Linda McGrane, Temple University Top 2013 National Bike Challenge

The Civil War analogy is just an
excuse to show great Civil War
facial hair on the blog

This year's National Bike Challenge wrapped up yesterday. The Challenge, an initiative of the League of American Bicyclists and Kimberly-Clark, pits brother against brother, workplace against workplace, city against city, in a brutal bicycling competition which some people refer to as "The Bicycling Contest of Northern Aggression." Ken Burns is making a 23-part documentary about it.

Not really. But it is a friendly national contest to log bicycling miles this summer. Participants got 20 points for each day they bicycled, and 1 point per mile. This encouraged bicycling more often and helped commuters hang with the weekend recreational cyclists. Here is a recap of how things shook out:

Nationally, Pennsylvania was the 8th most-bicycling state, while New Jersey finished at 39th. Some top results from our region:

Top 3 individual riders:
1. Linda McGrane (11,050 points) - 17th nationally
2. Daniel Oz (10,607 points) - 20th nationally
3. Frank Martin (10,429 points) - 22nd nationally

Top 3 teams:
1. Temple University (92,731 points) - 46,712 miles - 20th nationally
2. Philly Bike Club (89,197 points) - 65,305 miles  26th nationally
3. Toll Dodgers (66,618 points) - 29,851 miles - 63rd nationally

Top 4 workplaces
1. Temple University
2. Comcast
3. UPenn
4. Thomson Reuters (barely lost to UPenn, so we're recognizing them here)

You can view the full leaderboards at nationalbikechallenge.com. And thanks to everyone who logged their miles this summer!