It’s a Saturday morning — 10 a.m., to be precise. Most students are likely still sleeping to recover from Friday night shenanigans or just barely dragging themselves out of bed to catch breakfast at one of the dining halls. But for the Bike Alliance, the day has already begun — with a 10-28 mile bike ride. As the sun creeps its way up to the sky to signal the transition from morning to afternoon, the Bike Alliance can be seen well on its way through its weekly group bike ride, members chatting freely as they cruise through the greater Williamsburg area.
The Bike Alliance, a group of students, staff, faculty and administrators who are passionate about cycling, is led by a combination of students and professional advisors as a loose affiliation of the Office of Parking and Transportation Services. Richard Thompson, James Keeter and Bill Horacio III serve as the main advisors who help provide a framework in regards to cycling programming and guide student leaders in their responsibilities.
“I work with the student leaders to help them learn the aspects of best practices to lead rides, how to design routes and how to develop engagement,” Thompson said. “I also work with them on program development and planning.”
As someone who has been involved with the Bike Alliance since its inception, Thompson also offered insight into the beginnings and history of the Bike Alliance. Thompson credited the work of founding members Gabriel Morey ’16 and Brianna Buch ’15 as well as Erica Schneider ’18 for laying the groundwork for the Bike Alliance to become the budding group it is today.
“They were extremely passionate, and they made a lasting impact, which has been generational,” Thompson said. “That’s why the program honestly has survived and done as well as it has.”
“They were extremely passionate, and they made a lasting impact, which has been generational,” Thompson said. “That’s why the program honestly has survived and done as well as it has.”
According to Thompson, examples of such impacts include the implementation of bike fix-it stations and bike lanes around campus that continue to be used today. To uphold the legacy of bike advocacy these alumni left behind, the Bike Alliance is working to include more student input in its initiatives moving forward.
“This year is really a focus on how we can impart more direct student leadership into the program, with the development of the Student Employment program,” Thompson said.
Enter Charlotte Russell ’24 and Drew Laird ’23, the first paid student leaders under the Student Employment program underneath Parking and Transportation Services.
“Our main goal is trying to get students — both undergraduate and graduate — and any member of the wider William and Mary community involved in exploring Williamsburg by bike, which is a sustainable method of transportation,” Russell said. “We’re really just trying to show them the area and bring them to new places as well as show them how to safely cycle in a group and have fun while they’re doing it.”
Together, the pair undertake an impressive array of responsibilities, including creating promotional materials and social media content related to the Bike Alliance, promoting sustainability and bike safety on campus and maintaining rental bikes that are offered for student and faculty use.
Their largest responsibility as student leaders, however, is organizing weekly group bike rides with members of the Bike Alliance, which begin at Sadler Terrace and generally span between 10-28 miles off campus. In addition to planning out the routes in which the group travels, Russell and Laird directly oversee the rides to ensure that everybody stays safe and enjoys the ride. According to Russell, one of the two will ride in the back while the other leads the group from the front; the front rider’s primary job is to use hand signals to direct the group on where to turn and warn of upcoming debris while the back rider is tasked with warning the group for cars approaching from the back.
Russell and Laird also make sure that all the riders are maintaining a similar, manageable pace so that the group stays together and rides safely. Both Russell and Laird emphasized that the Bike Alliance is not designed to be competitive but rather social and fun, so bikers of all experience levels are encouraged to join on the rides.
“We do try to keep it more casual,” Russell said. “We’re not racing each other, we’re here to have fun. If you can ride up next to someone, you just chat because we’re not going at a super fast pace. It’s definitely a social thing.”
“We do try to keep it more casual,” Russell said. “We’re not racing each other, we’re here to have fun. If you can ride up next to someone, you just chat because we’re not going at a super fast pace. It’s definitely a social thing.”
In order to facilitate such social interaction, Russell and Laird always schedule in a lunch break at a local eatery along the ride, allowing bikers to both enjoy new foods and discover hidden gems in the greater Williamsburg area that they would have never otherwise visited.
“We try to go to these restaurants that you may not know about, like Charly’s Airport, which is just an airport with a cafe on it, so you can see planes take off while you’re eating sandwiches,” Laird said. “And they do their own barbecue and make their own bread and everything, so it’s pretty good.”
“Our favorite place is called Spoke + Art, it’s this bike-themed cafe in Williamsburg,” Russell added. “I didn’t know about it until I started doing Bike Alliance stuff, it’s so cool. We’ve been able to go to so many cool places that without a car you probably would never see.”
Laird also highlighted the personal connection to nature and history that Bike Alliance members are able to gain as one of the greatest benefits of participating in the rides. For Laird, who first began biking in his hometown in Connecticut during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of escaping boredom, long bike rides offer the opportunity to re-imagine the space you call home and gain a greater appreciation for the sights around you that you may have otherwise never have noticed.
“I think an important part of being a William and Mary student that gets neglected often is where we actually are,” Laird said. “Like, we live in one of the oldest, most historical parts of this country. Along these rides, you’ll see the ruins of a church from the 1600s or the burial grounds of a Revolutionary War era soldier, like there’s a lot of natural beauty that’s worth checking out.”
Laird also stresses the importance of not only the natural topography of the land around you, but also truly understanding those who occupy that land as well.
“You also get to interact with some of the people that live in the area too, which I think is an important part for anybody who’s trying to get to know this area, like that’s not something you should neglect, because we’re sharing this space with the people that live here,” Laird said. “So I think biking is a really good way to connect with the area that you are living in.”
“You also get to interact with some of the people that live in the area too, which I think is an important part for anybody who’s trying to get to know this area, like that’s not something you should neglect, because we’re sharing this space with the people that live here,” Laird said. “So I think biking is a really good way to connect with the area that you are living in.”
Along with hosting group rides, the Bike Alliance functions as an educational resource, offering clinics to equip any interested cyclists with greater cycling knowledge and skills.
“We did a cycling skills clinic for students where we were trying to get them comfortable riding on the road, how to do minor repairs on their bike and just sort of getting them ready to go on group rides,” Russell said.
To expand upon these educational initiatives, the Bike Alliance is also looking to implement an intermediate cycling skills clinic in the spring as well as a mountain bike clinic in which an outside expert would come to campus and either show students how to use a mountain bike or take more advanced bikers out to the different mountain biking trails around Williamsburg.
The Bike Alliance also helps students with bike maintenance and repairs. According to Russell, local mechanic and owner of Red Barn Bicycles Robert Maye comes to campus about every three weeks on Monday afternoons to assist students with any and all bike-related concerns, all free of charge.
Though the Bike Alliance advisors and student leaders are tasked with such a vast variety of responsibilities, it is clear that everyone involved loves the work they contribute to the cycling community in Williamsburg and is excited to continue developing new initiatives.
Both Russell and Laird named their most recent ride to the Chickahominy Riverfront Park as their most rewarding memory related to the Bike Alliance thus far. Each noted that the day served as a fulfilling watershed moment in which they were able to witness their hard work come into fruition as they looked around and realized they had managed to build a solid, close-knit community of cyclists on campus.
“Something that really hit home is when I saw two members that have gone to the rides exchange numbers and be like, ‘we should definitely hang out sometime, we should definitely go on a ride sometime,’” Laird said. “That was really nice for me to see that I was connecting people in that way and that through this club, you can make people feel like they belong here and that they could do something that they love.”
“We’ve done so much, like from our first ride we had maybe seven people, but our last ride had 14 or 15,” Russell added. “It’s slow growth, but it’s really rewarding. It’s a lot of fun to see. And we look really cool. We’re just like a giant group of cyclists on the road wearing bright colors.”
Laird especially emphasized the satisfaction he derives from being able to impart his own skills and passion for cycling to others and watching them improve over time.
“It’s just really interesting to see how much more technical people can get, how much faster people can get, how much more confident they feel on the road,” Laird said. “I think part of it also is that I taught my little sister how to ride her bike when she was younger. And that was a moment I really cherish with her, and I love sharing a skill with someone or seeing them grow as a person.”
Similarly to the student leaders, Thompson also enjoys being able to help new cyclists learn and grow, expressing the fulfillment he gets from being involved in the Bike Alliance.
“It’s been so much fun working with the students, helping them maximize and reach their potentials and develop as cyclists but more importantly, helping them develop their leadership and collaboration skills and broadening their connections in the community,” Thompson said.
“It’s been so much fun working with the students, helping them maximize and reach their potentials and develop as cyclists but more importantly, helping them develop their leadership and collaboration skills and broadening their connections in the community,” Thompson said. “If you work in student affairs, that’s what you live for, providing students the opportunity to exceed their expectations and discover strengths that they didn’t know they had, so I love it. Plus, I get to ride my bike. That’s the best part.”
Though the ride to Chickahominy Riverfront Park was their last ride for the semester due to the incoming colder weather, the Bike Alliance is far from done with their work on campus. In terms of upcoming initiatives, the Bike Alliance is looking to offer students e-bikes to rent, hold a charity bike ride, host a hill climbing competition in which cyclists compete to bike up Compton Drive in the shortest possible time for a cash prize, implement vending machines with bike equipment around campus and much more.
Until then, keep an eye out for QR codes posted on bikes around campus with more information on how to get involved with the Bike Alliance and consider taking some time out of your Saturday next semester to join Russell, Laird and Thompson on a ride — they swear you won’t regret it.