Could Traffic Solutions Host a Team Bike Challenge Year-Round?
We have gotten several great suggestions about extending the Team Bike Challenge past June by allowing participants to continue to track their rides and miles after June 30th. Our Traffic Solutions team thinks this is an interesting idea, but our staff resources are limited. Comment here about ways we could design a promotion that would be self sustaining and yet interesting and motivating for current TBC participants--especially one that would help keep infrequent riders riding into the summer and beyond.
(Photo courtesy of S. McLaughlin)
9 comments:
I think the contest is great and inspired many people to ride more frequently and use their cars less. I think that rather than continue competition throughout the year we could use the web site to log our rides and miles. The emphasis could be on what we do as a group to reduce traffic, to decrease our use of gasoline, and to decrease pollution. I'm a frequent rider who has been commuting for the last 11 years. The more we can do to encourage the use of bicycles will significantly enhance our way of life.
Sometimes when we do things individually we don't see the impact of what we are doing directly. I feel that if as a group we could continue to log our miles and rides we could see the power of our collective action. We could also calculate the gallons of gasoline saved and the tons of carbon dioxide not spewed into the atmosphere.
You don't need to do it year round, but as I said before it would be great to do it two months of the year: Keep the one in June, but add one in January. This would separate the truely committed (or nuts) from the sunny weather crowd. Tomorrow there is a 20% chance of rain, but my team still has a 0% chance of winning...
Seriously, if we don't ride year round there still has to be infrastructure to handle the cars the rest of the year. All in vain except for the oil savings. We still "need" those $200,000 parking spaces at the new Granada Garage. Ride on.
My suggestion is to compete year round and have cities compete against each other on a per capita basis.
I agree with the first comment. Having a log/journal year round is a great idea. I am an infrequent rider next year but plan to continue riding to work most days of the week during the year.
I agree wtih the previous comment. I am an infrequent rider and it is great to see my rides and miles everyday. The competition is great but I would much rather just log in to see how I am doing and the rest of the group to keep me motivated. My husband and I go everywhere on our bikes now and have not filled up our gas tank for 3 weeks! We want to continue but not competitively. I'm sure we would lose the motivation if it came down to just the 2 of us deciding whether or not to ride.
Well, we could form a virtual group at bike journal (http://www.bikejournal.com/) and log rides there.
Your rides are tallied individually and on a group level with statistics ranking you with other groups and other riders. It's a pretty neat service, and free.
I think a year-long challenge would be excellent. It would show that riding can be a permanent part of a lifestyle, and not just a temporary change. Domanatrikes' suggestion is excellent, but might lose some of the local community feel of this site. I don't think the prizes are necessary. Instead think of the publicity potential when a rider reaches 10,000 miles logged!!
Having lived in the Netherlands, I have seen how an entire country can rely on bicycles for primary transportation. As more and more bicycles are on the roads here, the more accustomed drivers will be to mixing with bicycles, and more drivers will be inspired to try it. It will also be more likely that roads will be better designed to accomodate bicycles if the engineers that design them can see riders using the roads and can see documented quantitative evidence of that usage.
Thank you Dominatrikes for suggesting the bikejournal.com
web-site, if something local is not available this looks like a great site.
Just a simple log to keep track of our miles would be great. It would also be great to see what other riders do throughout the year. The TBC has encouraged me to ride more. I spoke with a rider whose whole outlook on utilitarian rides has changed. Now he actually enjoys short trips to the store.
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