Team Mightybytes (Tim, Joy, and Steve) recently returned from the 2011 NYC - DC Climate Ride, biking 300 miles over five days to support sustainable solutions and eight environmental organizations.

Yes, our legs and butts are sore, but we have some great take-aways from the trip. Before and during the ride, we learned a lot about each other, how to effectively raise funds using social media tools, and met dozens of sustainability experts who shared their wisdom with us. Here were some of the take-aways.

We just got a new bike rack for the office. Several of us commute via two wheels as often as the unpredictable Chicago weather will allow and while Andersonville is a safe neighborhood locking our bikes to a parking meter on the street probably isn’t the most secure option.

So it is in the spirit of the warming weather and our fancy new bike rack that we offer up these wise tidbits for why we support biking to work: