Blog
Week 4 Challenge Recap: Ride for Transportation and Recruit a Friend
As you might imagine, everyone here at the League of American Bicyclists is participating in the National Bike Challenge.
For the most part, we’re utilitarian cyclists. We ride to work. We ride to the grocery store. We ride to press conferences up at the U.S. Capitol that showcase the overwhelming support for cycling in communities across America.
- A few members of the Bike League team at BTWD in DC
And, well, we’re doing pretty well — even without logging those long, recreational rides that have put inspirational folks like Leonard Wright at the head of the Challenge pack.
Among small businesses of less than 25 employees, the League is #4 — and we’re in good company. The top five businesses in our category are all fellow advocacy organizations. Bike Maryland has edged out the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin for the #1 spot and we’re just a hair behind #3 Local Motion, an advocacy organization in Burlington, VT. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is nipping at our heels and Bike Pittsburgh is just a few pedal strokes behind at #8.
Transportation cyclists are starting to climb the ranks among individual riders, too. While Leonard Wright is #1 with 100% recreational miles, the number 2 individual rider is the exact opposite. Michael Lemuel of Topeka, Kan.,has racked up more than 2,100 points — ALL from transportation trips. He’s not alone: Ron Clegg, from Columbus, OH, is in 6th place with 67% of his miles coming from transportation, and Mark Lucas in Hartford, Md., is in 8th with 60% of his miles for utilitarian trips.
Which raises an excellent point: Even if you’re just going out for a quart of milk, the National Bike Challenge rewards you for your trip with 20 points PLUS the mileage. So take me as an example. I very rarely go out for a 70-mile ride, like Leonard. In fact, my average day — going to the office and yoga — is only 6.8 miles of riding all told. But I’m already at the Gold level — more than 500 points. That’s because I ride. Every. Single. Day. And even if it’s just a two-mile round trip to Ella’s Pizza for Sunday brunch, I log it.
And I know there are a lot of folks out there like me, like the folks here at the League. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are actually more than 730,000 of us — people who bike to work. How powerful would it be if we could recruit just a tiny fraction of those folks to join us in the Challenge?
So, as we close out Week 4, I’d like to propose a personal challenge. I have plenty of friends who ride like me — relatively short but consistent trips for work and errands and day-to-day life. I commit to recruiting at least one new Challenge rider before the end of May — and report back in next week’s recap.
Will you join me?
If you haven’t already, sign up for the National Bike Challenge here.
Carolyn Szczepanski
Communications Director
Carolyn joined the League in March 2012, after two years at the Alliance for Biking & Walking. In addition to managing the League's blog, magazine and other communications, Carolyn organized the first National Women's Bicycling Summit and launched the League's newest program: Women Bike. Before she crossed over to advocacy, she was a professional journalist for nearly 10 years.
Subscribe
May 25th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Recreation??? Transportation??? I find most of my rides contain elements of both. For example, when I stopped for breakfast at a restaurant 20 miles from home during a recreational ride – log as recreation or transportation??? If I hadn’t been riding, I would never have driven to that restaurant for breakfast but the restaurant received my business – transportation/recreation??? On the way home I stopped by the bike shop for a new chain – recreation/transportation??? Since my rides are directly downloaded from my Garmin GPS without modification, I would find it very difficult to determine what was recreation and what was transportation, therefore everything I log goes under recreation. { Side note: I typically use less than 40 gallons of gas a year, I use other methods of getting around (that do not involve burning gas) – I avoid driving my car as much as possible….. }
May 25th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Great point Leonard! However you log it, you’re an inspiration to us all!
May 25th, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Having ridden with Michael Lemuel for 55 miles on one of his century+ days, I would agree with Leonard, it’s hard to say what’s transportation and what’s recreation. I know that day at least 55 miles was transportation because we were riding it for my job, did we enjoy it, yes. I think the purpose of categorizing the “type” of miles is more about getting an idea of what type of cycling is happening in a given community. Miles are miles guys, and I’ve seen some amazing stuff in the last month! Let’s all just keep on riding!
May 26th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
I’m glad to see this blog. I have been spreading the word in the course of my usual activities as much as possible. Most of the staff at my favorite pizza place (art school students for the most part) bike as their principal form of transportation. They’re entusiastic and may form a team. I’m also alerting our two local bike co-ops. Their patrons are largely the folks who just can’t keep a car on the road, so they bike.
I think the biggest problem with publicity for the challenge is that the dues paying membership of advocacy organizations is still dominated by recreational cyclists. As a utility cyclist, I have no objection to them, nor they to me – until it comes time to allocate resources for infrastructure projects, at least! My point, though is that concentrating the advertising in social media such as Facebook is unlikely to reach someone who bikes to work, but never goes on social rides, tours, or charity events.
I would suggest a campaign to get a stack of cards with the signup information in every local bike shop in the land (and every student coffee house, cyber café, and dorm as well.)
Full disclosure: I use my bike for 99% of my transportation at around 130 miles per week. Since I work the “off schedule” my weekends are only free if I use vacation time for them, which precludes all of those lovely century rides and 600k brevets. I did ride our annual Tour de Taco last year (a ride from one taco truck to another, to another, to another.)