This summer, ATP competed in the National Bike Challenge, a program that was organized to encourage more people to ride bikes through a fun competition. The Challenge set out with the goal of reaching 10 million miles ridden among all participants nationwide, however, by the end of August this number was exceeded by over 2 million miles! Nearly 30,500 riders logged into the website to record the miles they biked from May through August , which could include any types of bike rides such as commuting, recreational, races, etc.
This year we had seven ATP/Mobility Lab employees on our team, and everyone enjoyed the friendly competition to see who could log the most miles, as well as earning more points for the team as a whole. Overall, ATP logged nearly 2,300 miles over the four-month period, with special recognition to Elizabeth and Paul, whose combined miles made up over half of the entire team’s miles! The majority of the team’s trips were for transportation, as opposed to recreational, exercise, and sport rides – although in total everyone burned nearly 44,000 calories by the end of the Challenge! Since several of the team members consistently bike to work or use bikes as their primary mode of transportation (including the three car-free members!), our miles added up pretty easily, although with the Challenge in mind, we were inspired to make other trips by bike that we otherwise would not have.
We ended up finishing among the top 30 teams in the DC area, and was 848th out of 2,682 teams – so way to go ATP! Also, hats off to our friends at BikeArlington, which entered three teams in the Challenge, and all finished in the top 50 nationwide (BikeArlington Team B finished 12th!), as well as in the top five in the DC region. Of course, just because the competition is over doesn’t mean we’re going to stop biking – got to get ready for the next Challenge! Great job to everyone who participated!
