Are You Ready for the National Bike Challenge? Registration Is Open

Any and all bicycle trips count! Warning: the bicyclist shown here is an immortal professional. Do not attempt.

This year's National Bike Challenge is nearly here! Registration is open at nationalbikechallenge.org, where you can set up teams and workplaces and log practice miles. The challenge begins for real on May 1st, and runs through September 30th. (Miles recorded during April won't count towards your final totals.)

What is the National Bike Challenge
In a nutshell, it is a nation-wide friendly competition to encourage bicycling by making it a contest. Using the website or one of three(!) smartphone apps, you can log the trips you take by bicycle. You are awarded points for those trips, and points allow for competition on a individual, team, workplace, school, city, and state level.

The challenge rewards riding frequency over distance. It's about using your bike for a wide variety of trips, and encouraging others to give it a try! You can register anytime, even after the start on May 1st. For more information, check out the site's FAQ.

What Is New This Year
The League of American Bicyclists, who runs this program, overhauled the website for this year. The site's functionality, the leaderboards, and other mechanics have been tweaked. They have also facilitated integration with three apps: Endomondo, MapMyRun, and Moves. (No Strava integration yet.)

Why Should I Do This

• If you already bike regularly, it can be a fun way to compete against your fellow bicycling friends. Form two teams of friends and place a wager on monthly or summer-long totals.
• The Challenge offers a fun, engaging framework through which to encourage a partner, friend, or coworker to give bicycling a try.
• The League of American Bicyclists offers prizes based on points level, up to and including new bicycles.
• Workplaces that encourage bicycle commuting have healthier, more productive employees.
• Pride and glory.

The challenge begins May 1st. Register today, get your profile and team set up, and start bicycling!

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!

Represent Your Community in the National Bike Challenge

The National Bike Challenge allows communities as small as Clarksboro, NJ and as big as Pennsylvania to see how much they get around by bicycle this summer. Registration is open and the Challenge begins May 1st!

Last year, Philadelphia placed 71st nationally and Pennsylvania was the 7th-most-bicycling state. New Jersey was 40th. We can do better this year!

Registration is open and you can begin logging rides today. On May 1st the leaderboards reset and the Challenge begins in earnest.

Why participate?

• The Endomondo App will tell you how many calories you burn as you ride this summer.
• Have friends or coworkers you want to try biking? Invite them to join your team!
• All bicycling counts - commutes, trail rides, weekend excursions to Valley Forge.
• Hitting points milestones makes you eligible for month prize drawings; prizes include new bikes!
• The Greater Philadelphia Region bikes a lot. Let's show self-satisfied "bicycle towns" like Portland and Minneapolis they aren't the only great bicycling communities.

Click Here To Register

Registration Is Open For The 2013 National Bike Challenge!

Registration is open for this nation-wide bicycling challenge. Run by the League of American Bicyclists through Endomondo.com (and their free app), the concept is pretty simple:

1. Register.
2. Create or join a team, or ride solo.
3. Log the miles you bike this summer - to work, to the store, on the weekend, etc.
4. See how far you bike this summer, and how your team, workplace, and/or community stack up against the rest of the country.

There are prizes for hitting point milestones. You accumulate points by biking, and the system rewards bicycling frequency more than bicycling distance. But the real reward is a summer of enjoying yourself on your bicycle!

April is the warm-up period. On May 1st the leaderboards will be wiped clean and the real challenge will begin. If you participated last year, you'll still need to register for this year's challenge.

Ready to ride? Join the National Bike Challenge!