Spring has finally sprung with the arrival of consistently milder weather – with sunshine very much the theme this bank holiday weekend. The ‘cycling season’ – when people who aren’t all-weather riders are up for getting on their bikes – is usually about March-October, but global weirding has definitely delayed things over the last two months…

But it hasn’t stopped us having a successful start to the year at Love to Ride:

• Despite the Beasts from the East, thousands of people jumped on their bikes in March for Ride to Work Week, when we also launched our new Boxed Bike Breakfasts in partnership with VitaLife Health. We got fantastic feedback for these – they’re available here and we’ll be re-launching them with a summery twist soon!
• UniCycle – a pilot with NUS Sustainability funded by the Department for Transport – has been a huge success, with eight universities trialing new ways to get more students and staff on bikes
• We’ve launched our new Workplaces offer, allowing organisations to access our platform and programmes to unlock the benefits of cycling for their staff (find out more here)

There’s lots more in the pipeline to celebrate, reward and encourage cycling in 2018:

• We’re excited to announce that our flagship Cycle September programme is going global! For the first time we’ll have organisations from around the world participating in our unique workplace cycle challenge format. The movement to get more people on bikes is growing globally and we’re proud to be the first platform to give it the potential to reach into every workplace worldwide
• World Bike Day was recently announced by the UN to acknowledge and celebrate the capacity of the humble bicycle to solve so many 21st-century problems. We’ll be marking the occasion with a global giveaway and campaign, so make sure you connect with us on social media to get involved (we’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram)
• It’s Bike Week in the UK from 9-17 June – we’re teaming up with Cycling UK to make sure all our members know about local events and give away great prizes for riding and encouraging others

The benefits of biking to businesses are huge: happier, healthier, wealthier staff, reduced sickness absence and need for parking, greater productivity and connection to the local community, reduced National Insurance Contributions through the Cycle to Work Scheme and significantly reduced carbon emissions. Workplaces can unlock all of these benefits – and many more – by joining their local Love to Ride programme or funding their own low-cost site to access our events.

We’re inviting every workplace to saddle up and join us for the ride – get in touch if you’d like to know more: hello@lovetoride.org