For the past four consecutive years, including this year, Kiwi Energy has been proud to sponsor Transportation Alternatives’ NYC Century Bike Tour. As the nation’s only all-urban 100-mile ride, the NYC Century Bike Tour is known for being one of the most unique bike rides held in the United States. All of the routes were designed to highlight the interconnectivity of the different New York City neighborhoods as well as to demonstrate how commuting by bike can actually be quite easy and safe.

Founded in 1990, The NYC Century Bike Tour was designed to showcase the diversity of New York’s neighborhoods and guide riders on how to cruise through them safely.

On September 9th, riders of all skill levels took on this one-of-a-kind challenge in support NYC’s #1 safe street advocate, Transportation Alternatives. Riders were able to choose from 5 routes varying in distance, ranging from the full 100-mile century to a family-friendly protected 15-mile loop. The tour ended at the NYC Century Festival in Central Park, where participants, friends, and family celebrated with treats, giveaways, and food.

Since its founding in 1973, TransAlt has paved the way for significant improvements in New York City’s transportation infrastructure and culture. The organization takes great pride in enhancing and developing New York City’s transportation network. With 140,000 active supporters working locally in every borough, Transportation Alternatives works tirelessly to reclaim New York City streets for biking, walking and public transit. Their efforts include various large-scale biking events curated for riders of all levels, including the NYC Century Bike Tour.

In New York, streets and sidewalks account for 80% of our public space, and Transportation Alternatives strongly believes that this public space belongs to the people of New York City. That’s why they work tirelessly with New York residents and companies (such as Kiwi Energy) who share their dream of reclaiming our streets.

Sustainability is at the core of Kiwi Energy’s values, not only as it applies to our business operations, but as it applies to our people and the community as well. We strive to help build an environmentally mindful community by providing sustainable energy solutions and bringing together individuals who share these values through our support of events such as the NYC Century Bike Tour. We also promote green-living to our customer base through our communication efforts.

Biking is a great eco-friendly alternative to driving, and in order for us to be able to commute by bike safely, we need to have the proper infrastructure in place.  That’s one of the many reasons we support Transportation Alternatives’ mission: we know that their efforts help us create safer streets for bicyclists, and in turn help achieve an overall more sustainable future for our beloved city.

If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, you know by now that we’re always looking for the eco-friendly and sustainable way of doing things. There are many benefits of bike riding, and we’ve listed below some of the top reasons why we believe it’s one of the best alternatives to driving:

Environmental Benefits of Biking

  • Biking uses no fuel, and if you ride your bike to work rather than driving, you can help to reduce your personal contribution to climate change
  • Bikes take far fewer resources to manufacture than cars
  • Bikes don’t require toxic batteries or motor oil
  • Biking instead of driving reduces noise pollution and congestion
  • More people on bikes reduces the need for new parking lots and roadways and saves valuable green space from development

Health/Social Benefits of Bike Riding

  • Helps improve your posture and balance
  • Lowers blood pressure and stress levels
  • Increases energy, flexibility, and muscle strength
  • Physical activity, including biking, can also help reduce your risk of depression, heart disease, and obesity
  • Increased contact with neighbors and community
  • Calmer and safer roads

Kiwi Energy values our continued partnership with Transportation Alternatives and we look forward to many more years of working together. We truly believe in their mission and want to offer as much support as we can to help create better biking, walking, ad public transit for our local community.

In addition to choosing more eco-friendly modes of transportation, we want to encourage our customers to live a more sustainable lifestyle across the board. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Composting food scraps
  • Choosing environmentally focused energy solutions, as offered by Kiwi Energy
  • Purchasing locally sourced ingredients whenever possible
  • Proper recycling of not only regular household plastic, paper, and glass products, but also of e-waste
  • Reducing energy consumption
  • Reducing water consumption
  • Purchasing second-hand products and donating unwanted materials to a local charity
  • Volunteering or donating to environmental non-profits