The 2013 Bike Commuter Challenge is here!

Active Transportation Alliance’s annual Bike Commuter Challenge is now open for registration! 

Last year, Active Trans introduced a new website – www.bikecommuterchallenge.org – that allowed all team members to track their own trips, and offered Bike to Work Week and Commuter Challenge information in one, easy-to-access location. The real-time leaderboards encouraged friendly competition between rival companies that often flared up on Facebook and Twitter.

This year, after 21 years of competitions, participants and organizations now can also measure their mileage, greenhouse gases prevented and calories burned. Online prize drawings will be offered to encourage people to track their trips, and teams can even offer their own prizes to their participants through the website.

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit www.bikecommuterchallenge.org and click the “sign up today” to register as a user at Active Trans’ new trip-tracking platform  – it’s easy! From there you can join the Bike Commuter Challenge as a Team Leader by creating a new team for your office, or as a team member by joining an existing team. A Team Leader can be anyone – an administrator, staff, president, director, owner, manager – whoever! Team Leaders get a free t-shirt, too.
    
2. The Team Leader then encourages his or her coworkers to sign up at the website and join the workplace's team with the goal of having each team member log at least one bike trip during Bike to Work Week. Teams are judged equally based on a formula that weighs company size, team members and trips logged. Mileage is tracked but doesn’t factor towards a team's success. This way, co-workers just getting into bike commuting can ride whatever distance they are comfortable doing – such as to a transit stop in their neighborhood – and contribute just as much as the seasoned riders on the team.
    
3. Active Trans supplies Team Leaders with a free t-shirt and all the tools they need to make biking an easy choice for their teammates (bike maps, how-to manuals and a website with real-time stats to serve as inspiration).
    
4. The companies with the highest team rating during Bike to Work Week win! An awards party for all Team Leaders will honor the winning companies.

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements at www.bikecommuterchallenge.org, as well as on our Twitter and Facebook feeds, regarding Team Leader packet pick-up and our line-up great of Bike to Work Week events! Join today!