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Matt Breidenbach is a People Consultant Business Partner at Google, what most organizations would call an HR Business Partner, with nearly 12 years at the company and a background that spans university recruiting, Navy veteran service with the US Navy Seabees, and years of supporting everything from org design and talent management to workplace accommodations and policy development. He works in Google's Los Angeles office, supporting the HR function itself, which means he spends his days thinking about how benefits programs are built, interpreted, and experienced. So he understands better than most employees, exactly what goes into the decisions around launching a new benefit. And he's glad Google offers employees the benefit of Ridepanda.
Most mornings, he rides his Ridepanda bike eight miles to work along the coast of Los Angeles.
This dual vantage point, someone who deeply understands how benefits get built and evaluated, and who also lives the benefit every single day as a rider, makes Matt one of the most credible voices we've ever had the chance to hear from. This is his story.
When Matt describes his work at Google, it quickly becomes clear how much complexity lives inside a single HR Business Partner role.
"My role involves supporting the business from topics like risk management, talent management, data center personnel support, reorgs, workplace accommodations, org design and effectiveness, and of course things like performance management and interpersonal conflict cases," he says. "And I've been at Google coming up on 12 years."
At a company the size of Google, even HR needs its own HR. Matt's team is one layer removed from the broader employee population, supporting the people professionals who in turn support tens of thousands of Googlers worldwide. That means his lens on benefits is unusually sharp. He doesn't just administer programs; he interprets them, asks hard questions about them, and has in some cases has been involved in the actual policy-building process for global benefits.
"Sometimes individuals or teams have questions about how to utilize certain benefits, whether or not they apply in certain situations, interpreting policies, potentially considering what sort of documentation might be needed," he explains. "And I've also been involved in the actual policy building of a global benefit, which is a really interesting space, because once we get it approved for the US, then we want to see if we can share it as a multinational global corporation."
So when he discovered that Ridepanda was already available to him as a Google employee benefit, that instinct kicked in immediately.
"When I first heard about it, it kind of sounded too good to be true," Matt says. "I pressed them. I looked into it, as a representative. I'm always asking questions and trying to understand deeper: what's the catch here?"
And what he found? There wasn't one.
Matt came to Ridepanda the way a lot of new riders do: through a colleague who couldn't stop talking about it.
Before Ridepanda, Matt was actually already a committed commuter cyclist. In Austin, where Google has an office downtown and parking pressure is intense, he biked four miles each way to work every day. When he relocated to Los Angeles, his commute doubled to eight miles each way, and included a significant hill at the end of the return trip. He was riding a heavy hybrid mountain bike that had aged past its best years, and the ride home was genuinely taxing.
"I had a plan where I was going to look into investing in a lighter road bike for commuting purposes," he recalls. "And then I learned about the Ridepanda benefit through a coworker who had taken advantage of it."
The concept was simple: employees subscribe to a high-quality pedal bike, e-bike, or e-scooter on a monthly basis. Google then reimburses 10% of the subscription cost each time the employee rides it to work; up to 10 times per month. In other words, commute by bike 10 days a month and the whole subscription is fully covered. A free bike.
Matt knew exactly how to do his due diligence. "We have an awesome team at Google that handles questions about this type of thing. I looked into it, as an HR representative. And I understood it really was as advertised."
He chose a Specialized road bike, not an e-bike. "I'm old school. I really wanted a road bike to commute to work. And I wanted to get the fitness aspect as well." He picked it up at a local shop where Ridepanda had arranged the assembly and fitting. He walked out with the bike, a helmet, a lock, and no out-of-pocket costs.
"The process was really simple," he says. "I reached out to Ridepanda. They answered my questions. I picked up the bike. They assembled it and fitted me for it. I walked out the door. And I began riding to work. It's as simple as that."
Matt's morning commute in Los Angeles runs eight miles along the coast. He's an early riser (up before 5 AM!), so he beats the legendary LA traffic on the way in. The ride home is another story: the final stretch includes a significant climb. But he does it anyway, almost every single day. "Driving and parking in the Google parking lot is now my second option," he says. "I probably only park there two or three work days per month."
"When I bike to work, I show up in a better headspace than I would otherwise if I drove," Matt says. "It kind of gives me that nice separation. And it's also just a great way to combine fitness and commute at the same time."
For Matt, a competitive runner and cyclist who works five days per week in the office, the physical element is part of the appeal, not a trade-off. But he's also quick to note that the program's accessibility extends far beyond committed athletes. The e-bike option exists precisely for employees who need a little assistance on the hills, or who live a bit farther out. The Ridepanda catalog covers everything from road bikes to cargo e-bikes to e-scooters, and employees choose what fits their lifestyle best.
What really sealed it for Matt, though, was the support experience. A few months into riding, the bike developed issues tracing back to how it had originally been assembled. Matt took it to a smaller, more specialized shop. They fixed the problems and sent him a bill.
"I just checked in with Ridepanda trying to understand the policy," he recalls. "And they reimbursed the bill completely. It was a real person, too, which is nice. It wasn't like I was just chatting with a Ridepanda chatbot. It was an actual individual. Super helpful. It was reimbursed, I want to say, a week later. Super simple."
He's told coworkers. A lot of coworkers. "People see me carrying a helmet throughout the office on the way to my desk and they'll just ask me, 'Did you bike to work? What did you use?' And then I use that as a segue to tell them about Ridepanda."
What makes Matt's perspective so valuable and rare is that he holds both views simultaneously. He understands, from his HR work, what leaders worry about when they evaluate a commuter benefit program. And he knows, from the bike seat every morning, whether those worries actually hold up.
On the HR side, risk and liability are common objections. Matt acknowledges them directly: "Part of our role is that we're entrusted with assessing risk to the company. So I think leading with what type of risk the company may or may not be taking on by engaging with some sort of partnership like this is key." He noted, with some surprise, that he hadn't fully understood until our conversation, that Ridepanda's program includes theft insurance and liability coverage bundled into every subscription. "That's a really good component," he said.
On the RTO question, which is top of mind for nearly every HR leader right now, he's direct: Ridepanda is part of what brings him in five days a week.
"Part of having the Ridepanda benefit is that it encourages me to come into the office more," he says. "I'm not spending money on gas. I'm being reimbursed for my bike. So there's really no cost to me other than the effort on my legs, which I like anyway. So I think that it's a big positive."
He's also candid about the framing challenge HR leaders face when they're personally not cyclists. "I think the biggest selling point is: bikes are not cheap. The maintenance can be an added expense on top of car payments and things like that. Just having this ability to get a bike or an e-bike or scooter, avoid traffic and commute to work. There are numerous benefits in terms of the environment, cost savings, and just the mental benefits to employees when they show up to work."
His advice for HR leaders who aren't cyclists themselves? Lead with education. Lean on community infrastructure like bike lanes, city programs, local momentum. And look for peer proof: what are similar companies in the same city doing?
"We're not expecting or asking you to get everyone who's never biked before on a bike," he says. "But a non-negligible portion could, and that could help benefit the company in numerous ways."
He also points to the power of internal programming. Google participates in "Bike to Work" month every May, where employees who ride in get a badge, stickers, and a free water bottle, and the company actively promotes the Ridepanda benefit as part of the event. "The company can have some programming as well to support it," Matt notes. "To market it internally and build community around the shared commute."
We asked Matt how he'd describe Ridepanda to a fellow HR professional who was on the fence. He thought about the ROI case, the cost savings, the wellness angle, and then he landed on something more fundamental.
"It demonstrates that their investment into us as employees doesn't stop when we leave the front door of the office," he said. "It continues all the way until we get home. They provide us with these options to support us."
That framing, the employer's care for the employee extending beyond office walls, is exactly what modern benefits leaders are trying to build. Not just perks that look good on paper, but programs that employees actually use, that change their daily experience and create genuine loyalty and appreciation.
"I appreciate that Google is willing to do that and demonstrate an investment into employee well-being and transportation and mobility," Matt says. "I think they see the ROI, too."
Ridepanda works because it's designed from two directions at once. For employers, it's a zero-friction, pay-per-use program that plugs into existing benefits infrastructure, goes live in weeks, and delivers measurable ESG data alongside real behavior change. For employees, it's a high-quality bike, fully maintained and insured, that makes the commute something to look forward to instead of dread.
If you're an HR or Total Rewards leader evaluating commuter benefits, we'd love to show you what the program looks like from your seat.
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