Tony Houhlias is the Manager of Sports Development at Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA). As a cycle friendly precinct, SOPA promote bike riding as a sustainable means of transport and is home to the finish site of the Spring Cycle - Sydney's most popular recreational cycling event.

Patrick Jonker is one of Australia's champion cyclists with a career spanning 12 years on the professional circuit. He competed in the Tour de France 5 times between the years 1994 to 1999 and had a best placing of 12th overall in 1996, standing to be the 4th best all time result from an Australian. Racing all over Europe, the Mediterranean and Australia and partnering some of the world's finest Cyclists, including Lance Armstrong, Patrick won a total of 15 pro races. He retired in 2004 after taking out the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under and ending his career on a high.

Patrick understands the importance of being active from an early age. "Being strong, fit and healthy is not just an important part of a professional athlete's life, it's important for everyone at every age.''

Educating kids about the importance of being active and making a cleaner environment instills a sense of responsibility that they will need to use later in life. A perfect way for kids to get moving is by riding their bikes. This also means fewer cars on the road and a cleaner, greener environment.

"Feeling healthy and strong gives you an amazing outlook on life and a sense of knowing that anything is possible".

Millions of television viewers would no doubt be familiar with the face of Channel Nine’s news presenter, Mark Ferguson. Mark was a distinguished foreign correspondent for Channel Nine’s London news bureau from 1994 – 1997.
During that period he became well known for his coverage of major stories such as the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the massacres in Rwanda, and the death of Princess Diana.  
Mark has always been a keen cyclist and enjoyed athletic pursuits. His regular routine is to rise early ride approx 100 kilometres per week. I asked Mark what sort of bike he was riding these days. “ A Giant TCR 1 it’s 3 years old” he said. Then he added, “I also have a Trek triathlon bike! A special 40^th Birthday. I do feel guilty that I’ve only used it about three times…it sits in the garage at home…

In between cycling for charities, I marvel at how Mark finds time to be an Ambassador for Good Beginnings, a charity established to support new parents and families to better function and support their own children to grow into happy well adjusted adults. 
Mark’s cycling ambitions is “ He’d love to be able to go to the Tour de France, and do a profile on Cadel Evans.

I love riding my bike regularly for the feeling of Freedom that it enables me to feel. Having had a 20 year break and getting back on my bike 4 years ago, I have found it exhilarating and rewarding especially the feeling afterwards! Riding with friends or by oneself allows time for enjoying the moment and the landscape along the way! Living by the beach I love sharing our countryside with people who visit our region and encourage everyone to have a go! If you do visit our region, give me a call or email and join us on a ride, we'd love to share it with you.
Happy Cycling!

Felicity Dales
Managing Director

Rosemarie Speidel, Program Director of the Cycling Promotion Fund, an initiative of the Australian Bicycle Industry.

It is inspiring to see that towns, cities and nations around the world are rediscovering the benefits of encouraging and promoting cycling and creating environments which make cycling the easy and safe choice to get around.

I am pleased to be an ambassador for Earth Ride. The journey to create more cycle friendly communities and inspire more people to rediscover the convenience of getting around on two wheels can be strengthen by cooperation across cities, states and nations.

"Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone." Lance Armstrong

I'm one of many Australians who once owned a bike and who looks forward to owning one again - sometime in the future. 
In Britain, for fifteen years my bike was my main means of independent transport long before cycle ways were introduced. Long distance transport to the countryside, where I had many a cycling holiday, was simple. Every train had a goods van for securely stowing bikes. Despite London's narrower, more congested city streets, car and truck drivers knew better how to share them. Even at 80 years old, my Great Aunt Vera felt safe enough to cycle to the bakery. During the holidays, school grounds provided easy access to youth and adult training on how to cycle and to follow the highway code. These things helped to make cycling safe, straightforward and an everyday feature of many people's lives.

All that changed when I emigrated to Australia. Despite the recent, limited introduction of cycle ways, the combination of faster speed limits and drivers unwilling to share the road, let alone give way, currently make cycling too risky for this organic gardener.

I believe that cycle training, slower speed limits, acceptance of shared roads, universal cycle ways, improved stowage facilities on public transport and at workplaces, and improved driver education might just reclaim our streets for public transport.

Peak Oil means a new dawn for cycling, but until our roads are safer with drivers trained to act responsibly, many Australians are denied their right to simple, cheap, reliable and healthy transport by bike. And we don't need to reinvent the wheel, just to look and learn from nations that know best how to provide equal access to public transport: China, Denmark and Cuba.

Jon joined the Bicycle NSW board last year with a vision of mainstreaming cycling, making cycling accessible, current and trendy. He cycles daily (whenever possible) with Easy Riders - NorthShore Bike Bus and Peleton Sports enjoying all parts of Sydney and particualry the Ku-ring-gai National Park.

Jon firmly believes "life's better on a bike" and the vision of cycling in Australia of "more people cycling more often"

Jon is the founder and current Chairman of JML Australia a corporate advisory, consulting, human capital and executive search organisation which assists organizations and individuals achieve great success.

Previously Jon was one of the formative shareholders and Executive Director of a Executive Search Group for 10 years. His background as a Chartered Accountant was established within audit, consulting and corporate advisory with KPMG and PWC in London and Sydney.

Jon has directly advised and worked with multinational public companies, government and private organisations of many shapes and sizes across the business landscape including Banking & Finance, IT&T, FMCG, Media, Government and Not-for-Profit.

A/Prof Chris Rissel is Director of the Health Promotion Service in the Sydney South West Area Health Service.  The Area Health Service has an active program of encouraging cycling. This includes cycling skills courses, development of maps highlighting cycling routes, organised community rides, a bike pool, and the development of cycling resources. Cycling is a good strategy to increase the proportion of the population who are sufficiently physically active, which also helps with the prevention and management of overweight and obesity.

Christine Outram - Researcher in Architecture and Urbanism at the Senseable City Lab, MIT and Project Leader for the SmartBiking Project

As a cyclist and researcher who is leading the SmartBiking Project at MIT's Senseable City Lab, I am proud to be an ambassador and am very supportive of Earth Ride's goals.

The research that we are undertaking asks the question: how can we increase the number of people riding bikes in the city through better long-term planning and new initiatives to make cycling more attractive.

We are tackling these issues through the development of a self-organizing smart-tag system attached to bicycles in the city of Copenhagen. The tags will give citizens and cities fine grain mobility data that will allow them to better address their cycling issues and needs.

Although our research initially focuses on the city of Copenhagen, I feel that these technologies can be useful for many cities around the world including Sydney. I hope that through research such as ours and initiatives such as Earth Ride, we can continue to work together towards bicycle friendly cities. More info click here

For over 40 years internationally renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl's career has focused on improving the quality of urban life, especially for pedestrians. Jan’s research on public spaces and public life has been applied successfully in cities across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia.

With his rich experiences to manage Bangkok City towards a livable city, Bangkok is voted top of Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best City 2008.

In the attempt to become an international metropolis, Bangkok is promoting
several programs to pursue our goal to be a liveable city, a city of investment and a tourism city. We are also encouraging more initiatives in order to ensure the well-being of Bangkok residents and visitors.

Earth ride is a delightful initiative which will not only raise awareness among citizen on alternative transportation for independence from fuel consumption but also help the environment to make our world a better place."

Copenhagen is a cycle capital – known as one of the best of its kind. I wish Copenhagen to be the world’s most bicycle friendly city – and we are nearly there: 36 percent of the city’s inhabitants ride their bike to work every morning and 50 percent use their bike on a daily basis. We are very proud that the Australians call their cycle lane ”The Copenhagen Lane”.

But it can always get better and therefore we continually invest big amounts of money into the improvement of cycle lanes and such. An example of this is ”the green wave” project. This means that on roads, where there is a green wave, the traffic lights will regulate themselves according to the cyclists. By doing so, cyclists will be able to get around the city much faster.

My goal is a clean Copenhagen. This is why we focus on bicycle friendly streets . We want the people, who have a car to switch to bicycles – and therefore we do everything we can to make this switch smooth and attractive.

I am pleased to be ambassador for International Ride to Work Day and I hope that we together can encourage physical activity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion.

We want a City that is economically prosperous, a leader in environmental management, liveable, beautiful, inclusive and culturally vibrant. We all want to cycle around the City safely and use transport that is environmentally responsible. We want Sydney to be green, global and connected.

For more information click here