Sponsored: Park your bike for just 5¢ an hour at dozens of transit stations across the region

Editor's Note: This post was sponsored and reviewed by King County Metro. This is Seattle Bike Blog's first ever sponsored post. We are very picky about who we partner with for sponsored posts, which is why this is the first one. We've received hundreds of sponsored post offers over the years and rejected them all. Metro wanted to spread the word about all the on-demand bike lockers around the region, a goal fully in line with our values and reader interests. Sponsored content will be rare and will always be clearly labeled. Thank you for reading, and thank you to King County Metro for sponsoring this post.

Heading to Seattle for a World Cup game or watch party could be a great time to try out one of several dozen secure, on-demand bike parking facilities at transit stations across the region. Rather than circling for parking at a packed park-and-ride, go for a nice bike ride instead. Safely store your bike at the station, then take transit the rest of the way downtown without trying to bring your bike onto a busy train or a bus with limited bike rack spaces. Sure, you can lock your bike to a sign post or bike rack for free, but for only 5 cents per hour you can secure it in a bike locker or bike cage. In my experience, 5/hr is very little money for the peace of mind that my bike will be dry and waiting for me when I return.On World Cup match days, Sound Transit will waive the 5 cost for lockers and cages at Link and Sounder stations because they will not allow people to bring their bikes onto crowded trains those days.

King County Metro, Sound Transit and a few other providers in the area (including Climate Pledge Arena) use BikeLink for their secure bike parking. Download the BikeLink app (iOS and Android), load at least $5 into your account, then use the app to find and access available bike parking spaces. You can also buy a $20 physical card that includes $20 worth of bike parking, though I have found the app much more friendly to use. Also, at 5 an hour, $20 is 400 hours of bike parking, which is a bit overkill for most casual users. Creating a BikeLink account includes an identity check to help prevent unauthorized access to the bike cages.

One underrated benefit of the bike lockers is that you can also store other stuff with your bike. For example, if you are heading to Seattle Center for an event with a strict bag policy, you can leave your bag with your bike in the BikeLink lockers off Lenny Wilkens Way.

But what if you want to bike around Seattle's growing network of downtown bike lanes and paths? Biking downtown is a lot of fun, but bringing a bike on transit during very busy times is not a good experience for anyone. Consider biking to transit and using a bike locker, take express transit downtown, then using bike share to get around. Explore the waterfront and ride the Elliott Bay Trail through the newly-renovated Myrtle Edwards and Centennial Parks.

Combining bikes and transit is a versatile, efficient and fun way to get around, and bike facility investments from bike lanes to bike lockers make it easier than ever.