Stanford Report, May 13, 2009

Cardinal Chronicle

BY MICHAEL PEÑA

If any workplace can be a tour de force on Bike to Work Day, which is tomorrow, it's Stanford. The university, through its Parking & Transportation Services office, will have seven "energizer stations" set up throughout campus and one at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where goodies will be handed out, while supplies last, to inbound bicyclists. The stations will be open from 6:30 to 9 a.m., with exact locations listed at http://transportation.stanford.edu. (Word on the street is that the Palm Drive Station will have a limited supply of Hobee's restaurant's popular coffee cake.)

Now here's a taste of what others are doing tomorrow: For the fourth year in a row, faculty and staff from the Program in Writing and Rhetoric will lead a bike ride from San Francisco to Stanford. Beginning at an energizer station in the city's Mission District at 7:30 a.m., the group will ride at a leisurely pace and should reach Stanford in about four hours. CLYDE MONEYHUN, director of the Hume Writing Center, will once again lead a band of cyclists from the Peninsula who will meet up with participants in San Francisco that morning. JONATHAN HUNT, a lecturer in the program who started the ride, has tips, descriptions of the 40-mile route and a downloadable booklet on his website, http://www.stanford.edu/~jphunt.

Professor HANNES VOGEL, director of neuropathology at the Medical Center, may not have much company on the first leg of his Bike to Work Day commute. Maybe it's because he will be running roughly 20 miles from his home near Cupertino to work. Vogel calls himself an "ultra-runner," and while he does not run every day, he says the route through open space preserves and local weather make his "odd pursuit" a "paradise for this." In solidarity with other alternative commuters, he will bike home at the end of the day.

As part of Bike to Work Day, a region-wide competition among teams of co-workers who have logged their miles since May 1 heads into the home stretch tomorrow. And for one member of the Stanford Hospital & Clinics team, that will be an especially long haul: According to JUDITH ALDERMAN, one of two nurses serving as the team's organizers, one colleague will be biking home from Stanford—to the Sierra.

Write to Michael Peña at michael.pena@stanford.edu or mail code 2245.