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Top 4 Ways to Engage Commuters for Bike to Work Week

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May is National Bike Month, and Bike to Work Week is right around the corner – May 16-20. Getting people excited about this event is a great way to help change how they think about commuting. Here are four creative ways to encourage greater levels of local participation:

Launch a Challenge

Tapping into the spirit of competition is one of the most powerful ways to engage people. Challenges give participants an added incentive to put forth their best effort, and few things are more rewarding than seeing hard work pay off in the standings.

Incentivize Bike to Work Week by making challenge winners eligible to claim prizes. See the clash of wills heat up as the race intensifies, all for a positive cause.

Organize a Bikepool Group

Organize a Bike to Work week cycling group to give those who feel safer riding with others a place to engage. Bikepools are ideal for experienced cyclists who want to share tips with newbies and for first-time or inexperienced riders who want to be part of a team.

Help your existing bike commuters to connect with their neighbors, form a group, and share the bike-to-work love!

Discover New and Interesting Routes

Bicycling is a great way to explore your city from a different perspective. Take a scenic path through a park or along a river. Follow a journey plan through a historic or artistic quarter. Find the best streets for biking.

Encourage Bike to Work Week participants to discover and share unique, little-known and interesting alternate routes to get to and from work.

Suggest Multimodal Options

People who have long commutes often feel like they can’t take part in Bike to Work Week. Suggesting ways to combine biking with other modes of transportation might change their mind.

More and more municipalities are working to make combining cycling with public transit a viable option for commuters. Buses and commuter trains are being outfitted with bike racks. Major stations and transit hubs offer secure, low-cost, or free on-site bicycle storage. Let your longer-distance commuters know about these possibilities so they can bike, too!

Try some of these ideas to engage your commuters during bike to work week and who knows – cycling might even become a habit!

For more great ideas from the RideAmigos team be sure to sign up for our Commuter Tips email newsletter.

30 Days of Biking with RideAmigos

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The 30 Days of Biking challenge kicks off soon. Are you in?

30 Days of BikingOn April 1st the annual 30 Days of Biking challenge kicks off its latest session. The premise is simple: participants pledge to ride a bike every day during the month of April. It doesn’t matter how long or how far. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like. Just ride a bike every day from April 1 to April 30 and you’ve done it. Those taking part are encouraged to share their journeys on social media using the hashtag #30daysofbiking.

The 30 Days of Biking movement began off seven years ago in Minneapolis and has since spread to include many different city chapters across the United States. Beyond raising awareness for the benefits of cycling and promoting it as an alternative to driving, the project collects proceeds from sponsorships and merchandise sales, which are used to purchase bicycles for disadvantaged children.

Enjoy the benefits and incentives of participation.

Anyone can sign up for the 30 Days of Biking challenge, and the benefits make the commitment wholly worthwhile. First, biking every day for one month straight will help improve your health. Coupled with a sensible diet, cycling is one of the best ways to lose weight; it’s a low-impact exercise that doesn’t put much strain on your body, but still gives you a powerful workout.

Research has also shown that regular exercise improves your mood and helps you get deeper, more restful sleep at night. Chances are good you’ll notice that you’re more energetic, more creative and better able to perform in all aspects of your life.

You’ll also be helping more than one important cause; bike to work and you’ll be doing your part to reduce traffic congestion. Generate pledges or purchase official merchandise and you’ll be spreading the word about the event while helping supply bikes to kids in need. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by signing up. Are you in?

RideAmigos + 30 Days of Biking

The RideAmigos platform is the ideal tool for promoting challenges like 30 Days of Biking within your organization, as well as creating other custom challenges for users in your network. Create and manage your own 30 Days of Biking challenge and help users plan their cycling routes in all April long. Challenges like 30 Days of Biking are a proven way to help people think differently about their transportation options and are an integrated part of our transportation management platform. In addition to challenges and incentives, our groundbreaking platform puts a wealth of local and regional transit information at users’ fingertips, allowing them to pre-plan journeys, view transit information and, for businesses and organizations, generate insights into the ways people get around your area.

Our platform is specifically developed to make use of challenges and incentives to encourage people explore the many transit alternatives available to them, from cycling and walking to rideshares, schoolpools and more.

Learn how to set up and run a 30 Days of Biking challenge at the RideAmigos Academy, your source for all the latest tips and tricks for making the most of our software.