The Think Room

On Friday, April 23—the day after Earth Day—nearly 30 Olsonites (not all of them were available for the photo) biked to work in honor of #30daysofbiking. I am the company’s lead proofreader/copy editor and the creator of 30 Days of Biking, an effort celebrating bicycling and its community from Minneapolis to Montevideo (the Uruguayan Montevideo, not the Minnesotan one). Olson loves social circles, and a social circle is exactly what #30daysofbiking built: a worldwide group of people devoted to biking every day for a month, and every day after that.

Olsonites biked to work from every corner of the Cities, some from as far away as Lake Minnetonka. We met outside the agency at 9:15 a.m., took a group photo leaning against the Olson Brickman sign (a few of us performed the ever-masculine, teeth-gritted bike hoist), then rode two loops around Loring Park, once on the path and once amidst traffic. Clad in my orange & blue Angry Catfish jersey, and smiling like crazy, I led this Olsonite bike mob. The weather was beautiful and sunny, and the bike ride was an expectably amazing start to our day. “We should do this every day,” said one cyclist. I agreed.

Ashley Vaness, the account executive whose idea it was to encourage Olsonites to bike to work, loved it, too: “The morning sunshine couldn’t have been more perfect. Bicyclists of all levels rode in from near and far. It was so inspiring to see bikes line the Olson hallways. As for me, a newly conformed cyclist, nothing can beat a ride to start and end the day with fellow masher wannabes.”

Said Olson Studio Director Ryan Libby, “Seeing everyone who rode in for work, and then going for a group ride around Loring Park, made you realize why Minneapolis is America’s #1 biking city. What a great feeling.”