Approximately 15,000 people a day drive less than five miles alone from their home to their office in the Denver Metro area. A team of riders with Bicycle Colorado are working on getting more people out of their cars and onto bikes. Through ride navigators, a prospective bike commuter is guided on-bike by routes and tips and tricks that can be learned pretty quickly for success.

These Neighborhood Navigators will be the first to say you don’t need to be Spandex-clad or anything like a superhero at all. You can be a regular person wearing regular clothes on just about any bike and get from A to B very safely. Plus, it makes you feel better when you get there.

Neighborhood Navigators are free, trained, screened, and vetted. With these riders scattered throughout Denver, you can pair up with one and meet anywhere from your residence to any corner shop or coffee shop. Build your confidence one street at a time and get safely to where you want to get. Then at the end of the day, meet your navigator to bring you back home again.

Go to bicyclecolorado.org and look for Neighborhood Navigators.

A quick note, as there have been some comments made about riders and helmets. PEARL iZUMi is absolutely pro-helmet. But let’s not jump to helmet shaming and miss an opportunity to welcome in more people to ride bikes. Please read our thoughts about helmets and differing perspectives about the topic.