Bike Valet

Biking to baseball games is our preferred mode of transportation on gamedays. That is something we promote, encourage, and participate in. Now that the baseball regular season is coming to a close, only 8 teams will have games next week*. So obviously, that doesn’t mean people should stop riding to sporting events. I’ve taken my bike to each of the Vikings home games so far, and I plan on riding to the remaining games as well.

*Who else is thankful there actually will be some Wild Card drama the last few days of the season?

Fall is a great time to ride. Cooler weather makes it comfortable to bike around town in street clothes. Depending on what part of the country you live in, the good weather for riding may be getting fewer and fewer. It’s time to take advantage of it by biking to meet your friends at the football tailgate.

I recently read this article describing the incredibly ingenious idea to valet park bicycles at Wisconsin Badger football games. Fans can valet park their bikes starting one hour prior to kick-off and must claim them one hour from when the game is over. This saves cycling fans the hassle of competing with traffic directly near the stadium and finding a parking spot.

There are only so many spots at designated bike racks, excess bikes are inevitably going to be locked to traffic signs, or anything else that seems sturdy. This is much to the dismay of sports teams, universities, and cities who think the bikes everywhere detract from the beauty of the area around the stadium. This isn’t just a problem for Camp Randall Stadium, but all other stadiums face this situation with bicycles as well. 

This is why we applaud The University of Wisconsin for proactively making the gameday experience more accommodating to cyclists and more pleasant for people who don’t like bikes locked up to signs. Even if the initial reason to institute bike valet isn’t to encourage active lifestyle for football fans, it’s a great side effect.

University officials were likely trying to get bikes away from every street sign near the stadium, which I’m sure other teams would like to do at their own stadiums. So what should we, as cyclists, do? We should keep biking to any sporting event, and lock our bikes in the same places we have before. Then, find any stadium official and tell them about the successful bike valet at the University of Wisconsin. Or reach out to the team on social media and tell them @Biking4Baseball promotes bike valets.