To celebrate the joys of winter cycling, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) promoted Winter Cruise month from mid-December through January.  We wanted to remind Portlanders that winter is a great time to bike and the benefits are right outside our doors.  On Twitter and other social media outlets many of you joined in the conversation by including the #WinterCruise and #Resolve2Ride hashtags.

We teamed up with our friends at Shift2Bikes.org to kick off the month with breakfast for plucky winter cyclists (and pedestrians!) crossing the Hawthorne Bridge and wrapped it up by asking for your favorite winter riding vistas via Instagram (@PBOTactive).   In between many of you also resolved to ride your bike this winter and we even got on the news!

So, did Portlanders take up our cycling challenge and take advantage of January’s cool, crisp weather?

You did!  Compared to January 2013 there were more than 18,000 additional bike trips across the Hawthorne Bridge this past month (that’s a 19% increase!).  And while January 2014 had a lot of dry days, even on days with rain there were 9% more cyclists crossing the Hawthorne Bridge compared to 2013.

To view all of our photos from the month, check out our Instagram account.

Here are the final stats: