MEMBERS
GIVING BACK TO THE WORLD THROUGH BICYCLING
BY KEVIN DEKKINGA
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hen you work in bike advocacy for many years, you meet so many inspiring, dedicated, determined people. Tim Oey, a lifetime member of the League, is one of them. As a League Cycling Instructor, Event Manager with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, instructor for Bicycle Solutions and Wheel Kids, commissioner on the Sunnyvale Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, member of the VTA Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and all-weather transportation cyclist— Tim wears many hats in the active transportation field. Tim has always been ‘into bikes,’ riding cross-country in his college days in support of Oxfam and later riding with local clubs such as the Charles River Wheelers in Boston. He was instrumental in establishing one of the bike world’s early online presences, BikeNet on AOL, with the League, Adventure Cycling, IMBA and other partners.
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A few years ago, after an extensive career in the tech industry, Tim turned his life-long passion for bicycling and all things Zero Waste into a full-time endeavor. Drawing inspiration from an exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium chronicling plastics pollution, as well as his own lived experience, Tim dug into the notion of ecological balance in the world, striving to live as close to Zero Waste as possible, while inspiring others to do the same. “I knew I had to leave the corporate world and establish a new balance. Humankind is currently over budget and consuming about twice as much as our planet can provide sustainably. In order for me to consume and dispose of less, it helped to earn less and reduce my own budget,” Tim said. From there, he decided to dedicate his professional life full time to bicycling as a tool for sustainability.
