It’s been another wet Bike to Work Week this year, but that hasn’t stopped the hearty cyclists of Metro Vancouver from throwing on their rainware and hitting the streets on mass. On Monday, TravelSmart participated in a celebration station outside of the Metrotown Skytrain Station. That’s where I met a group of young men on route from various locations in Vancouver to their place of work in Surrey. Derik Wenman, Redmar Atsma and Lucas Socio were enjoying a snack and some good will from volunteer staff at the station when I asked them a few questions.

Have you guys ever cycled together to work before?

Derik: Redmar and I have worked together for three or four years. We bike together from Surrey on a fairly regular basis. For Lucas, today is an initiation.

Lucas: This is my first time to cycle with these guys. I used to cycle to work a couple of kilometers at my old job, but now it’s a little more challenging.

How far is your ride to work?

Derik: We usually cycle for about an hour and twenty minutes, maybe an hour and a half. It depends.

When did you leave for work this morning?

Derik: 7:15-7:30am–sometime around there. We don’t drive because it’s an even longer commute. If we take just the SkyTrain, it takes forty-five minutes to an hour to get to work.

Redmar: It’s an hour or more of your daily exercise to bike to work basically.

Do you ever use both transit and cycling to get to work?

Derik: Sometimes we do a combo. Definitely having a SkyTrain line near our office makes it handy.

Where do you guys work?

Derik: Luckett Wenman & Associates, a tax consulting firm.

Are you logging your commute this week on the Hub Bike to Work website?

Derik: Yup, our team name is “The Accounting Cyclers” named after the accounting cycle. I think it’s clever. Most
non-accountants give me a blank stare.

How far is your commute? I imagine that because you’re accountants, you’ll know the mileage down to the decimal point.

Redmar: It’s 28.3 km or so. [laughs]

Are you going to bike all week?

Derik: Most of the week. The first time we rode to work, it took us two and a half hours, a few wrong turns, some head scratching and map reading. But we made it to work. Now, years later, we bike to work almost weekly. We have discovered alternate bike routes and have managed to make the commute time under one and a half hours.

Great! Thanks, and happy and safe biking!

There are still a few more days left in Bike to Work Week. If you haven’t jumped on your bike, grab a couple of your workmates who haven’t either, and try it out. It’s always easier to bike to work when you have colleagues doing the same.