This year we extended our Bike Champion of the Year awards to recognize others in our community who embody what it means to be a champion for biking in our city. For the first time this year, we asked our members to nominate small businesses that model bike friendliness with ample bike parking and perks for using the bike to get around SF. To be eligible, businesses must: be locally owned and operated, have 50 employees or less, and support people who ride bikes in some shape or form.

Our Small Business Bike Champion of the Year is Green Apple Books. Books and bikes go so well together!

They were nominated for supporting bike infrastructure and piloting bike corrals right in front of their shops, and for supporting the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition with member discounts, in-kind donations of gift cards, and hosting bike-friendly book events. When we told them they were our winner, co-owner Kevin Ryan wrote: “This is like winning an Oscar! It’s an honor just to be nominated!!”

Why is it important to your organization to welcome patrons coming by bike?
Despite the many beautiful hills, San Francisco is an ideal biking city. And located right in between Golden Gate Park and The Presidio, Green Apple is ideally located as a stop for any San Francisco bicycle tour. The mild climate and the beautiful vistas make for great biking. Many of our employees bike to work, and we negotiated for one of the first bike corrals in the city, many years ago.

What advice do you have for other small businesses who wish to welcome bicyclists?
Once a business gets a reputation as a bike friendly destination, the bikers will come. We’ve been a stop on Bicycle Bookshop tours of the city and many other bike friendly events.

Are you hosting any sales or events coming up you’d like to make sure SFBike members know about?
There’s nothing on our calendar at the moment, but check back on our events calendar, we tend to do 3 or 4 bike-centric events a year.