This post is about a quarterly ride series called Wheels and Waterways. This project is funded by the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Program, and will use bike rides and trash cleanup events to showcase water infrastructure in Santa Clara County to people in the bike community. SVBC’s social rides are hosted to provide fun opportunities for bicyclists of all abilities to build confidence in riding for everyday use. These rides will be part of SVBC’s monthly First Saturdays Social Rides – check them out on our SVBC Events Calendar! To stay apprised of all SVBC events, sign up for our e-bulletin, and mark your calendars for our next Wheels and Waterways ride on Saturday, July 2, 2022 – register here!

*Participants of our Ride to Clean Up Cottonwood*

At SVBC, we want to work outside of the areas where bicycling is already popular, so we hosted a ride in South San José - turning Martial Cottle Park into a destination! Part of our work through Valley Water involves networking with other community organizations. Through our colleages at Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful, we met Jason Gorman, Senior Maintenance staff of Hellyer and Santa Teresa County Parks. Jason invited us to set up bike racks and contribute to cleaning litter, weeding, and watering baby trees around Cottonwood Lake, a lovely basin site where Coyote Creek runs through Hellyer County Park.

Here are some highlights from the Ride to Clean Up Cottonwood event:

14 miles round trip bike ride
9 attendees
15 pounds of litter removed from Hellyer County Park
2 Raven Trikes from San José Bike Party along for the ride
80 baby trees watered using 5-gallon buckets!
2/9 riders had never ridden with SVBC before
When asked from 1-5 how strongly they agree with the statement “I ride my bike in order to explore nature and local waterways”, average attendee response was 3.9

One of Valley Water’s goals in this partnership is to show residents of Santa Clara County new areas and waterways they may not have explored on their own. According to Anne, “I had never been here - I probably never would have come here. I see so many new areas on these rides that I never would have found on my own.”

Another testimonial from Sharlene, pictured below:

“Going on the Cottonwood Ride fulfilled one of my longtime goals of making our environment cleaner than when I found it. Picking up trash is cathartic and satisfying. I picked up a surprising number of bottle caps and piñata confetti. These little pieces of plastic pollute our waterways and are eaten by wildlife, to their detriment. I got to ride a garbage bike! Think garbage truck except powered by a bike.” Sharlene is pictured here:

Sharlene Liu seems pretty excited about the bike-powered garbage collection

Santiago Deras shows us how it’s done with two 5-gallon water buckets

Aaron Ramirez hops on a Raven Trike to water baby trees as seen in the background!

Enrique Alonso (L) and Sharlene Liu (R) taking care of business at Hellyer, with Cottonwood Lake in the background

It wouldn’t be an SVBC event without our Moved by Bike bike racks!

Join us for our next Wheels & Waterways ride on July 2nd! Location TBD when we discover a creek cleanup event we want to support!

If you are interested in partnering with SVBC to bring people on bikes to a cleanup event, or want to run a bike ride for your creek cleanup contacts, please be in touch by emailing eleni@bikesiliconvalley.org.