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!

Get Ready: The I Bike PHL Challenge Begins May 1st

Last summer we piled up 150,000 miles riding to and from work. This year, let's take our biking national...

The I Bike PHL Challenge begins May 1st!

This summer, we have the chance to show the rest of the country just how much Philadelphia gets around by bike. Registration is free and open now!

• Log your miles through Endomondo's website or free smartphone app
• Create teams of up to ten riders
• Count all miles you bike this summer, for any purpose
• Opt to receive info from us during registration for chance to win new bicycles
• See how Philly and PA stack up to the rest of the nation

Want to get your friends or co-workers involved? We've prepared an info guide which supplements Endomond's own FAQs and tells you everything you need to know to put together a terrific team.

Where can your bike take your this summer?

Wrapping up our first Commuter Challenge

Our first-ever Commuter Challenge wrapped up at the end of August. Its conclusion was lost in the ruckus of Bike Philly preparations, but it should not go unnoticed.

The premise was simple: walk or bike to work! We created a free website in which you could log your miles, create or join workplace teams, and see how you stacked up against other Philly-area commuters.

Thousands of commuters took the Challenge, and from mid-May until the end of August they compiled some impressive numbers:

• 18,485 commutes taken by foot or by bike
• 149,281 miles traveled
• 7,314,800 calories burned by active commuting
• 146,296 pounds of CO2 emissions prevented (if the commutes had otherwise been taken by car)

Biking or walking to work provides wide-ranging benefits for the commuter and his or her employer. Morning exercise makes you more alert and energetic during the workday. It saves you money on transportation. It's environmentally-friendly. Studies have found that active employees are healthier employees, taking fewer sick days and using less health insurance (kind of a no-brainer study, frankly). Perhaps most importantly - it's fun!

We will be bringing the Commuter Challenge back next year. If you participated this summer, we'd love you to fill out a short survey on your experience. We want to know how it went and what you did and did not like, so we can make it better next year.

In the meantime, keep bicycling and walking to work!

Bucks County Bicycle Co. Is Pedaling For Change

Bucks County Bicycle Company, one of the 30 area bicycle shops who offer discounts on goods and services to Bicycle Coalition members, is doing something awful nice.  Through their Pedaling For Change promotion, they are donating a bright, shiny penny to us or Bikes Belong for every mile participants ride this summer (May 15 - Sept 17).

This initiative is for any kind of bike riding: commuting, recreational, triathlon training, whatever gets you on two wheels.  As if charitable donations and exercise weren't enough, the rider at the end of the summer with the most logged miles wins a $200 gift card, and there are milestone incentives:

• 100 miles – BCBC reusable cloth bag and pair of BCBC socks.
• 200 miles – Pedaling for Change shirt and a water bottle.
• 500 miles – $25 gift card and a coupon for a free flat repair (tube & labor).
• 1000 miles – Free Tune-Up Plus ($100 value).
• 2000 miles – BCBC jersey and a FREE Tune-Up Plus

There's no non-compete clause here, so those of you already participating in our Commuter Challenge can sign up for Pedaling For Change and (to misappropriate a military jargon term) create a force multiplier with your cycling.  Sign up for free online via the Bucks County Bicycle Company's website.

Bike to Work Day Undiminished By The Drizzle

Mayor Nutter, Congressman Brady, and Congressman Fattah joined the Bicycle Coalition and approximately 50 bicycle commuters this morning on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Bicyclists began congregating in a light drizzle around 8:00 am, but the drizzle soon let up.  While waiting for the VIPs to arrive, Bicycle Coalition staff mingled with the crowd and Alex Doty entertained the riders with irrepressible charm and bicycle statistics. 

Mayor Nutter, Congressmen Brady and Fattah, and their support staff arrived around 8:40.  Advanced Sports International donated several Fuji bicycles for the day, while Congressman Fattah rode his own.  Mayor Nutter thanked everyone for coming out, and shortly thereafter the peloton made its way down Ben Franklin Parkway to Thomas Paine Plaza in front of the Municipal Services Building (across from City Hall).  The ride was smooth and many pedestrians and motorists waved to the Mayor as he cruised past.

In the plaza, Mayor Nutter offered remarks about Philadelphia's ascendant status as a bicycling city, citing statistics from Mode Shift in his speech.  Chaka Fattah and Bob Brady also spoke, with Congressman Brady noting that he could get used to this whole bicycling thing, provided it always came with a bottle of water and a police escort.

All in all, Philadelphia represented itself well on National Bike to Work Day.  Today also kicks off the Bicycle Coalition's Commuter Challenge, which encourages people to bike or walk to work all summer by forming teams and logging their commutes online.  Thanks to everyone who came out for a ride with Mayor Nutter this morning, and we hope to see you commuting by bike all summer long!

More photos from the day are available on the Bicycle Coalition's Flickr page here.

Commuter Challenge

Have you heard? The Bicycle Coalition will be celebrating Bike Month 2011 with a month long Commuter Challenge! Our Commuter Challenge will allow individuals to create teams for their workplaces or organizations. Participants will log their daily, active commute distance (the distance biked or walked), and at the end of May, the workplaces with the highest percentage of participation will be crowned the winners!

Want to learn more? Visit our event website or fill out this short survey to be added to our email list!