Bike school 

The University of Rochester has made serious efforts to encourage its staff, faculty, and students to bike. It offers access to bike cages and showers at the medical center, for example, and it's improving its reservation system for its campus bike-sharing program.

The school's efforts earned it an honorable mention in the Bicycle Friendly University awards by the League of American Bicyclists last year. The designation recognizes that a campus is becoming more accommodating to cyclists, but still has work to do.

On April 14 and 15, the New York Bicycling Coalition will hold bike- commuting workshops at UR to further encourage cycling among the campus community. The workshops are open to the public, too.

The April 14 workshop is at 3 p.m. in the Wilson Commons' Gowen Room, while the April 15 workshop is at 11:30 a.m. in the Class of '62 Auditorium.

The workshops will focus on basics including cyclist clothing, route selection, and bike maintenance and repair tips.

Scott MacRae, an ophthalmology professor at the university and a founding member of the Rochester Cycling Alliance advocacy group, says that the UR's example could get more people in the region to walk or bike to work.

The school is the region's largest employer, and many of its employees live nearby in the city and Brighton, both of which have been working to become more bikeable, MacRae says.

The New York Bicycling Coalition also sees potential for other employers in the Rochester region to host bike-commuting workshops.

"We're using the U of R for kind of a pilot project," says Martel Catalano, spokesperson for the New York Bicycling Coalition.