May is Bike Month, which means it's time to get pedaling and prove your stuff. We here at the Mercury are already planning to take part in The Street Trust's annual bike challenge. (If you're participating, prepare to be crushed.) There are all kinds of prizes you can win for participating, and it's also a great way to get in shape and prevent pollution.

Don't have a bike? BikeTown is providing 90 minutes of free rides per day throughout May, so you can just hop on those orange things and pedal away.

There are dozens of great events scheduled throughout the month (in a list available here), including one in Vancouver every Monday that helps you learn how to safely share the road with cars, an event for bombing hills every Sunday night, a night ride on Skyline on May 9, and the classic Breakfast on Bridges on the last Friday of the month.

The city is putting on a few of its own events for the public, including the Better Naito launch celebration on May 1 which celebrates a lane of traffic on Naito turning into bike lanes for the summer months. There's a bike maintenance workshop on May 9, and a neighborhood greenway ride in East Portland .

You can also take a traffic-free, family friendly 7-mile tour of the parks in Southeast on May 20, which sounds like an amazing way to spend a Sunday.

So hop on your bikes and get pedaling!