Meet Violet And Donal, Your Napa County Bike Champions Of The Year

NAPA COUNTY, CA — Bay Area Bike to Wherever Days organizers have announced the winners of the Bike Champion of the Year awards for each of the nine Bay Area counties. Given to individuals for inspiring bicycling in their Bay Area communities, this award recognizes riders in the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties for their commitment to cycling as the primary mode of transport.

The Napa County co-winners are Violet Grove and Donal O'Briain.

Here's what their nominators had to say about this year's Napa County Bike Champions.

Violet Grove

Violet clearly remembers the first day she learned to ride a bike — she was a child, camping with family, and befriended a girl she met at the campsite. She saw that her new friend could ride a bike confidently without training wheels and asked her uncle to remove the training wheels from her own bike. She fell a couple of times but got back up and was soon riding “all over the place.” Violet’s journey as a bike champion began through the strong but subtle inspiration, she felt watching a peer experience bicycle joy — and now she champions bicycling in her own community by providing that very same inspiration.

When she was in third grade, Violet began using her bike for transportation — and has continued that practice to get to school, around town, and to meet up with friends. She bikes five to seven days a week and, as her nominator highlighted “Violet could easily get a ride in the car from her parents, but chooses to ride her bike each day,” demonstrating a conscious commitment to cycling even as a busy student.

At just 13 years old, Violet acts as a bicycling role model for youth in her community. She understands the myriad benefits that bicycling for transportation provides individuals and communities and notes the “good [bicycling] does for your body, and how it doesn’t pollute the air like riding in a car does. It also saves a lot of time, and you can get places quicker than you could walking.”

Violet shares her enthusiasm for bicycling with her peers, regularly referring to riding around downtown with her friends — a practice simple in concept, but a powerful reminder to her community of the joy and connection that bicycling creates. She also models bicycle safety to youth in her community, demonstrating safe bike riding by wearing a helmet and riding in the bike lanes.

When asked what advice she would give to someone new to biking for transportation, Violet said: “Make sure to lock your bike, because even if you think it’s safe, there’s always a chance that it could be taken.”

Donal O’Briain

O'Briain's first memory of riding a bike is learning to ride his Raleigh Blaster in his parents’ backyard in Dublin, Ireland, and subsequently falling off. He has biked for transportation since those early days, riding as part of his school’s cycling club — the Willow Wheelers — at age 12, when he realized he could get around the city faster than by other modes of transportation.

Today, O'Briain remains a dedicated bicycle commuter, riding to work most weekdays, to other locations like downtown Napa businesses, and along a 7-mile round trip ride to pick up his three children from school. As his nominator describes, O'Briain serves “as a role model for other working parents who want to make healthy, climate-aware transportation choices.”

In addition to his commitment to riding, O'Briain serves on the City of Napa’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, a group of appointed Napa residents who advise the city council and staff on matters regarding bicycle transportation and pedestrian issues. As a member of the BPAC, he dedicates time to making Napa a more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly place for all residents, addressing topics such as the inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities in street designs and ideas for improving Napa’s Bicycle Friendly Community designation.

Beyond a method of transportation, O'Briain appreciates bicycling as a way to explore and connect, noting that “on a bicycle, one can find “places that you otherwise wouldn’t even have known were places. I’ve found shortcuts and scenic routes and hidden corners all riding my bike, and made some great friends along the way.”

When asked what advice he would give to someone new to biking for transportation, O'Briain said: “Make sure your bike is in good working order and plan a route you’re comfortable with, be it on quiet streets, or on a good bike path. Almost everything in Napa is closer than you realize by bike.”

• SEE ALSO: Meet Bill Petty, Your Sonoma County Bike Champion Of The Year

Prizes

Each winner receives a Public Bikes handlebar bag from Mike’s Bikes, a $50 gift card from Sports Basement, a laminated, boxed set of San Francisco Bay Trail map cards from the Association of Bay Area Governments/Bay Trail, and a picnic/stadium blanket from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Bike To Wherever Days

"Bike to Wherever Days" take place the entire month of May and includes "Bike to Work Day" set for May 18. Details can be found online at Bayareabiketowork.com.

Bay Area Bike to Wherever Days is presented by MTC (the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area), 511 (the region’s traveler information system), Amazon, and Stanford Medicine.

BTWD 2022 also receives regional support from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), as well as from many sponsors at the local level. Prizes for the Bike Champion of the Year winners were donated by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), MTC, Sports Basement, and Mike’s Bikes.