The League of American Bicyclists, founded in 1880, is the oldest organization in the United States devoted to advocating for the interests of our nation’s 57 million bicyclists. The League promotes National Bike Month in May, during which it supports the Bike to Work Week & Bike to Work Day efforts in cities nationwide. Our participation in Bike Month is among the reasons the League designated Columbus a Bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community in 2009.

The cornerstone of Central Ohio’s Bike Month celebration is The Bike to Work Challenge, a friendly competition among employer-based teams to see who can achieve the highest mode share by bicycle throughout May. Learn more about the Challenge and our 2009 results in our  Bike Month Annual Report. Official 2011 Challenge Rules are below!

Challenge Rules

How do I win this thing?
To win, your team must achieve the highest bicycle mode share during the to- and from-work commutes May 1–31, relative to other teams in your bracket.

What’s ‘mode share’?
Mode share is the percentage of total trips made by a particular mode of transportation. In the City of Columbus, for example, just 0.7% of all trips to work are made by bicycle, while 89.2% are made by car, 3.3% are made by bus and 2.8% are made on foot (Source: 2008 American Community Survey). For the Challenge, we calculate the number of bicycle trips your team members make relative to the total possible number of bicycle trips your organization’s employees could make if 100% of them rode their bikes for 100% of their work commutes.

For example: Say your company employs 10 people. If all these employees biked as many trips as possible during the Challenge, they would have made 180 total one-way commutes by bicycle (i.e., 10 employees x 18 possible trips per employee = 180 trips). But only 5 employees participate in the Challenge, and these participants ride a combined total of 18 trips. Thus the bicycle mode share at your company during the Challenge is 11.1% (i.e., 18 Challenge trips / 180 total possible trips = 10.0%).

Why brackets?
The number of employees at your workplace dictates the total number of commutes that are possible to and from your location. Because the Challenge is concerned with the share (percentage) of these commute trips that are made by bicycle—and it’s harder to get a high bicycle mode share within larger organizations—we have broken teams into brackets based on their number of employees:

• • Flyweight Bracket: 1–19 employees
  • Bantamweight Bracket: 20–99 employees
  • Featherweight Bracket: 100–499 employees
  • Lightweight Bracket: 500–999 employees
  • Cruiserweight Bracket: 1,000–4,999 employees
  • Heavyweight Bracket: 5,000+ employees

It is important that the number of employees you input when you create a team is accurate; Challenge results are based on this number!

How do teams work?
All organizations can have a team. There is no need to have a team officially sanctioned at your workplace; all it takes is one person to sign up as a Captain and recruit colleagues to join them. Don’t worry—even if your team is small, you will promote bicycle commuting within your organization just by signing up. And keep in mind that you can sign up new riders throughout the Challenge, so think about how your efforts could inspire others to join you during that two-week period. Every trip counts!

What counts as a ‘trip’?
All commutes between your workplace and your home in which a bicycle is ridden at least part of the way count towards the Challenge. This means that—yes!—you can split your trip between cycling and public transit (by using COTA’s Bike ‘n Bus racks), or you can drive to a trail and bike the rest of the way into work. Challenge participants must log each of their trips on the website to get credit for them; a maximum of 2 trips per team member per day, for 22 of the 31 Challenge days (i.e., 44 total trips), count toward the Challenge.

Although we collect mileage and other trip data on the Challenge website and encourage you to provide it, this information is used to give us a better picture of bicycle commuting in Central Ohio and does not impact your standing in the competition. Neither do your lunchtime bike ride to the bank, or other such trips, help you win the Challenge (although we think that sort of thing is great, of course!).

But what if…I’m unemployed / I telecommute / I’m a stay-at-home parent?
Because the Challenge is designed to encourage bicycle commutes between a home and a workplace, our web infrastructure does not currently accommodate “non-traditional” workers. If you are a non-traditional worker, please contact us regarding your situation; we are always working to improve our programming.

When do we find out who wins?
The Challenge website will display real-time team standings updates throughout May. Thereafter, total trips and mileage will be displayed but team standings will be hidden until the Awards Ceremony @ KOBO on Wednesday, June 8, 6–9pm (stay for Karaoke afterwards!). To be counted towards the team totals, all trips must be entered by the time the Challenge closes, at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31.

What do we win?!
We don’t know! We are still working on prizes for active participants of winning teams—award packages could include anything from bragging rights to bike products, the chance to win something big in a raffle, etc. If your organization is interested in providing awards to Challenge winners, contact our Sponsorship Coordinator for details!