National Bike Challenge

May is National Bike Month with a whole lot of events and activities to participate in.

See the 2012 wrap-up here.

One result of the recently completed National Bike Summit in Washington D.C. is the National Bike Challenge.

The Challenge runs from May 1 to August 31, 2012, but the public is invited to sign up now and get warmed up. 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 all 50 states have committed to participate and have started warming up.

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. Great idea Rob! Now, go the next step and find a way to monetize those miles to offset the coming carbon-tax penalty, and K-C should be golden! All kidding aside, K-C is putting up some additional green by donating 10 cents to the League of American Bicyclists for every mile logged by a K-C employee during the 2012 Challenge. Good on you K-C!

In 2011, 357,739 miles were pedaled globally, with the U.S. pedaling over 50% of the total miles at 182,210 miles.

With The Challenge now going public, lets guess the total miles for 2012 to be something in the ballpark of 30-45 million miles.  Maybe we could form a secondary challenge as to guessing the total miles ridden at the conclusion – Guesses would be locked in at the start of the challenge and ridiculed and laughed at on the conclusion of the event in August.

Seems to me that the OC could lead the nation in miles if we gave it a thought. Hmmm – how about a county-wide Challenge? Prize donations for the winningest  “team” or individual within the OC for the most accumulated miles  during the challenge gratefully accepted.  Sort of a challenge within a challenge kind of thing; a motivator if you will.  Already, 175,378 miles are logged at the site!
The counter will reset to zero at the start and the “race” is on!  At this point – there won’t be an award for the most miles in the least time, because that would be racing.
Now get riding!
For more information and to sign up please: visit
h/t Bikes Belong