By working in partnership with 46 local authorities and 5,100 businesses we’ve achieved some excellent results.
Infographics are a great way to communicate a new perspective, using numbers, images and little text. So we wanted to demonstrate some of the outcomes that our projects achieve using an infographic.
10 Million car trips replaced by bike is a personal favourite!
Now anyone, anywhere can download and use our new smartphone app for free.
The app allows people to:
Linking in with Local Authorities
Our Local Authority partners logos are displayed in the app of people who live in their areas. This means that Local Authorities can now have their own locally branded smart phone cycling app.
This feature is enabled in the areas where the Local Authority has approached us to become our Official Love to Ride Partner in their area.
Version 2.0
A second version of the app has already been planned. Any suggestions for further improvements would be, as always, most welcome. Contact us at at: support@challengeforchange.com
Already registered on Love to Ride? Download the app here
New to Love to Ride? Register here
Courtesy of Ethical Corporation magazine, 6 Feb 2013
The benefits of cycling to work are becoming more widely acknowledged. And although the picture is patchy, the money is starting to follow the tyre marks.
From Europe to the United States, in many of the world’s car-dominated cultures, more people are choosing to travel to work by bike. They are spurred by a combination of infrastructure improvements, financial incentives and bike share schemes.
Many employers in both the private and public sectors are also doing more to encourage staff into the saddle. Organisations can not only reap major cash savings on car parking provision – an average of £400 a year for a single space, according to the UK Department for Transport – but also take credit for carbon cuts and reduced congestion.
Typically the cycling commute is for shortish journeys, up to about five or six miles – often less than three – or in combination with public transport, particularly train, for longer ones.
Whatever the journey length, there are health and wellbeing benefits for the individual and employers. “We know that people who cycle to work tend to feel happier, fitter and more productive,” says Sam Robinson of Challenge for Change.
The numbers back this up. Employees who cycle to work take 1.3 fewer days sick leave per year than non-cyclists, according to two independent studies, one by the London School of Economics and the other by Dutch researchers TNO.
Measurable benefits
In the UK, Challenge for Change is at the forefront of moves to get more employees cycling. It also operates in New Zealand, where it was founded in 2007, and Australia.
Like other campaign groups, it takes a gradualist approach, recognising that to entice non-cyclists onto bikes even occasionally is just as worthwhile as converting occasional cyclists into regular ones.
This is mirrored in the US, where Bikes Belong, a national lobbying group, goes under the slogan: Putting More People on Bikes More Often.
Challenge for Change offers a mixture of incentivising prize schemes, mechanical support and information, with participants logging mileage and frequency of rides over the three weeks of a challenge in any given geographical area. It aims to nurture a spirit of light-hearted, friendly competition in the workplace, with social media and smart phone technology featuring prominently.
The case for getting more people cycling to work rests on these “real and measurable business benefits”, says Robinson, the group’s partnerships manager. “Our programmes are all about finding new cyclists. We do engage with existing ones but we’re trying to get people who aren’t cycling.”
Funding comes from local authorities and grants, including the UK Department for Transport’s local sustainable transport fund, enabling Challenge for Change to reach private as well as public employees.
The organisation is hoping to team up directly with a major UK company, with multiple branches nationwide, so that it can maximise exposure.
Caroline Muldowney is human resources adviser at Zen Internet, which took part in the Greater Manchester Cycle Challenge in 2012 – a programme run by Challenge for Change. Ninety-seven out of 412 staff took part, including 36 new cyclists, and almost 4,000 miles were logged.
“It was very successful and made a lot of us aware that it’s not as hard as it looks taking part in something that’s good for fitness and wellbeing,” says Muldowney. “Since the challenge, 22 employees have signed up for the new bike scheme we operate with Evans Cycles, making 37 for 2012 in total”.
For the full article please go to Ethical Corporation online magazine
To find out more about our Cycle Challenges and learn how our behaviour change methodology can embed cycling within your organisation, contact sam@challengeforchange.com
We all want to see more people cycling all year round, but how can we encourage more people to cycle during the winter?
Do we need to…
There are plenty of ideas out there, so let’s get the conversation started. We are interested in hearing your thoughts on winter cycling…
One idea we’ve had is to do a Team Winter Challenge. This is a John O’Groats to Lands End Challenge which people ride ‘virtually’, i.e. they log their normal everyday rides on LovetoRide.net and this moves them virtually up the country. On the website they see fun updates along the way and they get a weekly email showing them how much cycling their team mates have done that week.
People can also send messages to their team and get some banter and light hearted encouragement going between their team mates. They can also choose to do the ride as a team relay (all their miles add together to make it easier to complete the John O’Groats distance) instead of doing the ride individually. (see this video for more info)
Send your thoughts to Thomas@challengeforchange.com or leave a comment below. We’d love to hear your ideas.
Let’s get more people cycling in winter!
This week we broke through 70,000 people registered on our sites and in our behaviour change programmes to date. That’s years of hard work in partnership with over 50 local authorities globally and more than 3,000 organisations. We are rapidly heading towards 7,000,000 miles and 23,000 non cyclists, which at a third of all registered participants, is an incredible achievement in itself.
It gives the team such a great feeling when we hit a new milestone. We love looking back at our achievements and all the people and lives we have touched in our mission to get more people cycling and sharing the benefits of riding a bike. At the same time we are looking forward to our continued journey, spreading the cycling love and every week helping new people to realise all the great benefits that riding a bike brings.
There are live Workplace Cycle Challenges in Greater Manchester, York and Chichester, with programmes about to start in Reading, Isle of Wight, Hertfordshire and Leicestershire. Then we cross into Wales for three Challenges – Cardiff, Swansea and Gwynedd & Môn – with the competition hotting up already. And that really is just the beginning!
With some exciting new developments underway, including the new Love to Ride web platform, our links with the Summer of Cycling campaign and new LSTF announcements out, we look forward to the rest of 2012 and getting many more people into the saddle and realising just how fun and enjoyable riding a bike can be.
Happy riding!
