Last September thousands of people entered the National Cycle Challenge clocking up over an almighty 14,743,000 miles!
The National Cycle Challenge is a fun, free competition encouraging employees and workplaces to experience first-hand the joys and benefits of riding a bike.
“It’s all about participation and challenging workplaces to get as many people as possible to ride a bike for just 10 minutes or more” explains Sam Robinson, General Manager at Love to Ride, the organisation who runs the challenge every year.
“It’s not just about who can ride the most miles, but also who can encourage the most people to give cycling a try. This year we’ve switched to a points based Challenge which really incentivises individuals to encourage new riders to get on a bike and ride, the more your encourage the more points you earn!”.
Cyclehoop were proud to partner with Love to Ride for last year’s challenge by offering prizes across the five winning categories.
“Partnering with Love to Ride on the National Cycle Challenge was a no-brainer for us! The benefits of cycling are well known; cycling is health and wellbeing improving, fun, reduces congestion and air pollution as well as alleviating parking congestion. Our mission at Cyclehoop is to make cycling safer, more secure and convenient by providing easy access to innovative cycle products and infrastructure that helps break down the barriers holding people back from cycling. For this reason we were really proud to be working with Love to Ride.” Anthony Lau, Cyclehoop MD commented.
Cyclehoop gave away thousands of pounds worth of cycling parking equipment, from public bike pumps to toolboxes.
Carradice, an organisation based in Lancashire that make cycling bags encouraged all 22 of their staff to take part in the challenge. They came top of the leader board in their category and won bike parking for their office worth £250. They decided to spend it on Semi-Vertical Racks so they could store their bikes efficiently and safely without scratching them!
David Chadwick, Director of Carradice told us
“Our organisation has been cycling for nearly 90 years so we had to get involved in this challenge! Winning the competition enabled our organisation to show case how easy it is to cycle to work. Our Cyclehoop cycle stand prize was a real morale booster and helped encourage more staff to get on their bikes. Our staff were surprised and delighted with our prize, especially as they were in training for a fundraising cycle ride.”
David and three other members of Carradice staff took part in a ‘Coast 2 Coast’ cycling fundraiser across England in aid of Macmillan Nurses. The ride – which takes in a 140 mile (225km) route from Whitehaven in Cumbria to Tynemouth on the East coast, passing through the Lake District and over the remote Pennine hills on the way – took place in July. It was an active way for them to show support for their much loved Carradice colleague Les, who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
David, who provided mechanical/logistical/emotional support throughout the fundraiser explained “The ride went really well. Everyone completed it but we found the second day really tough. We had four punctures on the same wheel and didn’t reach the B&B until 8.00pm one night!”
The team’s fundraising page is still live, so if you want to show your support and donate anything you can, we would definitely encourage you to do so!
Visit their page here; https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/David-Chadwick10
Don’t forget to register for this years National Cycle Challenge.