The Almond Freikers Are Back On A Roll !

Well, the first week of Freiker is under our belt and the Almond students did a fantastic job! These are the largest numbers yet with an average of 110 students walking or riding their bikes to school per day.





Stats for Week One:

• Almond started a week later than a lot of the schools but has risen to the #2 school in the nation. We have a big reputation as the best Freiker school from last year but it looks like the Crest View school in Boulder, CO is going to give us a run for our money. Let's go Almond School!
• I'm not sure what the official number of registered Freikers is this year - I'm not sure of how I will even figure it out since returning Freikers did not have to reregister. My best guess puts us around 310 Freikers registered so far. This is great!
• Round trips logged: 549 round trips totaling 824 miles. That is an average of 110 walks/rides per day.
• Thursday we had 145 bikes in the bike racks - that may be a record for the school! If you think of all the kids that walked, my guess is we had 200 students that commuted on foot or by bike that day. So why did the Freikometer only show 122? It also tells me that there are a lot of kids who are walking or riding and are not signed up for Freikers - We gotta work on that :)
• We prevented 1/2 ton of CO2 from entering the atmosphere and saved 78 gallons of gasoline!
  

First Stop: Seattle, WA

The Almond students came out of the gate and headed straight up the west coast to Seattle, Washington this week. The may it all the way without missing a beat. Alond the way they passed by the following sights:


















Lake Shasta with Mt. Shasta in the background

























Roseburg, Oregon


















Portland, Oregon from across the Willamette River
















The Seattle, Washington skyline


Freikometer Times:

This is just a reminder that the Freikometer is a solar powered computer that gets 100% of it's power from the Sun. Because of this, the Freikometer has limited hours of operation. Make sure your students buzz in during one of the periods when the Freikometer is turned on:

• Start of Day: 8:00-8:30am
• PM Kinders: 11:45-12:00pm
• After School: 2:30-3:00pm

If you miss buzzing in on the Freikometer during one of these periods, you can always enter your child's round trip manually at www.freiker.org.

Helpful Hits at the Freikometer:

Here are some tips that will make it easier for your child to be counted correctly when they get to the Freikometer each day:

1. Have your Freiker RFID tag attached to the top of your helmet or the top handle on your backpack. This gets it closer to the Freikometer and easier to read the tag.
2. Make sure your child's name is written on the Freiker RFID tag with a permanent sharpie. This way, if you loose the tag, Venny will know who to return it to.
3. Make sure your child takes turns going through the Freikometer one at a time. If you get 4 kids under the Freikometer and it buzzes, nobody knows whose RFID tag just got read.
4. If in doubt as to whether your Freiker tag was read, go back through the Freikometer. It will only count you once per day no matter how many times you make the buzzer go off. Have fun with this one...
5. If, for any reason, you can't make it out to buzz in on the Freikometer one day, you can always enter your ride/walk manually at www.freiker.org.
6. Work on your friends! If you have friends that are riding or walking to school several days a week and they are not Freikers, ask them to join. It's not just about the cool awards but showing the rest of the nation just how committed the students at Almond are to their health and the health of the planet.

Well, that's all for now folks. I'll update you again next week

Every Ride Counts!
Jon

Bike sharing at national Senior Games in Stanford/Palo Alto

Freewheelin Rolls Into Palo Alto For National Senior Games! Humana Bringing Innovative Bicycle-Sharing Program To Premiere U.S. Event For Senior Athletes.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - July 30, 2009 - As thousands of senior athletes begin arriving in Palo Alto, Calif. for the Saturday, Aug. 1 start of the National Senior Games presented by Humana, the health-benefits company is pleased to offer the athletes and their families and friends a cool way to tour the Stanford University campus, home of this year's biennial competition. Humana's Freewheelin bicycle-sharing team is at it again, teaming up with the city of Palo Alto to bring 120 bikes and two bike stations to the games free of charge for anyone age 18 and up, throughout the two weeks of the Games.

Humana is providing 75 bicycles, with the City of Palo Alto providing 45 bikes, for the total of 120.

How Freewheelin Works

Bicycles will be available from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Aug. 1-15. Riders must present a credit card and a photo ID to check out a bike; no charges will be placed on the card, provided bikes are returned by 6:00 p.m. Bikes may be returned to either of two Freewheelin stations set up on the Stanford University campus. Humana will also allow all riders to borrow helmets and bike locks free of charge.

. Station 1: Nelson Mall - next to the Avery Aquatic Center
. Station 2: Ford Plaza - outside of the Arrillaga Center for Sports and Recreation

A celebratory "Community Ride" is scheduled for 10:30 a.m., Monday, August 3. The ride will begin and end at the Nelson Mall bicycle station. Anyone in the community is welcome to participate in this ride, on their own bikes, or on a Freewheelin bike.

Freewheelin's Road to Success

In 2008, Humana and the bicycle-advocacy group Bikes Belong took 1,000 bicycles to each of the national political conventions. Over eight days, riders in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul took more than 7,500 rides, pedaled nearly 42,000 miles, burned 1.3 million calories and reduced their carbon footprint by 14.6 metric tons. It was such a success that Humana decided to keep the Freewheelin program rolling . later taking it to other events, and now bringing it to the National Senior Games.