BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – In April, Sarah Burch founded the BIKE Bellingham program following a 12-year period of nomadic bike adventuring.
During her travels, Burch found her time split between exploring the country in the summer months while traversing the southern hemisphere in the winter. In the shoulder seasons, she picked up cat-sitting in Bellingham, eventually settling here in 2024.
With a lingering passion for exploring, Burch began bringing her new venture to life.
The idea, a pilot for Burch’s Curioocity LLC, was created as a labor of love for the region she now calls home.
“I built BIKE Bellingham entirely self-funded with my own time and my own dollars as a kind of an experiment to see what would this look like and how would the community interact with it,” said Burch. “And then my thought is, once that program is built out, I would then approach other communities in Washington state and say, ‘Hey, BIKE Bellingham has this program, would you like this program as well in your community?'”
After downloading the free Ride with GPS app on their phones, users can access Burch’s Ride Guides and start pedaling. Rides range from 5 to 25 miles and are self-guided, meaning cyclists can explore them at their own pace.
There are currently four themed Ride Guides available, taking cyclists to 62 locations around town.
Riders can choose between Cats & Dogs, Gretchen’s Murals, Treemendous Trees and Quirky Quirks, the latter of these being the first route Burch created. Quirky Quirks offers riders a view of the city’s bizarre landmarks, including an eight-foot-tall KFC Bucket, and the world’s longest two-by-four.
According to Burch, a list of future rides includes over 30 themes.
She currently has several rides in the works, in addition to upcoming collaborations with SeaFeast and Bellingham Bird Week.
According to Burch, “You can drive down a street a million times, but when you actually stop at a store that you’ve never been to or have a conversation with somebody who owns a business, you really feel connected to that place and you feel much more vested in that place. So that’s really my goal, having people see the community with new eyes.”
