Walk Bike Cupertino]. By biking, students make a big positive impact to our environment.

Fun Bike Week Activities

Students get free donuts on Bike For Donuts day.

HHS students had fun with the activities we organized. We started the week by giving a Bike Safety Speech about the common hazards of biking to HHS and how to avoid them.   Then, we organized 5 Bike Trains with designated starting points and volunteer leaders along popular bike routes to school. Participants were able to meet at the starting points and bike to school as a group.   We arranged Bike for Donuts, where we passed out 200 Krispy Kreme donuts to students who biked to school. It was so popular we ran out of donuts. We also held a raffle with prizes. On Commute Feedback Day, we gathered students' experiences biking to school and their ideas for improving their commute.  We invited Bike Doctor to come fix students' bikes for free. In total, 46 bikes were fixed, some with serious problems. The popularity of this event shows how overdue Homestead is for bike events.

“Bike Week was actually really cool because I saw so many more people biking to school”, states Adam Orrin, a junior who participated in the Bike for Donuts Event. “And usually everyone's kind of like biking by themselves to head down. But those days, it was definitely more of a community thing where, like, we're all bikers, and we're all biking to school, and we're making a conscious effort to not waste gas or pollute.”

For us, planning and hosting the Bike Week events were so much fun! We enjoyed the process and learned so much. We developed teamwork skills, learned some crazy bike statistics, and saw a positive change in our community. We hope to plan more HHS Bike Weeks and other events in the future.  Each choice you make has an impact on the world around you, including your choice of transportation to school. The choice is in your hands. 

Thanks to the Cupertino Safe Routes To School program for providing support and funding for Bike Week, to Community Cycles for staffing the Bike Doctor event and fixing our bikes, and to Silicon Valley Clean Energy for providing the funding for Bike Doctor.

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About the Authors

Chloe Dahl and Sara Mohsin are Homestead High School's student leaders for the Cupertino Safe Routes To School Program.  They are in their Sophomore year at HHS and bike to school daily.