Building Great Company Culture with Bicycles

As the team at Momentum Mag now spans across five different cities with only one physical office, I often think about the importance of building a strong company culture and sharing the vision and values that are so inherently important to maintaining a strong and cohesive team. Being a small, early-stage business it is easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind and unwieldy to-do lists while letting company values and culture take a back seat. For me, it is simple and inexpensive solutions for regularly bringing our team together that have helped us celebrate the values and reasons why we are doing this in the first place.

On a recent trip to the Silicon Valley to tour both Facebook and Google headquarters, I was inspired by how these companies use bicycles as a tool for building a strong corporate culture.

At Facebook, the Transit Hub and bike shop has become a bustling center in the middle of campus where people can try bikes again, borrow bikes for off-campus use, or get their own bike fixed during the workday. Lacking corporate logos or branding on site, it is the car-free street in the middle of campus, often filled with people walking and riding bicycles, that creates a calm university feel and eliminates unnecessary distractions while encouraging camaraderie.

At Google, the campus was awash with yellow, red, and green bikes in use by Googlers everywhere. The bikes were a focal point of activity in the technology park and created an atmosphere of a fun and laid-back lifestyle. I was also extremely impressed with the transportation staff and planners at Google. More than 10 percent of trips to campus are by bike and they are working on plans and initiatives to double that number to 20 percent.

Inspired by these Silicon Valley giants, I went back to Momentum’s Corporate HQ and organized an afternoon staff retreat that was built around a bike ride to picnic in CRAB Park, continuing along the car-free Stanley Park Seawall – all the way around the park – and ending at Sunset Beach. Equipped with a fleet of city bikes that we had been testing for our City Bike Look Book, we ordered lunch from a local restaurant that arrived courtesy of Foodee on cargo trikes run by Shift Delivery. We stocked our Green Guru Carbon Coolers full of beer and sparkling water and headed out for a team-building ride. A bike ride and lunch was an inexpensive and fun way to bring our team together. We are now making lunch rides a monthly scheduled event.

Do you have great company culture built around bicycles? Do you want to learn how to incorporate bikes into your workplace? Let us know!

Mia Kohout, editor-in-chief  |  mia@momentummag.com  |  @MiaKohout