Flags. Sharing music. Jazz concerts? Slow Rides. Fast Rides. Alleycats. These are only some of the creative ideas that came out of our Annual Impact Meeting.

It’s been over a week since we held one of our biggest Impact Meetings EVER! Thank you to everyone who came, the 110 people who took our survey, and for all the support you continue to give BBP. After nights like that, it makes us feel like the luckiest Nonprofit in the world. :-)

Now you may be wondering, what the heck did they do with all of our ideas for Wednesday Members’ Night and Friday Night Bikes? We heard ya, read your post-it ideas, processed it all, we talked it out with our staff, and processed it some more. Now we have an idea of what we can do to optimize these rad programs and make them radder. Below are our next steps that we developed from your ideas!

Friday Night Bikes

Get a Friday Night Bikes flag attached to a bike that waves in our valor as we ride through the city and conquer our car dependent society! Huzzah!

Ok I am definitely getting ahead of myself and a flag may not get more riders, but we are definitely putting it on our to-do list for 2020. Besides the flag, we had great ideas to improve our Friday Night Bike rides, and one thing they all had in common was… BIKES!

We may all want a different destination, a free destination, a different speed or type of bike, but one thing is clear: We want to ride our bicycle. So lets just… do it. Get on our bikes and ride into the sunset, or the moonrise! Or toward the foothills.

For Friday Night Bikes, we are simplifying it by having three set routes, starting and ending at BBP, and promoting the neighborhood we call home: The Lusk District. At the end of each ride we will reconvene at BBP, but the night doesn’t have to end there! Some may want to go to Lost Grove and re-hydrate with a beer, some may want a smoothie at Tree City, some may want to go to Ann Morrison and hack a sack! Heck, you can even call it a night and head home. We don’t judge. Please note: If there is an awesome event happening on a Friday we + the community wants to support (i.e. Treefort, Pride, Goathead Fest…) we will take that ride instead!

Friday Night Bike Routes

Greenbelt Ride to Veterans Bridge

From BBP we will ride west to Veterans Memorial Bridge, hop on it to cross the river and head back through the ponds to BBP! We’ll get to see the awesome art under Fairview, sunsets along the pond, and so much more! This ride is about 6 miles.

Greenbelt Ride to Red Bridge (Parkcenter)

From BBP we will head east to the Red Bridge, cross it and head back to the shop. This is the bridge between Parkcenter and Warm Springs Golf Course that people jump off to cool down in the river during the summer. It’s called the Red Bridge on Google Maps so that’s all I got! This ride is also 6 miles.

Wednesday Night Happy Hour

Wednesday Night Happy Hour is a bit trickier than Friday Night Bikes. There was a lot of talk about music: live music, sharing playlists, etc., about bringing and sharing food, and about sharing bike knowledge like routes, bike builds and more.

What we heard from all of this, was emphasis on the social side of it all. So here it goes.

Social

• As a member you get the perk of bringing a friend to Wednesday Nights! I’m sure we all have that one friend who wants to bike more but has a bike that needs repair and doesn’t know how to fix it. Bring them down and teach them all you know! Share with them the swath of knowledge BBP has provided you, and heck, they may event become a member after that! It’s truly a win-win-win situation: Your friend fixes their bike, you get a friend to ride with, and we gain a new, rad community member. Nice.

• Don’t have anything to work on? That’s okay! If you feel comfortable working on a kids bike we can grab one for ya. If you don’t, still come down! Meet new members, shadow an employee, or take on the iPod and DJ some sweet tunes.

Sharing

• Share your cooking skills! We always welcome you to bring treats to share. Show off your favorite recipe, trial a new recipe on us, whatever it is we will eat it (ok maybe not anything )

• Share your tunes! We all can’t be sweet Radio Boise DJs, or maybe you’ve wanted to become one and want to try it out at the shop. Go for it! This space is all of ours to cherish, and we want to hear your ear for music.

• Finally, we are sharing our love of Lost Grove to you! As a Wednesday Night Happy Hour attendee you can pop over to Lost Grove and grab a 32 oz Crowler for only $6! What! Keep your receipt from Lost Grove and show it to us to get a $5 coupon! Wow!