For Businesses / Organizations (who may want to become project participants)

How to participate

If you would prefer to learn about the project by phone, please call me (831/375-6278).

If we have already spoken, and you are ready to sign up, you may do so by calling me or by using this online sign-up form.

As emphasized in Introducing HER Helmet Thursdays, all H-E-R businesses and organizations in the county are encouraged to participate.  What does H-E-R mean?  Hotels (and other lodging), Educational attractions and Entertainment venues (flexibly defined), and Restaurants (and other food/beverage service, including wine tasting venues).  If your business or organization is one of those, and it is in Monterey County, you are invited!

What does it cost?

  • Charter participants pay no fee to participate in the program. There is no requirement to purchase an ad or anything else.
  • Your cost is the discount you provide—only to cyclists, and only on Thursdays (both daytime and nighttime).
  • The discount is a percentage (between 10 and 50%) off the total tab, unless you exclude alcohol.
  • For “H”/Hotels/lodging, the discount is on the Thursday night stay only.

How long is this commitment?

This is a long-term sustainability project, with no scheduled end-date.

At any time, just let me know if you wish to raise or lower the percentage of discount offered (it can be anywhere between 10 and 50%).  You may also change an include/exclude alcohol policy.

And if ever you wish to withdraw from the project, of course, you may do that by just notifying me.

To sign up, here is all that is required

There are two things to be decided:
  1. Tell me what percentage of discount (between 10 and 50%, off the total tab) you would like to offer cyclists on Thursdays.
  2. If you serve alcohol, let me know whether you want to include or exclude alcohol from the discount.
Your in-house arrangements
  1. You are welcome to request a later start date; otherwise, your start date will be the following Thursday.
  2. A Staff Reference Sheet is provided for your convenience.  Participants are encouraged to post this sheet on their employee bulletin board, or copy and give to each staff member. Click here to ask that I email it to you. Or just download it here by clicking on the link below, and you can print and use it immediately:

STAFF REFERENCE – HER Helmet Thursdays

Note regarding holidays and special-event weeks

Program-wide, the discount applies every Thursday, year-round, excluding federal legal holidays and Monterey County special-event weeks.  These restricted dates are listed on the Staff Reference Sheet, and they are also posted on this site.

Not all participant locations will be extra busy during those special-event weeks.  As noted on the Staff Reference Sheet, you may choose to allow the discount during any of those otherwise restricted dates. Simply inform your staff of your in-house preferences by checking off the boxes on that Staff Reference Sheet.  That makes it easy for your staff to respond if a cyclist calls ahead to ask whether you allow the HER Helmet Thursdays discount on one of the otherwise restricted dates.

Peak season for lodging participants

For the lodging (“H”) category only, if necessary, you may specify further date restrictions for peak season, which will then be posted in your individual listing.  Or, you may continue to offer discounts during peak season,  just contact me to temporarily lower the percentage of discount you offer.

The items below are helpful, although optional:

1.  Logo – email a jpg

If you have a logo and would like to have it used to highlight your participation and promote your business or organization, you may email me a jpg image of your logo at your convenience.  As opportunities arise, your logo can then be featured on this website, in posters  provided to travel agents,  out-of -the-area and local bike shops, and so on.

Some of the earliest participants who provided their logo also have it featured on their HER Helmet Thursdays certificate of participation.  That remains an option, although there is now a HER Helmet Thursdays project logo that is used on these certificates instead.

2.  Your listing – text describing your business or organization; and bike-there tips
  • At this time, due to rapid growth of the project, if a participant does not provide me with a draft of descriptive text, I may only link to their website.  No website of your own?  I will instead link to a review from a Monterey County publication.
  • If you would like descriptive text posted in addition to a website link, please provide me with some rough text for your listing.  There’s a place to do this on the online sign-up form, or you may provide the draft text by sending me an email or phoning me.  I will edit your descriptive text at no charge.
  • Bike tips will, in time, be included for all charter participants with their individual listing.  If you are able to contribute some bike-there tips (see examples of those already posted for ideas), that will speed up the process of getting your bike tips posted.  Thank you.
  • For the “E” and “R” categories, which require showing a helmet as evidence of cycling:  if you wish to offer cyclists the option of showing a bicycle pump instead of a bicycle helmet, please let me know and I will include that option in your individual listing.

Promote your participation and spread awareness of the project

With website links:

You may post on your website a link to Bicycling Monterey.  Refer to the following for examples of how that can be done:

As mentioned, Bicycling Monterey will post a link to every HER Helmet Thursdays participant’s website, as part of both the brief list and the detailed list of businesses and organizations that give a discount to cyclists on Thursdays.

With posters or fliers:

If you’ve bicycled here quite a bit, it’s easy to forget that new-timers often have questions about bicycling in Monterey County.  You may wish to make available to your customers or guests information to enhance their cycling outings here.

Announcements of the availability of the free online guide, Tips for Tourists Bicycling Monterey, and/or the HER Helmet Thursdays project, are available.  These are being used in concierge binders,  are posted in display windows, etc.  Click here for all resources, or contact me (831/375-6278).

Thank you for helping to make Monterey County

one of the most bicycling friendly places in America.