BIKE Bellingham: New program offers guided recreation routes, minus the guide
A Bellingham woman has established themed bike routes along standout locations in and around Bellingham, and her program is live just in time to celebrate National Bike Month.
Sarah Burch created and launched BIKE Bellingham on April 28 with three different routes, each with its own theme: Quirky Quirks, Treemendus Trees and Gretchen’s Murals.
Burch hopes to add more routes to the program over time. She already has ideas for 30 more themed routes, including a Cats and Dogs theme and an Indigenous Arts theme. The first three routes have 47 points of interest between them and highlight 23 businesses, organizations and individuals.
“I just want to draw awareness to the community and all the cool things that exist here in Bellingham,” Burch told The Bellingham Herald.
Since creating the program, Burch said she has heard back from a handful of organizations in town looking to collaborate on themed routes. She is also excited to hear from the community on possible points of interests along routes as well as themes. Burch can be reached through the BIKE Bellingham website.
Burch has been working with the city of Bellingham and recently the city posted a video of the Treemendus Trees route on social media.
The routes run 5 to 25 miles with 10 to 20 points of interest and are designed to be easy enough for a casual rider. There are truncated versions of two of the routes — Quirky Quirks and Grethen’s Murals — for people who don’t have enough time to complete the full route.
Burch made the routes to work with the smartphone app Ride with GPS. The subscription is covered by the BIKE Bellingham program and is free for users. The app navigates bike riders along the route, taking them to each point of interest along the way.
Burch said she is funding the program with her own money and time so others can experience the joy she feels when she rides through the city. While she created the program to be free to riders, people can support her efforts through her website.
Around 2011, Burch quit her job, got rid of her belongings and sold her house, and lived as a nomad travelling on her bike, she told The Herald.
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“I spent the summers traveling by bicycle predominantly in North America. During that time I led bicycle trips and bicycle tours, weeklong itineraries for bike companies, and I also led my own tours,” she said.
One of her bike tours led her from Montana to British Columbia, before she headed south and landed in Bellingham. She fell in love with the city and eventually decided to put down roots about two years ago and bought a house.
“Even though I settled down here in the community, I still am very passionate about exploration and bicycles,” she said. “I was trying to figure out for a while how I can find my place here in the community, and then it just hit me, and I was like ‘well duh!’ I should be designing bike tours to connect people with the place where they live.”
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