The National Bike Challenge is on!

[KLizotte]

Start your Pedals, America – The Get Up & Ride

National Bike Challenge Is On!

New online competition will engage and connect bicyclists from coast to coast.

Washington, D.C. – March 21, 2012 – Launched today by a powerful alliance of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the League of American Bicyclists, Bikes Belong and Endomondo, the National Bike Challenge aims to inspire and empower millions of Americans to ride their bikes for transportation, recreation and better health.

The Challenge is simple: Sign up as an individual or as a team, log your miles, share your stories and encourage others to join you. Riders will compete for prizes and awards on the local and national level, including a Grand Prize trip through California wine country from Trek Travel. Already, organizations in 26 states have committed to participate and have started warming up for the May 1 start date on the Challenge website: nationalbikechallenge.org.

“The League is excited about this unique opportunity to share the many benefits of bicycling and offer a fun, engaging entry point for new riders,” said Andy Clarke, President of the League of American Bicyclists. “There’s nothing like riding a bike with your friends and colleagues and the National Bike Challenge will create a new social network of cyclists stretching from coast to coast.”

The online initiative was piloted by Kimberly-Clark (K-C), Endomondo and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin in 2011. The idea was sparked by K-C research engineer, Rob Gusky, and Kimberly-Clark extended the competition to its 57,000 global employees. The Challenge proved to be a great team building and wellness activity for K-C’s sustainability efforts globally. Participating K-C employees logged 357,739 miles globally, with U.S. employees pedaling 182,210 miles. The success in Wisconsin led to a bigger vision: Taking the challenge to the national level.

“We’re pleased to be the national sponsor of the Challenge as it supports the wellness of our employees and the communities we serve, while contributing to improved air quality by replacing car travel with clean, healthy bicycle trips,” said Jan Spencer, K-C’s senior vice president of continuous improvement/procurement/ sustainability. “This year, K-C is providing an extra incentive for our global team members: The Kimberly-Clark Foundation will donate 10 cents to the League of American Bicyclists for every mile logged by a K-C employee during the 2012 Challenge.”

The platform for the National Bike Challenge was created by Endomondo, a social fitness network with 7.5 million users worldwide. “Riding a bike for transportation is among the top five activities for our European users, and we look forward to helping expand this kind of biking in the U.S. with this campaign,” said Mette Lykke, Co-Founder of Endomondo. “Logging your miles is easy and the social interaction with co-workers, family and friends really makes it fun and motivating to get up and ride.”

“Bikes Belong is delighted to be a part of the National Bike Challenge, which provides all the tools to help more people ride bikes more often,” said Bruno Maier, vice president of Bikes Belong. “We’re looking forward to seeing all the different types of riders who participate. The Challenge is a great way to encourage people to live healthier lives.”

The Challenge runs from May 1 to August 31, 2012, but the public is invited to sign up now and get warmed up. For more information, visit http://www.nationalbikechallenge.org. Join us at facebook.com/nationalbikechallenge.

Topic

[KLizotte]

I bumped into Mark B at about 8:00ish pm on the MVT. He reported that Tim came in 2nd place -whoohoooo! He didn’t mention any injuries so I presume the crew finished up ok though some probably came home to a house without power. Augh.

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m currently tied for 1st place for the month of July. Woohoo!!!

[DCLiz]

Dabnabbit. I didn’t win the bike this month, either. And I don’t think any of us won the year’s supply of TP.

[MV Clyde]

I was 4th place on the DC/VA/MD list earlier today but the GC contenders are moving up. I should have taken a screen shot. I’m 17th as I write this.

[dbb]

I am planning a midnight ride that ends about 1215 am on 1 Aug. For a moment, I will be number 1 in America!

[Dirt]

My miles from Total200 didn’t count since I wasn’t able to enter them until late on July 1st. Oh well.

[vvill]

@Dirt 24258 wrote:

My miles from Total200 didn’t count since I wasn’t able to enter them until late on July 1st. Oh well.

Really? That’s crazy! You should contact them and see if they can fix that.

[Arlingtonrider]

I just put a comment on the Challenge National site site in favor of Pete getting his points.

p.s. Pete had already posted a comment about this on the Challenge site earlier, but with no result.

[Mikey]

I think they count for your final total, Just not for the June prize drawings.

[Arlingtonrider]

Oops – hit like again when i meant to hit reply.

Pete said that they would not let him count them at all, for either June or July. So its not just a question of the prize drawing for June.

He already sent a comment to them, but with no result. That’s why I wrote again tonight.

[eminva]

@dbb 24257 wrote:

I am planning a midnight ride that ends about 1215 am on 1 Aug. For a moment, I will be number 1 in America!

August 1st is my birthday — I was thinking that this year I should adopt the custom of riding a mile for every candle. That should get me up there! For about a minute.

Liz

[Dirt]

@essigmw 24262 wrote:

I think they count for your final total, Just not for the June prize drawings.

Nope. My June points total is the same as it was June 29th . The points didn’t ever add in. The miles that I’ve done match what I have in Strava for the last 2 months. Just the points are off. Oh well. No big deal.

Just use that as a caution. Get your monthly miles in before 6am on the 1st.

[Dirt]

It was fixed this morning. My “entire period” total went up by about 200 points. They did capture it. It is just weird that if you add up the months, they don’t equal the total. That is okay by me.

[dbb]

Just looked at the Bike Arlington A team results.

Superstars so far are consularrider and Will, with a ride every day of the competition. Consularrider has a daily average of 40 miles. Consularrider is our team’s Cal Ripkin and Will is the Energizer Bunny (or is it the other way around?). Huzzah!

Tim Kelley has only missed 8 days of riding so a tip of the hat to him as well!

The team has logged about 10500 miles, with consularrider leading the team.

We have less than two months to go. Keep it up!

Dana

[vvill]

@dbb 24315 wrote:

Will has only missed one day

Actually I did log a ride on that day, but it was less than 0.5 mi so it doesn’t show up on the team page. I did check the points when I logged that and I got the 20 points still. But yeah usually I try to make sure I do at least 0.51 to make sure it shows up.

I think Tim is behind on logging some miles (y’know like, over 200 of them), or he’d be ahead of me.

[Author]

Replies