Bicycle Friendly Business

Business Highlights: Clif Bar & Company was started on a bike ride, so it’s no surprise that this California based company is still so bicycle friendly. The business gives employees $500 to purchase a commuter bike or retrofit their existing bike for commuting purposes. Once riding, the company’s Cool Commute Program encourages employees to keep riding, employees earn points with every mile and can redeem them for gift cards, massages, commuter checks, carbon offsets and more. Clif Bar promotes Bike to Work Day with a raffle and last year got more than 75 percent of employees to ride. Employees are encouraged to maintain a healthy lifestyle and are paid for 30 minutes per day to work out - many employees use this time for cycling to and from work! Their 2 Mile Challenge Program was launched in 2006 to encourage people to ride their bikes for trips of 2 miles or less. 

The business participates in the Alameda County’s Emergency Ride Home program which guarantees employees a free ride home in the event of an emergency. Clif Bar also provides several cruiser bikes that employees can use to ride around town and hosts an annual company bike ride capped off with a barbeque and party. Their “Rethink Your Ride” is an educational forum on bicycling for employees and neighboring businesses. Every Friday morning an informal training ride, which welcomes all levels of cycling, leaves from the workplace.  All of this along with an extremely casual dress code makes bike commuting and training easy at Clif Bar & Company.

Best Result of Designation: The best result has been discovering all the new ideas about how we can make our business even more bike-friendly.

Most Compelling Statistic: Thirty six Clif employees are sporting new bikes or have made their bikes more commuter-friendly (new lights, trailers, etc) using the company’s Cool Bike incentive program.

Upcoming Plans: This year, Clif Bar plans on adding twice as much bike parking at the headquarter office.