While Bike to Work Day creates a seemingly endless amount of commuters pedaling through the Denver streets every summer, the winter months see residents returning to automotive travel.

While vehicular travel during the winter is understandable — the 2024 winter has already seen mountains of snow and temperatures plummeting deep into below-zero range — Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) is encouraging people to pick up their bicycles (or skis) for Winter Bike to Work Day on Friday.

Communities like Boulder are doing similar events. 

The event, which is organized by Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), looks to bring some of the fun of the 32-year-old Bike to Work Day to the chilly months, setting up a free breakfast station on Bannock Street between Colfax Avenue and 14th Avenue between 6 and 9:30 a.m. Friday.

“Winter Bike to Work Day encourages people to swap out a car-ride for a commute on two wheels amid the cold and wintry weather. DOTI supports by continuing to build out a network of safe and comfortable bike facilities that takes people where they want to go,” department officials said in a press release, pointing toward the new two-way protected bikeway that runs 1.5 miles from 7th Avenue to Center Avenue on Broadway.

The bikeway is one of many projects included in the city’s “Vision Zero” campaign to eliminate traffic-related deaths to zero by 2030.

While the department looks to celebrate the new bikeway on Friday, some of the bike-related work the city has done for the campaign has brought about neighborhood controversy. 

For example, bike lanes installed at the intersection at Seventh Avenue and Williams Street on the corner of Denver’s Little Cheesman Park angered surrounding residents.

They described the colored zones and some 80 bollards — waist-high poles poking up from the pavement — as confusing and not well thought out.

In the updated version of Vision Zero, which was released last May 31 and which will govern the next six years, the city doubled down on its focus on the “high injury network” — the streets where most injuries and crashes happen.

About 5% of Denver’s streets make up 50% of vehicle fatalities.

The streets include South Federal Boulevard, East Colfax Avenue and South Broadway — where the aforementioned protected bikeway stretches.

The Broadway Multimodal Improvement Project, which includes the bike lanes and improvements like sidewalk reconstruction for pedestrians, is set to be done in the spring.

For those planning on participating in the Winter Bike to Work Day Friday, temperatures are set to be mild with highs of 40 degrees, according to the National Weather Service Boulder. 

While the day isn’t expected to draw anywhere near the 9,000 riders like Bike to Work Day did in the summer of 2023, over 2,600 have already pledged to bike to work on Friday on the event’s website. 

Grab a jacket. Get to pedaling.