GreenTown Los Altos

Kimberly Beck, AKA The Biking Baker, Joins the Drive Less Challenge

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Apr 2012

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Kimberly Beck, The Biking Baker, with her yellow Electra bike

You may have seen Kimberly Beck on her yellow Electra cruiser biking around Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and surrounding communities delivering home-made baked goods, appetizers and dinners. A seven year resident of Los Altos, Kimberly started The Biking Baker in 2009. At that time she was recovering from a water skiing accident and doing a lot of baking and cooking which is an enjoyable stress release for her. Encouraged by friends and family, she started catering private parties. One day she and daughter Lilly rode their bikes to a Stanford football game with 200 cookies. They sold out in under one hour. The Biking Baker was born!

Bittersweet brownies sprinkled with gold dust

Kimberly’s clients enjoy food crafted from high quality ingredients such as Scharfenberger chocolate, European butter and organic produce. She caters private parties, does regular work for Intuit (90 people), bakes for water polo, soccer and other sports teams and is a private chef. Some of her specialties include bittersweet brownies sprinkled with gold dust, triple chocolate cookies, Valrohna chocolate chunk and chip cookies, and Grand Marnier-Apricot Shortbread Bites.

A former TV commercial copywriter and occasional actress, Kimberly is also an athlete, having competed in several marathons and triathlons. Her running career is now over, but she swims every morning at Fremont Hills and gets plenty of exercise making 25% of her deliveries via bike.

Chocolate Cake

She joined the Drive Less Challenge and has only been in a car twice since the contest started on April 22. She rode 26 miles on Sunday and rode to Whole Foods to shop for her family of five. She is passionate about bike safety and making Los Altos a more bike-friendly city. “I love my business here in Los Altos. It’s a great community to bike in. But there there is so much more that can be done to make our city one of the best bike-friendly cities in Northern California. I hope our mayor and town council and other groups can come together and move forward with a grand master plan and community center that promotes walking and biking with plenty of bike lanes and bike parking.”

Her three children attend Gardner Bullis, Egan and Los Altos High School. The older two ride their bikes to school daily. The primary reason the child at Gardner Bullis doesn’t ride as much is the horrible intersection of Foothill/Edith/Los Altos Avenue . “My children have had close calls on their bikes and they would REALLY like to have better bike lanes around town.”

To learn more about The Biking Baker, contact Kimberly at thebikingbaker@yahoo.com.

2 Responses to “Kimberly Beck, AKA The Biking Baker, Joins the Drive Less Challenge”

  1. Toni Moos

    I have personally tasted many of Kimberly’s baked goods and food and they are OUTSTANDING. What I also love about Kimberly, is that she encourages so many others to be active and to spend less time in their cars and more time on their bikes. To that end, my Gardner Bullis children are walking or biking up the hill to school more often. I do hope to see a more bike-friendly community so that our children can safely bike around the neighborhood, while parents have peace of mind knowing that their children will be safe.

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