What does it mean to be a bike-friendly business? It depends. It might be somewhere with a secure bike rack, that is willing to fill up water bottles, will loan you a tire floor pump, or a hotel with indoor bike storage. Here are a few ways to find bike-friendly businesses on your route.

First, if you aren’t from BC you might not know about our awesome Community Centres. These are public buildings which offer recreation classes and often have gyms, ice rinks, and pools. Check them out for day-passes for a shower, a place to fill up your water bottle, or just a free bathroom: the My Community BC map lets you filter by “community centre.” Libraries are of course another great resource.

Looking for places to fill up water bottles? Note that in many places in BC drinking fountains in BC are seasonal (May-October). That said, Vancouver and Victoria are increasingly installing “freeze-proof” models which are available year-round. As noted above, community centres are a good choice. Most supermarkets and gas-stations also include washrooms (do buy something!) Some apps to check out for locating other water fountains:

• Free Taps
• Droply
• MapComplete (web page) shows all drinking fountains from OpenStreetMap ("amenity"="drinking_water")
• Thirsty code will add hydration points to your GPX bike track plans if you are nerdy like that
• pitstopper is a promising web page for this, though they seem to be still working out some bugs.

Looking for Washrooms (a common BC term for toilets)? Most of the places above to fill up water bottles will also have washrooms. In addition, a few dedicated apps:

• Where is Public Toilet
• GoHere

Looking for bike repair shops? Currently Google Maps is one of the easiest ways to find these. Ride with GPS may also show some near your route, and Open Street Maps includes many as well. Check out the non-profit bike shops listed on the Advocacy page — they often rent DIY bike repair areas, and usually offer repair service and new/used parts as well.

Of course bike tour-guiding companies and most campgrounds are also bike-friendly businesses.

It’s also worth mentioning the Go By Bike BC directory of bike-friendly businesses. Check it out if you are looking for places that will “go the extra mile” (kilometer?) “to welcome customers arriving by bicycle.” Found a place that you consider bike friendly? You can nominate them for inclusion in the directory here.